Are your finance systems and data impacting your business?

Does your team spend more time investigating data issues and being concerned about the quality of the information you're getting than using the data to make effective decisions? 

Having access to vast amounts of information used to be a competitive advantage, now it's a necessity for your company. The more data you’re collecting, the more issues that are likely to arise, either with the data itself or the systems storing, managing and analysing it. 

To be able to make informed business decisions and truly harness the power of your data, you must prioritise the health of both your finance systems and the data that fuels them. 

Healthy data and systems form the foundation of a well-functioning company and allow finance leaders to act on reliable, actionable insights. 

Does your business suffer from these issues? 

The impact of inaccurate data and poorly configured systems is huge and affects both reporting and resources. If your business suffers from one or more of these problems, you may need a health check.  

• Inaccurate Invoicing

• Slow and Painful Month/Year-End Closures

• Manual Data Entry and Duplicate Work 

• Inconsistent Financial Reporting 

• Difficulty in Managing Cash Flow 

• Lack of Visibility and Control 

• Compliance and Audit Challenges

• Budgeting and Forecasting Inaccuracies

• Poor Decision Making

• Inefficient Reconciliation Processes

• Risk of Financial Fraud or Error 

• Inability to Scale Financial Processes 

• Difficulty in Tracking Financial KPIs 
  
  
  

What is data health? 

Data health refers to the quality, accessibility, and usability of your data. Healthy data isn’t just accurate and complete, it must be easy to discover, understand, and apply to business decisions. When your data is well-maintained, it supports your business objectives effectively, helping to mitigate risk, optimise your operations, and drive informed decision-making. For finance teams, this means being able to rely on data that is consistent, timely, and valid throughout its lifecycle. 

Maintaining data health isn’t a simple task and many companies don’t have the skills internally required to define what healthy data looks like or how to assess its value. Key factors such as accuracy, completeness, timeliness, and validity must be evaluated to ensure that the data used for decision-making is sound. Without robust data management practices in place, even the most advanced systems can become unreliable. That's why it's critical for companies to adopt a comprehensive approach to data health, one that includes the right technology, processes, and organisational culture to support it. 

What about your finance systems? 

Just as your data health is essential, so too is the health of your finance system itself. These systems manage everything from incoming payments to outgoing invoices, and any errors can lead to significant business disruption. Overstated cash flow, missed payments, or even fraudulent activities can damage your company's financial health, forecasting accuracy, and business strategy. 

Regular system health checks ensure that finance systems continue to perform at their best. These checks help to identify and address potential issues before they become problems. By ensuring that your system is fully integrated with your other business tools and workflows, health checks reduce the risk of errors, such as duplicate payments or overlooked invoices. Outdated systems that require manual management of data often introduce inefficiencies, increase the potential for data loss, and open the door for fraud. A timely system health check can eliminate these risks and ensure that your finance operations run smoothly. 

So, what are the benefits of regular checks? 

When you prioritise both system and data health, you empower your finance teams to make better decisions, you streamline processes and reduce the risk of costly errors. 

Improved finance data and system health quality can provide a range of significant benefits which can impact various aspects of company operations, from efficiency and decision-making to compliance and cost management. Here's a breakdown of the key advantages: 

• Enhanced Decision-Making
  • Accurate and Timely Data: High-quality finance data ensures you have access to the most accurate and up-to-date information. This allows for better financial forecasting, budgeting, and investment decisions, as you can confidently rely on the data to inform your strategic moves. 

• • Predictive Analytics: With clean and healthy finance data, you can leverage predictive analytics to identify trends and potential risks. This can help in forecasting cash flows, managing expenses, and making long-term plans with more confidence. 
• Cost Efficiency and Savings
  • Reduced Errors and Inaccuracies: By maintaining good data and system health, you minimise errors in financial reporting and accounting. This reduces the likelihood of costly corrections, penalties, or fines due to inaccurate data. 

• • Operational Efficiency: Healthy systems and streamlined data processes reduce the time and effort needed for manual reconciliation, invoicing, and reporting. This leads to operational cost savings, enabling your staff to focus on value-added activities rather than correcting data discrepancies. 

• • Automation and Integration: By integrating finance systems with other business tools and automating processes, you can reduce redundant tasks and improve the overall efficiency of your financial operations. 
• Regulatory Compliance
  • Accurate Reporting for Audits: High-quality finance data ensures you can provide accurate reports and statements when required, which helps in avoiding legal penalties for non-compliance. 

• • Meeting GDPR Requirements: With the rise of digital finance systems, you must comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Good data management helps you safeguard sensitive customer financial data and avoid potential fines for breaches. 
• Improved Financial Control
  • Better Cash Flow Management: Healthy financial systems enable you to track and manage cash flow more effectively, ensuring you can avoid liquidity issues and optimise working capital. 

• • Audit Trails and Transparency: High-quality systems maintain comprehensive records and audit trails, which improves internal controls, accountability, and transparency. This is especially important for maintaining trust with your stakeholders and for detecting and preventing fraud.
• Scalability and Growth
  • Support for Expansion: As your company grows, you may need to scale your financial systems to accommodate new markets, products, or international operations. Healthy finance data systems ensure that your company can grow without being hindered by outdated or inefficient data infrastructure. 

• • Integration with Other Systems: A well-maintained data system allows for seamless integration with your other business functions (like HR, sales, or inventory management), providing a unified view of the company’s performance and enabling more holistic growth strategies. 

• Competitive Advantage

• • Faster Response to Market Changes: Companies with high-quality finance data can quickly adapt to market shifts. By understanding financial performance in real-time, they can make informed decisions faster than competitors who may be relying on inaccurate or outdated data. 

• • Improved Customer Trust: Accurate financial reporting and transparency foster trust with investors, customers, and partners. This can lead to stronger business relationships and a better reputation in the marketplace. 
• Risk Management
  • Early Detection of Issues: Good financial data quality allows companies to quickly spot discrepancies or financial issues, such as fraudulent activities, cash flow problems, or market risks. By identifying these issues early, companies can take corrective action before they escalate into larger problems. 

• • Better Credit Ratings: Lenders and investors prefer companies with strong financial health and well-maintained systems. High-quality finance data improves the accuracy of creditworthiness assessments, which can lead to better loan terms, lower interest rates, and easier access to capital. 
• Improved Collaboration Across Teams
  • Centralized Data Access: With a central and unified finance system, all relevant departments—such as sales, operations, and HR—can access the same set of financial data. This improves collaboration across the company and helps departments align with financial goals and priorities. 

• • Empowered Stakeholders: With improved data quality, senior managers, department heads, and other stakeholders have the tools they need to make better decisions for their areas of responsibility. The availability of accurate financial insights can empower them to take proactive actions. 
• Enhanced Investor Relations
  • Building Investor Confidence: Investors need to trust that a company’s financial data is accurate and up-to-date. Companies that maintain good data quality are better equipped to provide transparent and reliable financial reports, which can increase investor confidence and attract more investment. 

• • Increased Valuation: Companies with well-maintained financial systems and high-quality data can be valued more highly by investors, as they demonstrate better financial health and lower operational risks.  
    
    

What Key Skills are needed to Conduct Finance Data Health Checks? 

In order to analyse data and system health to ensure they meet your business needs roles and skills are required that you probably don’t have in your finance or IT teams. These roles include Data Engineers, Business Systems Analysts, Data Integration Architects and Systems Accountants. 

The skills these experts bring include: 

• Data Quality Management 
  • Ensuring data is accurate, complete, timely, and consistent. Familiarity with tools and frameworks for managing data quality is often essential. 

• Financial Analysis & Reporting 

• • Understanding financial data, KPIs, balance sheets, and income statements. This skill is crucial to ensuring data aligns with business objectives and provides actionable insights. 

• Data Integrity and Validation 

• • Techniques to verify that financial data is clean, structured, and accurate. This involves checking for errors, inconsistencies, missing values, and duplicate records. 

• Data Security & Compliance 

• • Ensuring that the finance data adheres to regulatory standards (e.g., GDPR, SOX). A deep understanding of financial data security and compliance requirements is vital. 

• Data Integration 

• • Ensuring that various systems within the finance ecosystem (ERP, CRM, accounting software) work together seamlessly and that data flows correctly between them. 

• Data Visualisation & Reporting 

• • Presenting the health check results clearly and effectively to stakeholders. This includes using tools like Power BI, Tableau, and Excel for reporting. 

• ERP & Financial Systems Expertise 

• • Deep understanding of ERP platforms and other financial systems. This allows for efficient management of data sources and better monitoring. 

How can we help? 

At Positive8, we understand the critical role that both system health and data health play in a company's ability to make sound financial decisions. Our experts have the skills required to conduct thorough system and data health checks that help companies identify inefficiencies, mitigate risks, and unlock the full potential of their financial operations. 

We work with businesses to conduct in-depth assessments of their systems and data strategies, providing actionable insights and tailored recommendations for improvement.  

If you're looking to ensure compliance, boost data quality, or improve system performance, we can guide you toward better decision-making and enhanced operational efficiency. 

What’s the cost and return on investment? 

The cost of a data and system health check depends on the company, the volume of data and sources and the number of systems used; however, the impact of health checks can vastly outweigh the costs. 

For companies in the UK, investing in improved finance data and system health is not just about compliance and accuracy, it is also about unlocking operational efficiencies, improving decision-making, and staying competitive in a fast-evolving market. These benefits can contribute directly to long-term growth, cost savings, and risk mitigation.