Amsterdam, 28 June 2022 – For almost a third of finance professionals (29%), working from home was a major challenge, due to missing systems or non-working software. Finance professionals are therefore breathing a sigh of relief since the home working advice was dropped. More than half of them indicate that, now that the office is open again, they work a maximum of two days from home in a 40-hour week. This was revealed by the FinTech Barometer, Visma | Onguard‘s research into the status of a number of companies, which was carried out for the fifth time this year.
Missing systems challenge finance professionals
For finance professionals, a malfunctioning system is by far the biggest source of irritation at 22%, followed by manual and repetitive tasks (18%). Chasing invoices is not at the top of the favourites list either. This causes irritation for 14% of surveyed professionals. Finally, dealing with different systems is an element that fourteen percent would rather lose than use.
Bad news for finance professionals: dealing with different systems and missing systems will be an issue in the near future. More than half of the organisations (55%) are still in the middle of a digital transformation. This transformation is indispensable for providing finance professionals with optimally functioning systems, so that their work becomes easier. However, a successful digital transformation is proving to be quite a challenge due to lack of time (25%), lack of available technology (17%) and financial resources (17%).
Adriaan Kom, Managing Director of Visma | Onguard: “The right software helps the finance professional to do their job well and to be able to provide advice to higher management and the board of directors. To have a well-functioning organisation, solid and stable software is therefore invaluable. Digital transformation is an excellent opportunity to connect software systems and optimise processes. Time and budget are important resources in this respect. Make sure as an organisation that the basis is in order and systems are working, so that manual and repetitive tasks can continue in all cases. It is then possible to expand the stable basis with technology that can take even more work off the hands of the finance professional, so that they have the time and focus to do what they do best: ensure that the organisation becomes, is and remains financially healthy.”
About the research
Every year, Visma | Onguard investigates how financial professionals view the current trends and developments: Fintech, big data, digital transformation and data-driven. This research is called the FinTech Barometer and is conducted both in the Netherlands – through research agency Markteffect – and in the United Kingdom – through research agency Censuswide. At least one hundred of the respondents work as chief financial officer (CFO) and another two hundred as financial employee in an organisation with at least fifty employees.
