We've rounded up the software your finance department needs in order to lead the pack.

The finance function was once relatively straightforward as it served a reflective purpose. Today, thanks to the increasing creation and accessibility of data, it has so much more to offer.

Unlike past CFOs who dealt primarily with historical numbers and events, CFOs today must be forward-looking. This future-forward approach is not achieved single-handedly. Rather, various software help finance centralize, stay on top of, and monitor every client, deal, prospect, project status, and budget. Numbers are just the route to information as they are passive and need to be interpreted in order to gain insights and guide decisions. But to get to the point where finance professionals can spend their time thinking instead of gathering, they must first make use of the modern tools that exist.

Implementing various software benefits organizations greatly as they can apprehend and prevent problems before they arise and solve them intelligently. Ultimately, software is designed to help us work better.

According to McKinsey, many activities in corporate finance can be automated. Since this is so, we’ve rounded up the top software that are hot in the market for finance professionals working in SMBs.

Accounting Software

OneUp is an up-and-coming accounting software that lets accountants easily keep track of expenses and audit the books. With OneUp, accountants can view cashflow and profit information daily, allowing them to always stay on top of finances.

OneUp also calculates sales tax for every period, so accountants always know what needs to be paid and when.

Financial planning and analysis software

DataRails is an enterprise-class software for budgeting, planning, and forecasting with powerful reporting and analytics capabilities. The cloud-based solution lets you use Excel on an organizational scale without running the risk of inaccuracy, unnecessary errors, or data loss. With DataRails, Excel is enhanced into a database-centric organizational solution.

The best part-it empowers each finance professional to deliver actionable, data-driven insights by allowing them to access and leverage financial and operational data independently.

“Switching to DataRails was like wearing glasses for the first time. Suddenly everything was sharper, clearer, and made more sense.”
-Rob Grasso, Director of Global Sales Operations, Bauer Hockey

Accounts Payable Software

Procurify allows you to bring together all purchasing needs in one place. Implement speed controls by customizing approvals, improving vendor management, controlling expense management, and ­­looking over audit logs.

“It’s comforting to know that consistency is there. I love that Procurify is a web-based application, because no matter where we are, we can still completely work” – Paul Ljucovic, VP Finance, Asics, North America

Payroll Software

Gusto is a modern payroll and benefits tool. With Gusto you can simplify core processes like automatically filing payroll taxes, setting payroll on autopilot, and syncing teams’ hours automatically.

“My favorite thing about Gusto is the compliance aspect. They make quarterly taxes, onboarding, and everything else so simple and easy, which saves me a ton of time.”
- Luke Henke, Accounting Manager, Amplio Digital LLC

Why invest in these solutions?

Purchasing any one of these solutions will have an immediate effect on your pocket, so it’s important to keep in mind why they’re worth it in the first place.

For starters with a platform like DataRails, you’ll have teams doing less busywork and investing more time in making meaningful contributions and value-added work like analyzing data.

With an accounting software like OneUp, you’ll see productivity skyrocketing since accounting data will be centralized on one system, making it easy to attain any piece of information at any given time.

These are just two examples, but ultimately the bottom line is that these solutions result in more accurate work and precise reports, which can be leveraged to gain smarter insights.

"CFOs are challenged with turning the numbers into something meaningful. You need to be able to derive insights and deliver information to the rest of the organization. The integrity, flexibility, and speed of that information enable your management and staff to more effectively manage the business."
-Chris Pass, CFO of John Muir Health

It’s also important to keep in mind that, ultimately, success in the market is determined by how well information is used to drive value. The solutions we covered above can, each in its own way, contribute to this. If you want to use your data wisely in order to drive value, centralizing your data and familiarizing yourself with the software we covered is an excellent place to start.