8 reasons how consolidated financial operations can help businesses
As a business, when you have consolidated financial operations, it means that you have one central system to manage all or many financial operations.
This could include many financial tasks such as payroll, reimbursements, accounts payable, expense reports, and more in order to improve the productivity and efficiency of operations.
Why financial consolidation is important for businesses?
While every business has its own journey, each one goes through a set pattern of growth, wherein there is a point of expansion in terms of people and the work to be done. This is also the case for the finance department.
The more you scale up, the more tasks there are to be completed. And in these instances, it becomes difficult to manage financial operations due to the volume of work.
The solution is generally to set consolidated financial operations using expense management tools that act as a central system and also revamp the processes followed in the company in order to improve efficiency.
Tips to consolidate your financial operations efficiently in one place
Using centralized expense management software
When you consolidate expenses on a single platform using expense management software, it makes life easier for both the employee and the finance professionals or accountants handling all the expenses of the company.
A centralized system gives a clear view of all the expenses rather than having a scattered view across different channels.
Accounting integrations
When you choose an expense management system for your business to consolidate all your expenses, you should make sure that the system has the ability to integrate with your existing accounting software.
This is very important as it will enable a cohesive flow of all your expense data in the company ledger without any hindrances.
Automating financial operations
A major utility that expense management systems provide as part of consolidating financial operations is the ability to create automation workflows.
This can come in many forms such as being able to enforce expense policies through approval workflows and also set spending limits on financial tools like corporate cards.
Benefits of consolidating financial operations in one place
1. Saves time and money
The first obvious benefit of having consolidated financial operations is the time and money that you are able to save.
When you have a single system that lets you manage financial operations, the number of errors is drastically reduced, there is overall more clarity on budget utilization, and it ultimately helps in saving time & money as things move faster.
2. Reduces workload
A mistake businesses used to make earlier was to hire more and more people in order to get work done faster and reduce the workload from individuals.
Any modern business knows that the real solution is to set better processes and systems using automation tools like expense management software.
That not only helps get work done faster and reduces an accountant's workload but is also more affordable than hiring another employee.
3. Easier to track past expenses
Using a consolidated financial system also allows you to easily track and measure the data. Expense management software can help analyze the spending behavior of individual employees and different departments.
Not only that, but you can also measure past data with current data in order to gain financial insights and take strategic action.
4. Easier to conduct financial audits
Another great benefit of consolidating finances is that it allows for easy audit procedures. A central system like an expense management tool gives all the necessary information needed for every transaction at the click of a button.
This makes the audit much faster and easier than the traditional process of going through tons of paperwork.
5. Real-time visibility
Something that all finance professionals and senior-level management of any company will appreciate within a consolidated system is the ability to see all expenses in real-time as they happen.
This is a much more efficient way to control budgets instead of having employees submit expense reports each week or month.
6. Efficient bookkeeping
Part of the problem with an unconsolidated system is the hassle of manually entering all the financial transactions into your accounting system.
With a consolidated tech expense management system, you get the option to easily integrate the tool with your accounting software which helps in syncing all the expense data into your ledger automatically.
7. Better control
Many companies face the problem of financial compliance when it comes to business expenses being made by employees. While you may set expense policies, they are not completely enforced.
Using a consolidated system with financial tools such as corporate cards you would be able to enforce policies and have the necessary control over budgets.
8. Easier to manage work-related travel expenses
Most expense management tools also come with reimbursement modules to let employees easily submit expense claims in real-time for their business travel expenses and any other expenditure that falls under the company’s expense policy.
Having corporate cards is an even better solution as it removes the need for employees to use their personal funds for travel expenses.
Volopay - Robust expense management system
Volopay is an all-in-one expense management software for businesses. Our platform allows organizations to centralize their expenses into a single system to track, manage, and control budgets efficiently.
Volopay’s financial ecosystem helps you consolidate expenses and manage financial operations using the following tools:
Corporate cards
Using Volopay you can issue a physical corporate card for each employee and also create unlimited virtual cards on the platform to manage all online expenses.
These cards allow employees to spend freely while the management maintains control over the total amount an individual can spend thanks to custom spending limits that you can set on each card.
Bill pay
Our platform has a multicurrency business account that lets you pay bills and transfer money domestically and internationally.
That too at the lowest transfer fees with no FX charges for transactions in currencies that are supported by our platform.
Accounting integration
Volopay has native integrations with industry-leading accounting software such as Xero, Netsuite, MYOB, Tally, Quickbooks, and Deskera.
We also have the Universal CSV feature that allows you to integrate Volopay with any other accounting software that you may be using.