{"id":2119053,"date":"2026-11-04T14:14:21","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T14:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/westmidlands\/?p=2119053"},"modified":"2026-11-04T14:14:21","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T14:14:21","slug":"how-your-finance-team-could-get-back-the-moments-that-matter-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/westmidlands\/news\/2119053-how-your-finance-team-could-get-back-the-moments-that-matter-2","title":{"rendered":"How your finance team could get back the moments that matter"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rob Steele, CFO, iplicit\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s Friday and still daylight as you hit \u201cShut down\u201d on your computer. You\u2019re logging\u00a0 off with enough time and energy left to do something else.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe that something else is a run or a game of tennis. Perhaps it\u2019s spending time\u00a0 with a child or on caring responsibilities. Or maybe it\u2019s taking time to choose wisely\u00a0 what you eat and watch, rather than consuming convenience food and whatever the\u00a0 streaming algorithm serves up.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For many people in finance and accounting, that kind of evening is still a fantasy.\u00a0 Their days are dominated by data entry and document processing \u2013 and they\u2019re\u00a0 often still slogging through spreadsheets when the working day should be over.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been a founder, I\u2019m now a CFO and I\u2019ve been involved with finance software\u00a0 since Windows was new and shiny. When iplicit recently asked 250 finance leaders\u00a0 in mid-market organisations to name the main drains on their teams\u2019 time, the top\u00a0 answers were the same as they might have been when I started out: data entry\u00a0 (cited by 42%), reconciliation of accounts and transactions (40%) and invoice\u00a0 processing (28%).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Going by those findings, it might seem my decades of urging people to modernise\u00a0 their systems and save time were a bit futile. But that\u2019s not the case. Every day, I\u00a0 hear of finance teams that are improving their efficiency and enjoying more satisfying\u00a0 work \u2013 as well as finishing that work a bit earlier.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some stories from the North West\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Take one of iplicit\u2019s best-known customers in the North West, Blackpool Grand\u00a0 Theatre. It ran its finances on an old-fashioned, on-premises system. To monitor the\u00a0 costs of individual productions, the theatre had \u201chundreds of spreadsheets all over\u00a0 the place\u201d, according to Mark Preston, Head of Business and Finance. Staff\u00a0 laboriously checked incoming invoices against those spreadsheets and keyed in the\u00a0 invoice numbers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A move to a modern, cloud-based system saved time and put people in control of\u00a0 their work. \u201cWe can be more productive now and can focus on doing the things that\u00a0 can really add value,\u201d says Mark.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Wirral-based charity Autism Together had been grappling for a long time with a\u00a0 clunky finance system. (Actually it was the same system I co-founded when I was\u00a0 18. It was a pretty exciting product in 1990 but the world has moved on.) Few tasks\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

could be automated, so producing consolidated accounts involved many hours in\u00a0 spreadsheets.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Automation changed that. \u201cAt the end of the month, there used to be 30 or so reports\u00a0 to compile in Excel. Now, it\u2019s basically self-serve for the budget holders, so that has\u00a0 saved an incredible amount of time,\u201d according to Louise Parnell, who was Director\u00a0 of Finance at the time of the change.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

SIL \u2013 which stands for both Support, Inspire, Learn and School Improvement\u00a0 Liverpool \u2013 is a local authority trading company whose finance software was part of\u00a0 the city council\u2019s corporate system. \u201cReporting our P&L to the board or shareholder\u00a0 used to take me two or three days,\u201d says Karen Lea, Head of Finance. \u201cI had a\u00a0 spreadsheet, including a tab with all my account codes, and I had to manually\u00a0 categorise everything.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That changed with the move to iplicit. \u201cIf somebody says ‘Can I have an updated\u00a0 P&L?’, it takes me two seconds to refresh the data in my spreadsheet \u2013 instead of\u00a0 two to three days,\u201d says Karen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Adding AI to the mix\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve got this far without mentioning AI. All the time savings I\u2019ve mentioned above\u00a0 were accomplished with the kind of automation iplicit has been building since before\u00a0 ChatGPT changed the world. That\u2019s as it should be \u2013 because while AI can be a\u00a0 great time saver, you need to build an accurate, efficient system of record before you\u00a0 reap the full benefit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A ledger is a \u201cdeterministic\u201d system, where the same input always produces the\u00a0 same output. Once the data in that system is complete and current, you can start to\u00a0 harness AI tools such as those we\u2019ve built in iplicit. Those tools can produce reports\u00a0 and analysis from your verified figures, with every output traceable to the ledger. The\u00a0 time savings from that can be enormous.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve spent much of my career trying to give finance people their time back so they\u00a0 can enjoy life to the full. When you review your own systems and processes, I\u2019d\u00a0 suggest asking not just \u201cIs our system good enough?\u201d but \u201cWhat time does my team\u00a0 leave at night? And how much time and energy do people have left when the working\u00a0 week is over?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I know that perfect Friday I described is possible because I\u2019ve lived it. If your team is\u00a0 experiencing it too, it\u2019s a sign you\u2019re doing something right.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Click here for resources on unlocking time for your team.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finance teams are still losing hours to data entry and spreadsheets. iplicit CFO Rob Steele explains how automation can give them their Friday evenings back<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":284306,"featured_media":2119054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"coauthors":[137138],"class_list":["post-2119053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sponsored","tag-featured-story"],"yoast_head":"\nHow your finance team could get back the moments that matter | TheBusinessDesk.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Finance teams are still losing hours to data entry and spreadsheets. iplicit CFO Rob Steele explains how automation can give them their Friday evenings back\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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