Finance Optimization

We accompany your finance department into the future!

Due to the constant change in markets, industries and business models as well as increasing regulatory requirements, the finance department faces an enormous challenge. Digitalization as an additional driver reinforces this situation and changes the content as well as the methods and tools in finance.
In order to meet these developments and to continue to be an efficient and effective business partner in the company, the finance department must continue to develop itself. The Finance Optimization Team of CFGI Germany GmbH supports customers in the sustainable development and optimization of processes, systems, and organization in finance.
With a holistic approach, we accompany companies from strategy development to the operational development of a sustainable finance organization (IPOs, post-merger integration, carve outs, shared service structures, digitization), the selection and implementation of IT systems (ERP, consolidation systems, CPM, BI, planning) and the optimization of end-to-end processes (O2C, P2P, R2R).
Our focus is on advising medium-sized companies, innovative start-ups, national and international corporations, as well as private equity companies and their portfolio companies.

Organization and processes

The modern design and sustainable development of an efficient finance organization with efficient and effective processes is one of the most important challenges for the CFO. New corporate strategies, changes in the business model or corporate transactions lead to regular changes and must be mapped flexibly, efficiently, but also in accordance with current rules and regulations.
The Finance Optimization Team of CFGI Germany GmbH supports you with experienced specialists in setting up and optimizing structures and processes in finance. This ranges from the modernization of the financial organization to the automation and acceleration of financial processes to complex projects in carve-outs, the integration of business units or the development of outsourcing or shared service approaches for the finance department.
A modern finance department requires not only the digitization of processes and the use of modern software solutions, but first and foremost efficient end-to-end processes. Especially in the run-up to digitization initiatives, business processes must be professionally prepared. It is not expedient to adapt the digital solutions to supposedly proven processes.
Innovation and technical innovations alone are no guarantee for efficient processes. Processes must be based on the business model, viewed holistically and regularly questioned. In addition, processes must not only be considered one-dimensionally, eg. from accounting, because different stakeholders usually have an interest in efficient and effective end-to-end processes: taxes, controlling, compliance, auditors.
With our professional and procedural best-practice expertise, we support you in all financial processes such as:
  • Order-to-Cash
  • Purchase-to-Pay
  • Aquire-to-Retire
  • Project-to-Result
  • Treasury
  • Record-to-Report
  • Plan-to-Perform
Our experienced Finance Optimization Team supports you, for example, with the following services
  • Process recording and documentation (Signavio)
  • Process Mining
  • Process modeling of best-practice processes
  • Process standardization in the run-up to digitization initiatives
  • Process automation via workflow or robotic process automation
  • Development of organizational concepts for process optimization including shared services and outsourcing
Inefficient and lengthy financial processes as well as insufficient service quality and customer proximity - internally and externally - combined with high costs and compliance risks, are often the result of a lack of standardization of processes or systems and often present companies with major challenges.
In such cases, the centralization of transactional processes in shared service units, possibly combined with the digitization and automation of suitable processes, is an option.
Our Finance Optimization Team supports you with its professional, procedural, and technical best-practice expertise from the conception to the operational design of shared service units with the following approach:
  • Definition of the future target operating model of the financial organization
  • Recording and analysis of the actual processes based on a defined list of criteria for task allocation regarding the processes to be centralized
  • Development of a target operating model of the new organization
  • Harmonization and standardization of the processes to be centralized for the realization of economies of scale and specialization
  • Definition of competence profiles and staffing by suitable employees
  • Identification and evaluation of optimal locations to generate quantitative as well as qualitative location advantages (optional)
  • Digitalization possibilities to reduce process throughput times and costs while at the same time increasing process compliance and quality.
  • Accompanying Change-Management
With increasing requirements, lack of resources, ambitious schedules in finance or a planned focus on core competencies, the outsourcing of (partial) tasks and projects can also be a way to increase effectiveness and efficiency in the finance department.
In addition, outsourcing to a specialized, external service provider automatically leads to standardization and digitization of processes, because otherwise business process outsourcing service providers could not work profitably.
Our Finance Optimization Team supports you with its professional, procedural and technical best-practice expertise from conception to operational support of outsourcing. The approach is similar to the development of shared service units (see there). However, no employees and locations, but service providers are selected and evaluated.
In addition, our employees will accompany you in setting up the required interface functions and process interfaces to the outsourcing service provider and in ensuring stable processes during the outsourcing process / project. For this purpose, clear organizational, procedural and systemic interfaces must be established in order to realize the desired advantages and to largely avoid friction losses.
The long-term success of an acquisition is significantly influenced by the so-called Post Merger Integration (PMI), i.e. the successful integration of the acquired company by the buyer. The "administrative" areas of finance and IT are also of crucial importance. On the one hand, they include essential interfaces between the two companies, which are also required for the smooth running of future business processes. On the other hand, there is regularly high synergy potential in these areas.
Our Finance Optimization Team, together with our experts from transaction services, supports you with its professional, procedural, and technical best-practice expertise from planning and conception<< to the operational implementation of your post-merger integration for finance (organization, processes, IT). With our PMI approach, we ensure that the future target operating model is set up efficiently and effectively and that the expected synergies can be realized:
  • Definition of the future target image and target operating model of the financial organization
  • Harmonization and standardization of processes for the realization of economies of scale and specialization effects
  • Standardization of IT systems and data structures as a basis for lean, uniform processes and data-based corporate management and decision-making
  • Focus on uniform, future competencies and ensuring optimal staffing by employees
  • Integrated project management
  • Accompanying Change-Management
Changing market conditions or concentration efforts can make it sensiblefor companies to spin off business areas that are no longer strategically relevant. As part of a so-called carve out, these areas are separated from the group of companies, legally independent and sold. Such a transaction requires enormous organizational and procedural challenges, such as
  • Shared resources and processes must be clearly separated. 
  • For the company, which may become legally independent, functional corporate structures including IT systems must be set up as quickly as possible.
  • In financ, it must be ensured that payroll for the outsourced employees runs smoothly, that legal and tax obligations can be fulfilled, but also that customers pay to the right company or that suppliers receive their money.
  • However, it can make sense to no longer rebuild existing business processes, but to outsource them completely or in part.
By involving experienced experts at an early stage, possible pitfalls, imminent legal, economic, technical and personal challenges can be prevented, and the necessary tools and procedures can be planned at an early stage.
Our Finance Optimization Team supports you with its professional, procedural and technical best-practice expertise from planning and conception to the operational implementation of your carve out for the finance department (organization, processes, IT).

Digitization

The topic of digitization determines both the long-term roadmap and day-to-day business in finance. Structural and organizational changes in the company must be flexibly mapped or new regulatory requirements implemented as quickly and effectively as possible. In addition, finance is still strongly influenced by transactional processes and many procedural and system-technical interfaces. The Finance Optimization Team of CFGI Germany GmbH supports you with a unique combination of technical and professional expertise from the conception of a digitization strategy in finance and the selection of a wide variety of software systems to project and change management and system implementation. The spectrum ranges from innovative solutions for process mining, robotic process automation or artificial intelligence in finance to integrated financial systems consisting of ERP systems, solutions for consolidation, planning and reporting as well as innovative best-of-breed cloud applications.
Digitalization leads to a constant change of business models, products, processes and data in companies. In order to keep pace with this development, the finance departments of companies must also change in order not to meet the challenges of tomorrow with the methods, structures and systems of yesterday.
The technological progress of recent years is breathtaking at this point and enables a quantum leap in efficiency and effectiveness for modern financial sectors. Whether it's the use of modern financial systems, the development of effective performance management or the future-oriented use of data for finance intelligence: Corresponding transformation projects require professional planning and technical support.
Our starting points for the development of a digitization roadmap for your finance department
  • Definition of the future target image of the finance function
  • Development of a suitable organizational structure that enables effective collaboration between departments
  • Establishment and anchoring of end-to-end processes instead of organizational silos
  • Use of digitization and data for efficient processes and data-driven business decisions
  • Promoting an agile, innovative corporate culture and empowering employees for future requirements
The range of available software solutions in a wide variety of areas of activity is becoming increasingly confusing and heterogeneous. This makes it increasingly difficult for companies to keep track of the various offers on the market - as well as often lacking experience in the selection of new finance software solutions.
In addition, the selection and implementation of larger IT solutions is still part of risky investment decisions and projects. Therefore, it is important to approach the software selection in a structured and methodically clean way, because it is about mapping central business processes.
Our experienced and certified ERP consultants will be happy to support you as a coach or project manager with the following approach:
  • Clarification of objectives and framework conditions
  • Creation of a structured and comprehensive list of requirements for the future software solution
  • Identification of a longlist of potential software solutions
  • Reduction of the longlist to a shortlist based on a comparison of provider information with the requirement list
  • Vendor presentations and reference interviews for the software solutions on the shortlist
  • Business case and decision templates for software selection
  • Implementation roadmap / project plan
Company growth, digitization and rapidly changing business models mean that companies must reinvent themselves regularly. Flexible business processes require modern and integrated financial systems. A lot has happened here in recent years: The discontinuation of maintenance and support for many legacy systems (SAP ERP, Microsoft Dynamics NAV and AX) is a fact, new cloud ERP systems (Workday, XENTRAL) are conquering the market or modern cloud infrastructures are displacing monolithic ERP landscapes.
New generations of financial systems are creating the conditions for a digital transformation of finance departments. They bring the technological innovations of digital change such as cloud, big data, IoT with them and create the conditions for the implementation of new requirements for end-to-end business processes, flexible data structures, availability, and evaluability of information as well as a modern user experience.
The Finance Optimization Team of CFGI Germany GmbH supports you in your transformation project and accompanies you from the vision to the system selection and implementation to the ongoing support of your financial processes.
Examples of our expertise in the field of integrated financial systems:
  • ERP Systems
  • Financial Consolidation and Reporting Systems
  • Corporate Performance Management Solutions (CPM)
  • Financial Planning & Analysis Systems (FP&A)
  • Business Intelligence Systems (BI)
  • Document Management Systems (DMS)
  • Best-of-bread financial systems and architectures, e.g. subscription billing, expense and travel costs, incoming invoice processing, workflow systems
LucaNet is a certified (IDW PS 880) and industry-independent software for financial performance management, with which the most diverse external and internal requirements in the areas of planning, reporting & controlling, consolidation and analysis according to national and international (IFRS / US-GAAP) accounting regulations can be easily and flexibly met.
Due to its flexibility and low implementation effort, LucaNet is a suitable solution for corporations, medium-sized groups of companies as well as medium-sized individual companies to obtain correct and meaningful financial data. As a user, you have a comprehensive insight into your actual and plan data in a modern and intuitive software solution. This creates transparency in internal and external accounting.
As a LucaNet.Partner, we support you with our team of experienced LucaNet consultants in
  • Licensing of LucaNet products
  • Implementation of all LucaNet modules
  • Integration of upstream and downstream systems (financial accounting, ERP systems, BI solutions, disclosure management systems)
  • Ongoing LucaNet support
  • Technical and procedural consulting in the LucaNet environment (IFRS / US-GAAP, consolidation, financial planning, reporting and analysis)
  • Outsourcing with LucaNet (IFRS /US-GAAP Conversion, Group accounting and Reporting)
  • Professional and technical training in the LucaNet environment
Learn more here

Performance Management

Successful corporate governance requires an integrated approach to defining, measuring and tracking performance goals and sustainably operationalizing corporate strategy. Such performance management requires an efficient and effective interaction of all financial strategic processes, such as planning & forecasting as well as management reporting & control. The Finance Optimization Team of CFGI Germany GmbH supports you with a unique combination of professional and technical expertise in the development of integrated performance management and the introduction of holistic control and financial IT concepts.
Changing business models, increasing customer requirements, high competitive pressure and unprecedented complexity place high demands on management. Only those who have complete and high-quality control information in a timely manner have the decisive competitive advantage. To this end, all processes along the value creation stages of the company must provide the relevant control information quickly and cleanly and be available for operational decisions. The corresponding key performance indicators (KPIs) must be derived from the company's goals and flow into functional reporting. Modern IT systems support deviation analyses, benchmarking, and the development of targeted forecasting.
Our experienced experts in the field of finance optimization support you in setting up and optimizing a targeted control system for your company and the implementation of intelligent analysis and reporting systems.
  • Development of a management model for your business model considering strategic planning requirements
  • Define and define metrics and break down to value drivers and operational details
  • Ensuring correct and meaningful financial information through best-practice methods in controlling and cost accounting
  • Identification of non-financial and external indicators that influence the business model
  • Integration of the control model with operational measures and an incentive system
  • Support in software selection for IT implementation and implementation of the control model
  • Anchoring of the new control model in the corporate organization
Planning and budgeting are still among the most complex and inefficient processes in companies. In addition, in the volatile and dynamic business environment of our customers, the developed plans are usually outdated faster than expected. Based on this experience, together with our customers, we are further developing corporate planning into a control instrument that is as flexible and intelligent as possible, which is oriented towards the internal and external drivers of the business model from the corporate strategy to the operational measure.
Our experienced experts in the field of finance optimization support you in the conception and development of a flexible and intelligent planning system for your company and the implementation of efficient planning and budgeting processes.
  • Analysis of current structures, processes, and systems with a focus on planning and budgeting
  • Development of a driver and planning model for your business model considering strategic planning requirements
  • Derivation of integrated financial planning (optionally HGB, IFRS, US-GAAP) considering the interdependencies between income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement
  • Implementation of the new planning model in MS Excel or a new planning solution
  • Support in software selection for a new planning tool
  • Anchoring the new planning model in the corporate organization
Successful management requires the fast and flexible provision of decision-relevant information. This is the only way for management or external stakeholders to make the right decisions for the company. Therefore, especially for companies in a dynamic and volatile corporate environment, the optimization and efficiency increase of management reporting is at the top of the agenda.
Our experienced experts from the field of Finance Optimization support you in increasing the relevance of your management reporting as well as the digitization and automation of data acquisition and information provision in reporting:
  • Consistent alignment of management reporting with the company's business model and control logic
  • Report users receive exactly the information they need in terms of content and time for their control task
  • Key figures are based on company-specific internal or external drivers and can be supplemented with comments if necessary
  • Consideration of the user experience through innovative devices, intuitive systems, and appealing design (combination of suitable tables, graphics and graphic elements)
  • System-supported and largely automated reporting processes and workflows
  • Fast, intelligent, and error-free provision of information through integrated and standardized data preparation.

Contact

Jürgen Diehm
Partner
Sebastian Braun
Partner
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