Financial management is all about how funds flow into and out of the organization. Its purpose is to help the business make the best decision to safeguard financial stability for both the short and longer term. It involves significant strategic planning so that goals, objectives, and targets can be better aligned with the financial position. Good management requires skilled professionals who study finances and processes to ensure that the goals of the company are being met, profits are maximized, and shareholder value is protected. The entire financial management can be completed entirely or almost entirely in NetSuite, depending on the needs of the business. 

Crucial Financial Management Processes

• Planning and budgeting: Financial planning provides the foundation for the businesses and budgeting provides the underlying detail for how the plan will be managed over the year.
• Allocation of company resources: This process serves to match available resources within the business to objectives that need to be completed. 
• Financial operations and continuous monitoring: Operations encompass numerous financial activities to keep the business running, such as cash flow analysis, expenses, payroll, and more. 
• Analysis and evaluation: In such a complex process, ongoing assessment is necessary to understand whether the business is meeting or exceeding goals. 

As with any process, in financial management, challenges can emerge. There are many reasons for this, but one typical example is inefficient processes. At every stage of the financial management process, inefficiencies can emerge. Whether that’s not enough time being allowed for budgeting and planning, or a company that started late, this inevitably leads to a domino effect on all the other stages. 

Another significant challenge that can arise results from the volume and location of the data. If the data volume is very large, processing times will likely be slower, so even more time needs to be allocated to complete tasks. And, if data is hard to find in numerous locations, this also impacts the ability to draw meaningful conclusions from it. Finally, if there is a lack of transparency into processes or a lack of a plan for how to accomplish processes, this is bound to create multiple challenges when attempting to move from stage to stage. 

Four Important Financial Processes You’ll Want to Manage in NetSuite

Customer Communication
This may not seem like it’s part of or even related to one of the components of the financial management processes outlined in this blog, but customer needs are at the heart of most businesses. Clear and consistent communication with customers is the key to understanding what they need and when. Some businesses do not realize that syncing email communication, attachments, and events can be done automatically in NetSuite with CloudExtend. This provides transparency across the organization and allows for the allocation of company resources and financial operations to be completed in the most efficient way possible. If NetSuite doesn’t contain any of these important messages, invoices, or events, it does not just make servicing customers more difficult, it impacts how a business defines its goals and how it manages its finances. 

Travel and Expense Management
Efficiently managing time and expense reports is crucial for businesses to maintain financial accuracy, ensure appropriate allocation of company resources, and streamline reimbursements. This financial operations process often involves a team or a set of rules that govern what can be submitted as well as a mechanism for employees to submit expenses. NetSuite offers robust features to better manage this process. Some benefits to leveraging NetSuite for travel and expense management include more timely expense reimbursements, compliance/policy adherence, faster project costing and analysis, and ultimately better financial accuracy. If a company chooses to use a separate system it could be disjointed from the rest of the financials in the ERP system, resulting in longer, less efficient travel and expense processes. 

Contracts and Agreements
Contracts and agreements are an important financial operations step for running the business. If they do not reside in NetSuite, many concerns arise, from legal compliance to visibility. NetSuite should be viewed as a single source of truth where contracts and legal documents are attached to customer records, ensuring compliance and creating transparency across the company. This also helps make the audit process easier.  

Financial Close
NetSuite has all the functionality to be where all financial information resides, providing permission-based access to accounting employees. Most companies face pressure to complete the financial close process faster and more efficiently. Ensuring all information is in one place is the first step to accomplishing those goals. NetSuite also provides a close process checklist to make it easier to work through all pertinent tasks.  This makes the process of analysis and reporting much more accurate and painless because all of the important components for closing the month are located in one place. 

Updating Financial Processes for 2024 (and Beyond)

As 2023 winds to a close, one of the ways to set your business up for success in 2024 is to manage crucial financial processes in NetSuite, and to promote NetSuite as your single source of truth with the help of email and Excel integrations. 

That’s where CloudExtend comes in and can help set your organization up for even stronger success. Nearly half of surveyed sales reps admitted to storing crucial information in email and spreadsheets instead of ERP and CRM systems like NetSuite. With purpose-built integration that bridges the gaps between inboxes and NetSuite, and spreadsheets and NetSuite, CloudExtend gives users the power to work where they’re most comfortable while getting the business the information and results it needs to run accurate and timely financial processes. 

Whether its creating, editing, or deleting contact records from your inbox, or automatically attaching email conversation chains no matter when a reply is received, CloudExtend Outlook and Google Workspace for NetSuite keeps the right information easily flowing from inbox to CRM. For the spreadsheet users and report runners, CloudExtend Excel for NetSuite lets you easily bulk upload with error validation—and without CSV uploads!—and connect several saved searches together for reporting and analysis that can be refreshed automatically or on demand with a single click. 

And that’s just the beginning of what CloudExtend can do. If you’re looking to improve your financial processes in 2024, don’t wait. There’s time to try CloudExtend email and Excel integrations for free before the new year begins. Get started now.