Finance professionals are the kind of people who can thrive in a work from home environment. The day-to-day accounting functions and report creation is the kind of work that is not dependent on location. Working remotely has been an adopted practice for some organizations long before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Some of the original goals in implementing remote access to work, were to help facilitate a better work/life balance and possibly cost savings for the organization. When early 2020 came around, our reasons for working from home shifted and became more specifically health and well-being related.
As our collective response to this started to take shape, many organizations were scrambling to 
get the required tools and processes in place. The “boom of Zoom” was heard around the world and cloud accounting became more of an immediate requirement rather than a desired direction that we moved to at a slower, more manageable pace. However even with more tools in place, the challenge of remotely managing the finance department and accessing the required data still exists.
When working in an office, we can easily pull aside a team member – or staff can easily pop-in to the finance office for that quick question. While these informal, ad-hoc conversations are more difficult to achieve in a remote environment, non-profit organizations still have a mission and operations that demand significant reporting and compliance that requires collaboration. Team members need to communicate. Often the disconnect exists between the finance department and the development/program departments. For non-profit organization, the mission’s impact is more effectively achieved when operational insights are quickly and easily communicated.
Having the right accounting software is crucial and having it in the cloud allows your finance team to work effectively, from anywhere. Strong contemporary solutions provide immediate access to 
key information with embedded collaboration tools that make communication easy and specific. Historically, specific custom reports relative to the reader’s role were created on a periodic basis, depending on how long it took to “close the books”. Often these reports lacked drill-down capabilities to transactional details, or the ability to pivot to a different period for comparatives or any ability to slice & dice the data for a new perspective.
Getting back to no longer having that easy access to our colleagues, solutions that offer features like role specific dashboards that can be completely customized with built-in messaging to query specific figures or transactions are part of the answer to this challenge. Imagine being able to see all the information below with a simple click from the remote environment you are safely working from.
Having the right tools is the start. Clearly identifying what data needs to be seen and by whom comes next which can then be incorporated into dashboard reporting like what you see in the image above. Non-profit finance leasers should ask themselves a few crucial questions that will help ultimately to facilitate a better remote workflow.
- What reporting do you do now?
- What reporting would you like to do in an ideal world?
- What insights do you need for your board, funders, and internal managers?
- Does your current Chart of Accounts facilitate the desired output?
- What are your current processes and procedures and is there a need for change to accommodate remote access to data?
- How granular is your security to ensure access to only authorized staff?
Working from home for the non-profit finance professionals demands that the organization’s processes and procedures are strong and can be executed from anywhere, allowing the organization to continue to deliver on its mission. Improving access to data, reducing the time needed to generate required reports, and measuring impact are all crucial elements for a finance team strategy that will keep the organization functioning effectively. As we continue to work remotely, non-profit organizations must put tools in place and adapt their processes to facilitate a remote organization.
Sage Intacct helps non-profits strengthen stewardship, build influence, grow funding and achieve mission success by empowering the people who work for the organization.
Find out more about how North49 can help your non-profit assess and implement the solutions you need to manage your finance department remotely, beyond just the software you select.
If you'd like to discuss this in more detail book some time on my calendar.
+1 (888) 599-1115 | www.north49.com | solutions@north49.com