Outsourcing internal finance function is no longer limited to simply delegating data entry or document processing to a trusted BPO provider. In today’s business climate, outsourcing has become a long-term competitive strategy for achieving administrative efficiency while driving down administrative costs.
Just consider the following: you spend both money and time in carrying out complex finance and accounting processes internally and experience rising operating costs, end up exhausting your resources and have to hire additional resources every time your business scales. The same goes for updating your finance processes. Automating your processes internally can turn out to be quite an expensive undertaking as it requires specialized resources including skilled personnel who are up to the task.
On the other hand, outsourcing the very same functions to a specialized team that can help manage your entire finance function including payroll processing, accounts payable processing, QuickBooks accounting and more. Outsourcing your finance functions further entails increased flexibility and transparency in your finance processes. Other perks of finance and accounting outsourcing include faster processing cycles and significant cost-savings.
Additionally, in the context of COVID-19, outsourcing provides you with the ability to build scalable teams, lowering or increasing headcount as requirements fluctuate.
Accurate Data Entry
Finance and accounting processes run on data, making accurate entry of data from invoices and cheques, the first crucial step in running efficient processes.
Further, inaccuracies in financial data result in exceptions and results in unbalanced ledgers, resulting in several manual hours spent uncovering the discrepancies.
At ARDEM, we work to eliminate any inaccuracies in your finance and accounting processing with a novel system. We employ a proprietary combination of double-key data entry methodology. This is further combined with programmed validation and audit routines to verify data for 100% accuracy. We further employ a mix of automation and effort-based data extraction to combine speed with efficiency for improved insights.
Automated Data Capture
Despite the push towards digital transactions, the entire finance function still accrues a considerable volume of paperwork. These include paper invoices, paper approvals, paper records, paper checks and more. All of these further need to be sorted, scanned, and converted to be entered into the processing cycle.
At ARDEM, we offer full-scale services for processing all paperwork, both physical and electronic. The electronic documents can be simply forwarded to us and we will sort and categorize them for you or you can send us the physical copies and we will convert them using our high-speed scanners.
All documents are scanned and run through OCR technology to create readable documents. Once they have been made searchable, this allows the ARDEM Data Capture platform to read and map specific fields of data and aggregate them accordingly.
Accounts Payable Automation
Accounts payable is an essential function that must be performed by every company, irrespective of industry. As times change and needs fluctuate, automating your accounts payable processing becomes a must for tracking expenditure and implementing strategies for cost-cutting.
ARDEM Automation combines the latest in machine learning and AI technologies to interpret data from invoices and runs data validation to ensure all fields of data are extracted swiftly and accurately in a fraction of the time it took to complete manually. We further normalize all data and standardize invoices for swift approval and faster payments.
Our end-to-end accounts payable solutions further include managing electronic payments via ACH and wire transfer. We are further experienced in handling exceptions and tracing any discrepancies via effort-based processing. We further manage payment runs for your recurring accounts and setting up any new ones.
Accounts Receivable Services
While accounts payable deal with the effective management of a company’s liabilities, accounts receivable processing entails processing data related to expected revenue. In fact, both accounts payable and accounts receivable processing can be viewed as two sides of the same coin that deals with effective cash flow management.
ARDEM offers comprehensive solutions for improving checks received and your bank reconciliation process. As an experienced outsourcing partner, we provide the daily due diligence required for accounts receivables. We further recognize that maintaining visibility and constant communication is important to ensure that the cash flow of your business is maintained.
In finance, it is further important to perform auditing on a daily or weekly basis. Reconciliation needs to be performed to ensure accuracy. This analysis of data allows businesses to predict future costs and adjust any errors in billing to provide more visibility into cash flow. ARDEM employs advanced robotic process automation and a team of accounting professionals to input payments received and follow up with regular audits.
Quickbooks Accounting
Manually entering and reconciling your accounts payables is a labor-intensive and time-consuming process. As a result, it can drive up your costs significantly while resulting in constant delays and set-backs.
While there are many bookkeeping softwares that make account reconciliation easier, you still need qualified people to process orders, enter vendor bills, create invoices, perform other bookkeeping tasks and reconcile accounts to ensure accurate financial data.
Using qualified accounting bookkeepers who have previous experience with QuickBooks, our QuickBooks accounting services combine technology alongside process control to perform QuickBooks processing for you. You simply need to send us your vendor bills, customer orders and timesheets for service billing. Our team will then quickly process all data and deliver output as per a predefined frequency.
Financial Services
As you outsource your finance function, we further manage additional financial services such as bank reconciliation and payroll processing solutions to truly take the burden of time-consuming and repetitive financial tasks off your shoulders.
Our financial services are designed to increase the visibility of financial data to make smarter, data-driven decisions and increase growth.
Eliminate Hidden Costs by Outsourcing Your Finance Function
Outsourcing your finance function also comes with the added benefit of eliminating the hidden costs of internal finance processing including poor cash flow visibility, fraud risks and fragmented processes.
Centralizing all of your finance processes results in greater visibility of everyday financial data that helps you keep an eye on outgoing expenses and incoming revenue for smarter financial management.
You further pay for services based on your requirements and avoid paying overhead costs including utilities and extra office space while preserving the option of expanding your team whenever required.
Having a team of seasoned finance experts manage your finance function further results in higher fraud detection as any discrepancies or red flags are immediately reported and investigated further.
Implementing Scalability and Security in Your Finance Function
Outsourcing finance function further comes with the ability to build resilient teams that can be scaled to match your fluctuating requirements. Working with remote teams, further allows you to leverage global talent and enjoy the benefits of varied experience.
At ARDEM, we build reliable teams comprising highly-skilled finance professionals with requisite degrees and extensive industry experience. We have the capability of scaling your team in as little as 10 days to cater to your changing needs.
At ARDEM, we recognize that with data security comes great responsibility, and that’s exactly why we practice ISO27001- this addresses security at 3 main levels: Physical, Network, and Employee.
Apart from our security compliances and protocols, we are also extremely careful about who we expose your data to. In terms of our data entry services, access to sensitive data is strictly on a need-to-know basis, and we have measures in place that ensure that your data cannot be moved, saved, edited, or seen by unauthorized team members.
The ARDEM Advantage:
The ARDEM Collaboration Platform
At ARDEM, we make it easier for you to outsource your finance function with our digital collaborative workplace, the ARDEM Collaboration Platform.
Our cloud-based workspace is easy to use, you can easily access the platform using your regular web browser and unique login credentials to sign-in and view your customized dashboard.
How It Works:
- Once you are connected to the workspace you can upload or simply drag and drop your work documents for processing to secured folders.
- You can then chat with your account representative to describe the work you want your team to do.
- You can further interact with your team members, review the status of your project, leave new instructions, and also follow up on issues related to your assignment.
- You can monitor the progress made on your data in real-time on our dashboards with customizable views. This helps you monitor team performance against the defined metrics.
- Our platform enables you to manage work assignments for your team.
- You have the ability to send emails with any additional documents as attachments.
- You can also have your team forward emails to this platform. We will sort and categorize them as required.
The ARDEM Invoice Manager (AIM)
A notable addition to our collaborative platform, the ARDEM Invoice Manager is a specially-drafted solution to improve your AP and invoice processing. With simple and customizable features, the Invoice Manager’s dashboard provides you with an overall view of all current invoices.
Not only can you see how many invoices were received, but also which stage they are currently in to ensure a smooth payment process. Your dashboard can be further customized to highlight different trends including the number of PO to non-PO received weekly, monthly and even throughout the year.
The Transition Plan
Once all the paperwork has been signed, the onboarding process begins. ARDEM assigns you a qualified Project Manager, who will get in touch with you to ascertain and define your processing requirements.
We then assign a team to manage all AP, AR, Payroll, and Accounting Tasks, along with T&E auditing. We will utilize your current system and tools to eliminate the need for a large IT overhaul. We further manage the hiring, training, quality control, and process management.
Once all of the processes have been transitioned smoothly, additional efficiencies will be made with technology and all your processing will be shifted to a cloud-based platform. The ARDEM Collaboration Platform provides additional visibility and real-time updates.
Virtual Training
Using a Train-the-Trainer model (T3), our management team will work with your team to fully understand the entire process. This is typically done via screen share or video call. Once the SOP or standard operating procedure has been mapped out, a training manual is created to mirror your existing processes.
This training method entails the following:
- Understanding your current process.
- Understanding the current challenges faced on a daily basis and creating strategies to overcome them.
- Understanding the skill set requirements for the outsourced processes and positions.
- ARDEM’s intelligent developers will create a replica of your current system on our platform which will be utilized for training all employees.
- Eliminating the need to re-train the ARDEM team if and when there is any staff turnover at ARDEM.
The 30-60-90 Plan for a Smoother Transition
At ARDEM, we believe in implementing a system of continuous improvement to help provide the highest possible returns to our clients. Once we have laid out and implemented the new and improved workflow, we constantly monitor the process and analyse it for further improvement.
We start with a small percentage of the work before moving to full production. We further collaborate with your team and ensure continuous communication to process your feedback and improve efficiency. This is typically achieved in 3 stages over a 30-60-90 day period.
At ARDEM, we have automated and improved millions of finance and accounting processes by employing the right combination of bright people, robust processes and advanced technology.
As a family-owned business, ARDEM understands the importance of trust, hard work, and communication which is why we run your business like it is our own. We further utilize our 16+ years of expertise to develop a project plan with quality assurance and ensure communication with our partners to build lasting relationships based on mutual trust and satisfaction.
So, whether you are looking to outsource your entire finance function or just a particular process, we would be more than happy to schedule a short, 15-minute call to discuss your processing requirements.