Technology a critical piece to winning the talent war, says BlackLine
Finance departments and accounting firms operating in business spreadsheets and manual processes will increasingly struggle to attract the right talent, a software firm warns.
BlackLine vice president for APAC Rosie Cairnes said organisations are realising that the finance function like any other aspect of their business needs to incorporate new technology.
“There is also now an expectation from individual employees that there should be a technology solution that sits behind their work,” Ms Cairnes told Accounting Times.
“So what the accounting function needs to contemplate is whether staying status quo and operating your business on business spreadsheets really a sustainable idea? Will it really attract the kind of talent that you want?”
Ms Cairnes said that accounting professionals want to be performing meaningful work and don’t want to be buried in spreadsheets doing things manually.
“If the grunt work is taken away by technology then they can engage in more meaningful work and that is now the expectation of how people want to work,” she said.
“If all the other aspects of a business including the customer facing elements of a business are being digitised, then we really shouldn’t have back office functions being denied the same opportunity.”
The longer businesses put off upgrading the systems supporting their finance functions, the wider the gap will become between then and other firms, she warned.
Ms Cairnes said she is also seeing accounting firms and companies that are using software but aren’t utilising it in the most effective way.
“We have customers who are using BlackLine but they’re using it at a very basic level. Some of them are doing the work in spreadsheets and then simply posting it up to BlackLine, almost as a repository,” she said.
“They’re not getting the efficiency gains and they’re not getting any visibility enhancements out of that approach.”
Ms Cairnes said the software provider has been actively working with finance departments and accounting firms to help address this issue.
“We have been conducting what we call an account optimisation review where we review how they’re using the platform and provide a diagnosis of where the opportunities are for optimisation are at a process level,” she said.
“We have a seven step framework to really help them understand the current process and suggest ways to optimise it. It's not just about keeping the current process and pumping it through a technology but rather reimagining what's possible with the technology.”
BlackLine senior vice president Mike Polaha said in the current economic backdrop of rising interest rates and cost of living crisis the cost of manual labour is only going to increase because the costs are passed on through higher salaries.
“We’re now seeing a lot of recognition of the fact that it’s really expensive to do nothing. So they’re now thinking about how they can take a thoughtful step into technology or maximise what they already own,” said Mr Polaha.
“So we’re seeing a lot of customers recognising that the time to act is now because it’s only going to cost you more to continue to approach problems with a more manual headcount based approach.”
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