Why Cloud ERP Is Essential for Modern Finance Teams
- Kwixand Team
- Jul 8
- 7 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Cloud ERP for finance? Discover how your finance department will benefit from implementing a cloud ERP solution.
Many small to mid-sized businesses start out using entry-level accounting systems such as QuickBooks. These applications may work for a while, but the gaps in your software will become more prominent once your business begins to grow and your operations and finances become more complex. There will be many warning signs that indicate your company has outgrown its accounting system, but the most obvious one is a heavy reliance on spreadsheets. This significantly reduces your team's productivity and impacts your ability to make timely, data-driven business decisions.
As your company continues to grow, without the right solution, so will the challenges within your finance department. That's where a cloud ERP solution can help and provide your finance team and your business with a huge competitive advantage.
ERP, or Enterprise Resource Planning, systems have long been used to integrate business processes across functions like accounting, procurement, HR, and operations. But with the shift to cloud-based systems, ERP has evolved into a dynamic platform that empowers finance teams in ways that legacy systems simply cannot. Cloud ERP is not just an IT upgrade. It is a strategic enabler that transforms how finance operates. By offering real-time access to data, automating routine tasks, and improving collaboration, cloud ERP has become a game-changer for modern finance teams.
This article explores the significant challenges of today's finance teams and how cloud ERP for finance, like Dynamics 365 Business Central, can help you with your financial and accounting management.
We'll cover:
What is Cloud ERP?
Cloud ERP is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution that delivers ERP functionality through the internet. Unlike traditional on-premises systems, cloud ERP is hosted on the provider’s servers and accessed via a web browser. This removes the need for companies to maintain their own infrastructure, reducing IT overhead and enabling faster deployments.
Core features of cloud ERP typically include financial management, budgeting and forecasting, procurement, inventory tracking, and reporting. But the cloud model adds an entirely new dimension: it allows for continuous updates, global accessibility, and real-time data synchronization across business units. For finance teams, this means a dramatic improvement in how financial information is captured, processed, analyzed, and shared across the organization.
Common Challenges Finance Teams Face Today
Modern finance teams are expected to do more than close the books: they are strategic advisors, data stewards, and risk managers. Yet, many continue to struggle with outdated processes and systems that limit their efficiency and effectiveness. The result is a growing gap between what finance teams are asked to deliver and what their tools enable them to do. These challenges may cause many issues, including low morale, lack of financial visibility, and the slowdown of the company's growth. Here are some of the common pain points that finance teams across industries may be facing today:
🔸 Manual and repetitive work: Finance professionals who don't have access to the right tools and automated solutions waste a lot of time each month doing the same, identical tasks repeatedly.
🔸 Inaccurate data and reporting difficulties: Due to a lack of visibility and inaccurate data, financial reporting can become arduous and time-consuming for finance teams. It's also difficult to provide real-time data.
🔸 Changing regulations and compliance: When everything is conducted manually, it can become more difficult for finance teams to keep track of changing regulations and compliance, which causes a big risk for your company.
🔸 Data silos and lack of data integration: Finance teams also struggle with siloed and disparate reporting solutions across a company. Employees find themselves having to make sense of all the disparate information and manually ensure the data is consistent, leading to errors.
🔸 Lack of real-time visibility: Without access to current financial data, finance teams are often forced to make decisions based on outdated or incomplete information, limiting their ability to respond quickly to changes in the business.
🔸 Lack of mobility and accessibility: As the demand for remote and hybrid work options increases, some finance teams still face issues in this area due to limited tools and capacity to work remotely effectively.
🔸 Difficulty scaling with the business: As organizations grow, their financial operations become more complex. Legacy systems often struggle to support multi-entity environments, international accounting standards, or new business models.
These challenges not only slow down finance operations but also prevent finance leaders from delivering the strategic insights their organizations need. Implementing a cloud-based ERP solution is the first step towards tackling these challenges and the ones that lie ahead.
How Does Cloud ERP Help with Financial and Accounting Management?
An ERP solution integrates all your business data and processes into one unified solution. Cloud ERP offers even more benefits and can help streamline your finance department. Here's how your financial and accounting team can leverage cloud ERP for finance.
✅ Smarter Decision Making Using Real-Time Data
One of the most powerful advantages of cloud ERP is its ability to provide real-time visibility into financial performance. With traditional systems, finance teams often rely on static reports generated at set intervals. By the time those reports reach decision-makers, the data may already be outdated. Cloud ERP platforms offer dynamic dashboards and reporting tools that update in real time. This means CFOs, controllers, and finance analysts can access up-to-the-minute data on revenue, expenses, cash flow, and key performance indicators.
Real-time visibility allows finance teams to respond quickly to changes in the business environment, identify trends earlier, and make informed decisions faster. It also allows business leaders to identify correlations from across the business that may not be visible otherwise. This helps improve forecasting and helps executives mitigate risk more easily, either through early recognition of operational issues or by identifying outlying data. This level of agility is crucial in today’s competitive landscape, where timing and accuracy are everything.
✅ Automation of Financial Processes Increases Efficiency
Manual data entry, spreadsheet consolidations, and repetitive reconciliations have long been pain points for finance professionals. These tasks consume valuable time and introduce a high risk of errors. Cloud ERP systems come with built-in workflows and other features that streamline data entry and help you automate financial processes.
Transactions are automatically recorded, categorized, and posted. Bank reconciliations, journal entries, and intercompany eliminations can be handled with minimal manual input. Reports that used to take days to compile can now be generated in minutes. All of that time saved by your finance team can be better spent on more complex, revenue-generating tasks such as budgeting, forecasting, and analysis. Automation and workflows also help reduce exposure to risk and help your business meet audit and compliance requirements more effectively.
✅ Stronger Compliance and Audit Readiness
Regulatory compliance is a significant concern for finance teams, particularly in industries with strict reporting standards. Cloud ERP systems offer built-in controls that support compliance with regulations. Automated audit trails track changes to financial data, making it easier to verify transactions and maintain transparency. Permissions and approval workflows help enforce segregation of duties, a key component of financial controls.
Additionally, cloud ERP vendors typically provide regular updates to ensure that their systems stay compliant with evolving regulations. This relieves internal IT teams of the burden of staying current and helps organizations avoid costly penalties or audit findings. Audit preparation becomes simpler as well. With centralized data and integrated reporting tools, finance teams can quickly compile the necessary documentation and respond to audit requests with confidence.
✅ Improved Financial Reporting
Generating financial reports can be time-consuming and difficult to assemble for the finance team, especially during busy periods like the end of the month. With cloud ERP, financial reporting becomes a lot more streamlined and efficient. They enable the automatic creation of financial reports, and you can print or send them where needed through email. You can access real-time dashboards and reports that help you pinpoint issues quickly, analyze data faster, and dig deeper into your company's performance. For instance, Dynamics 365 Business Central allows users to use built-in reports, Excel, Microsoft Power BI, and unlimited data dimensions to get real-time cash flow and improve business planning.
✅ Enhanced Data Security
Financial information is the most valuable asset of any organization, and it's important to safeguard your data from cyberattacks or breaches. It is a common misconception to believe that on-premises ERP solutions can be safer in this regard. However, modern cloud solutions such as Microsoft ensure robust data security thanks to advanced cutting-edge encryption, multi-factor authentication, and other essential security measures built into all pieces of the system.
✅ More Accessibility
Cloud ERP solutions make it easier to work remotely and on the go. Your employees will have access to a central "single-source-of-truth" database with data that can be accessed on desktop, tablet, or mobile, using an internet connection. This allows for more corporate agility and higher rates of cross-departmental collaboration as sharing data becomes easier.
✅ Scalability and Flexibility
Business needs evolve, and finance systems must be able to scale accordingly. Cloud ERP is designed with flexibility in mind. Whether your organization is a fast-growing startup or a mid-market company expanding internationally, cloud ERP can adapt to your changing requirements.
New modules can be added as needed without a complete system overhaul. Businesses can expand their user base, integrate new subsidiaries, or comply with new regulations without facing the steep costs or long timelines associated with legacy ERP systems. This scalability ensures that the finance function remains agile and responsive. As your business grows, your systems can grow with it, without disrupting operations.
Streamline Financial Management with Dynamics 365 Business Central
Dynamics 365 Business Central is Microsoft's cloud-based ERP solution for small and mid-market organizations. It helps companies take control of their financial data, accelerate financial closing and reporting, monitor performance, and make more profitable financial decisions. By consolidating all core financial functions into a single platform, it simplifies day-to-day accounting and improves financial accuracy.
Unified Financial Tools in One Platform
Business Central integrates essential financial processes, including:
General ledger
Accounts payable and receivable
Bank reconciliation
Fixed asset management
Cash flow forecasting
Budgeting and reporting
This unified approach eliminates the need for multiple systems and manual workarounds. Finance teams can manage their entire financial workflow from one system, reducing errors and speeding up the month-end close.
Real-Time Insights and Scalable Reporting
One of the key strengths of Business Central is its robust reporting and analysis capabilities. Finance professionals can:
Generate real-time reports like P&L statements, balance sheets, and cash flow forecasts
Perform multi-dimensional analysis across departments, cost centers, or locations
Manage multi-currency and multi-entity accounting with ease
Business Central also integrates seamlessly with Microsoft tools like Excel and Power BI, enabling advanced data analysis in familiar environments. This empowers finance teams to make faster, data-driven decisions while supporting future growth with scalable tools.
For more detail into how Business Central can help your finance team, check out this previous article: "How Dynamics 365 Improves Your Business Accounting."
Talk to a Dynamics 365 Business Central Partner
Are you looking to implement or upgrade your on-premises solution to Dynamics 365 Business Central? Get in touch with the team from Kwixand Solutions. We are a Dynamics 365 Business Central Partner based in Vancouver, Canada. We help clients across Canada and the US successfully implement and get the most out of their Business Central cloud solutions.
