Modernizing Financial Management for Associations

In many cases, associations must conduct operations with a laser focus on efficiency, balancing both mission and member services. Industry leaders that have not implemented or fully optimized the financial technology that best empowers their finance teams are missing out on potentially revolutionary benefits.

Modern financial software platforms can help your association automate revenue recognition, accounts payable, and purchase order workflows, create dashboards that provide real-time visibility into membership and program performance metrics, and seamlessly integrate data from other systems.

Read on to discover if the capabilities of your legacy systems are delivering value on par with today’s leading technology and, if not, what you may be missing.

Identifying Inefficiency

• Analyzing performance at the chapter, committee, or membership level requires extensive manual effort to centralize and regulate data;
• Managing membership dues, event revenue, and sponsorship streams is time consuming and requires effort spanning multiple platforms; and
• Financial operations of all kinds rely on siloed spreadsheets, manual entry, and hours of attention.

The risks of manual financial processes are clear: errors are more likely, employees are stuck doing repetitive tasks instead of generating value, and decision making is limited by reporting that is not timely or sufficiently accurate.

Thankfully, there is a straightforward solution to these problems. Your enterprise resource management (ERP) system should enable you to automate workflows, simplify financial management processes, and gain real-time, actionable insights into your financial circumstances.

Introducing: Sage Intacct

Sage Intacct is a leading ERP solution with unique benefits for organizations in the association industry. The adoption of an ERP with capabilities like those offered by Sage Intacct can help improve accuracy throughout your finance function, streamline compliance efforts, and reduce manual work so staff can focus on delivering value to members and advancing your mission.

Automation: Even routine financial operations like the management of accounts payable and purchase orders can be time-consuming and prone to delay or inaccuracy. ERPs like Sage Intacct can automate approvals, routing, and data entry for financial functions that are faster, more reliable, and support effective cash flow management.

Reporting: Dashboards in Sage Intacct can be tailored to track financial information by chapter, membership type, event, or program. That means that your leadership can make more informed decisions even on short notice as highly customized ad-hoc reporting can be detailed, granular, and up-to-the-minute.

Visibility: For forecasts, monitoring, compliance efforts, and more, you need immediate insight into certain aspects of your financial operations. Sage Intacct enables this through interactive dashboards that update in real-time and are customized to give you the oversight that you need to be agile and effective.

Seamless: Modern ERPs like Sage Intacct are built for seamless integration with other crucial platforms like Salesforce, payroll systems, and association management systems (AMS). That can help eliminate data silos and automatically populate information across platforms, thereby reducing the risk of data entry errors and ensuring information is consistent across platforms.

Conclusion

Sage Intacct’s cloud-based platform is a powerful tool for finance professionals in the association sector. It helps ensure accuracy, saves time, and empowers more agile and informed decision making at every level. If you’d like to learn more about Sage Intacct, contact a CBIZ professional today or join our webinar to see how leading associations are modernizing financial management.