The Bieber Fever
I wrote yesterday that I was really (really) looking forward to writing about business situations where accounting automation can help. Now my “looking forward” has turned to pure excitement, like a 11-year-old girl at a Justin Bieber (side note: my 11-year-old daughter skipped school to see the Bieber and I wrote a note to the school that she was out because she had Bieber Fever) concert as I write about companies that are growing where accounting automation fits. With as much drama as I am muster, growing companies are in the best situation to take advantage of all that accounting automation has to offer.
Example
The best example I can give for growth and automation’s impact on growth is by using Real Estate as an example. Real Estate is one of those industries that an accounting department can be cruising along, organized, and perfectly staffed one day and then the next day a “C” level person walks into the office of the Controller and says, “We are adding six new buildings to our portfolio in the next sixty days.” To an accounting person, that would represent a twenty-five percent increase in volume, which in turn, requires an increase in staff. With accounting automation the increase in staff is not needed.
Big Benefit
One of the biggest benefits to accounting automation is more time, and one of the best ways to use the new time is to grow without adding additional staff. In my experience, over 90% of all clients that I have worked with have had growing without adding staff as their main justifier for investing in automation. Companies I’ve worked with in the past have told me that they’ve been able to grow by 4x and their accounting staff has stayed the same.
Case Study
In 2002 I got engaged with an extremely forward thinking company with the desire to get rid of the paper. They didn’t quite know how to go about it, and to be transparent, I didn’t either. After a few years of messing with the purchasing process to help the invoicing process they got an extra bit of encouragement from the leadership of the organization. The encouragement came in the form of, “we going to double in size within the next five years… get ready”. The preparation we did was eliminating the paper invoices and creating an approval process that was electronic, ending with a fully coded and approved electronic invoices being entered into their accounting. The outcome was the time they need to grow…. Here is the rest of the story, this company didn’t double in five years they quadrupled in two, but no additional staff was needed, even to this day (happy ending).
Lastly
There is more information about calculating time savings as well as the company in the case study in my book, The Argument to Automate. To buy the book – The Argument to Automate – How Innovation Can INSPIRE Not Fire – click here to buy
(Also) To get your copy of The 8 Pitfalls of Accounts Payable Automation – click here to buy
thechriselmore.com 