The Need for Integrated CRM: Part 7 – Seamless Financial Function
A firm’s finance team may want to know details on clients and forecasted new business so that they can make more informed financial decisions.
A common scenario for many accounting firms is that new opportunities are managed by multiple individuals, all with varying methods, typically via an Excel spreadsheet on their local drive or at best, a shared drive. The information and format can vary massively depending on who updates it and when.
Collating this information, can be time consuming and in many cases incomplete often inaccurate. Therefore, the firm struggles to see a true indication of business wins and losses. New business targets and budgets are difficult to quantify and predicting cash flow sales forecasts becomes disjointed and less predictable.
Lead source analysis is another important financial driver. Identifying who and where the business originated can help the firm focus away from resources that yield poor results and invest in areas that provide healthier returns of investment.
Integrated CRM delivers seamless financial insight by providing:
Centralised platform with a common sales methodology
Visability of sales revenue wins and losses
Lead source analysis for making better financial decisions
Continuous source of reliable financial information
Live feed of client account financial status
Integrated CRM can provide simple and easy firmwide visibility of the current financial status of each client, at record level. Internal billing systems and financial statements connected to CRM can give client service teams and managers much deeper insight to their clients.
Without a central place to look up information, they will need access to multiple systems. Integrated CRM easily solves this problem. Finance can also use CRM to communicate seamlessly with clients, send automated reminders and much more.
Without integration, finance becomes another data silo; increasing costs and risks. With integration into CRM, finance is empowered to support the firm’s strategy.
For further information please download our Accounting CPA White Paper – The Integrated Practice
