Business intelligence is a technology-driven practice of data analytics by developing key performance indicators (KPIs) that are embedded in customizable, integrated dashboards, and real-time performance tracking and analytics to inform decision making. decision making. BI provides historical, current, and predictive views of business operations in easy-to-understand, interactive data visualizations that enable you to closely monitor finances, optimize supply chains, and make better decisions across all areas of the business.
A data-driven and proactive finance team can be downright transformative. Throughout 2020 and 2021 there has been a constant and sustained demand for more effective use of data, whether it is to identify areas for savings, evaluate investment opportunities or deliver better reports and key performance. In addition, by not having to manually collect this data, they can spend time interpreting it and making better-reasoned decisions.
Using BI means fewer errors and more comprehensive documentation, which improves audit performance, enables professionals to explain complex financial concepts to business users by generating easy-to-read charts and visualizations, and enables finance teams to work more efficiently by automating manual tasks.
The successful use of business intelligence to influence and improve the financial function of the company relies on the speed with which an end user can access data and turn it into understanding or knowledge that allows more accurate and timely decision making than leads to higher profitability and business success.
Let’s see the main advantages of using this type of tool in the company:
1- Improve productivity: A key reward of increasing the productivity benefits of business intelligence capabilities in accounting software is being able to scale. The types and volume of data and requests for analysis and reports tend to grow with the organization. With accounting software with BI capabilities, new data sources can be easily added to dashboards. And, accounting can configure custom dashboards and automatically generate analytics, minimizing manual effort. In addition, business intelligence allows many financial processes to be automated, reducing the time to obtain monthly financial reports, for example.
2- Improve knowledge: Business intelligence platforms allow accounting teams to gather disparate data and communicate knowledge in a more agile way.
3- Data-driven decision making: analysis with data can help professionals to determine for example if any new product makes financial sense.
4- Improve accounting processes: BI improves accounting processes in obvious ways: adding data, creating dashboards more efficiently, improving planning and budgeting, and in less obvious areas, for example, better visibility of chains complex supply lines, resulting in fewer supply interruptions.
Accounting teams can obtain external data sources to improve forecasting and inform financial decisions as the economy recovers.
5- Visualization of accounting data: Visualization of accounting data is the process of presenting financial information in a dynamic and graphic way. Effective data visualizations help decision makers consume a lot of information, sometimes complex, in a way that is seen as intuitive and holistic.
6- Enhanced KPI Analysis: Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs, are metrics closely related to strategic business objectives. Leaders should identify their key metrics up front and revisit that the KPIS list is periodically based on changes in the market, economic conditions, or the business itself.
7- Enhanced Product and Revenue Analysis: With BI, finance can compile data from various sources into custom dashboards to enable in-depth analysis that will provide ways to improve products and increase revenue.
8- Personalization and self-service of information: ability to personalize control panels and provide access to different people interested in the process through the web browser, even on mobile devices. Accounting teams should seek self-service capabilities so that department heads can generate analysis on their own and autonomously obtain whatever data they need to make decisions.
Improve your business intelligence with NetSuite ERP
Improve your business intelligence with NetSuite ERP Business Intelligence is the perfect complement for data-driven accounting professionals. Helps take the guesswork or opinions out of the decision-making process by providing real-time objective results and comparative analysis with the year’s objectives and with the results of previous years. When these results are shared across the company, decisions can be made faster. The finance team not only becomes a trusted business partner but also has the information to improve business processes and performance.
In arin we are experts in helping companies to implement ERPs such as Netsuite, which is a cloud solution that provides BI in a natural and integrated way within the ERP itself, which guarantees our clients better analytics in real time of the performance of the company in all departments.