Unique times indeed. As the future of work has rapidly evolved into the present day, companies are now being faced with an ultimatum of unique challenges. Those in accounting and finance who are still working, must now do everything they can to keep the lights on (remotely) while providing high-quality financial reporting and high-quality audits.

Given that how we work and where we work has changed as quickly as the global economy has, the FYIsoft community decided to come together to support its clients during this time of uncertainty. In order to navigate this challenging environment together, FYIsoft decided to hold a virtual user group conference to discuss, provide and share information on topics relative to FYIsoft’s suite of financial software products such as remote auditing, financial reporting considerations, forecasting, analytics and budgeting.

Throughout the course of this two hour “meeting,” moderators Grace Bolen, Jim Van Riper, Charles Schindo and Sev Onyshkevych, periodically asked and polled over 50 users on what their thoughts and opinions were. Here are 7 things we heard from you and what we’re doing about it:

• Automate the Close Process. You said you would like to see the close process automated. We agree and think this is a great idea! Given how critical invoice management is to the fiscal health of a company, why trust this process to manual methods? We get how important it is to have a real-time snapshot of your business’s financial status. Our focus is on making the close process easier and automated and we’re working on filling the couple of small gaps that will get us to a FULL financial close automation system.
• Cash Flow Planning is Important. When it comes to budgeting, you said that cash flow planning was important. Solid suggestion. No doubt companies value cash flow because it simply offers a clear distinction between what they owe and what they’re earning; and without it, a company may not be able to sustain its business model. Right now, we believe as you probably do, that this could have dire consequences. We’re pushing to add this feature in our next version.
• Enhanced Forecasting is Critical. 90% of our users have been affected by Covid-19 and because of that, nearly all said that financial analytics have never been more important. Understanding how critical forecasting is during uncertain times, our analytics solution was recently enhanced to include AI technology that can leverage GDP forecasts from leading analysts – by industry, and by quarter – to help our users develop revenue projections that are highly relevant and unique to their company at a time like this.
• Robust Reporting. The majority of you mentioned that you switched to ReportFYI because your existing reporting set-up was sub-standard. Understood. FYIsoft has been committed to delivering the best available cloud financial reporting software to our users from day one. Going forward, FYIsoft is further committed to providing to you everything you need to speed the creation and distribution of accurate, perfectly formatted financial statements.
• Better Budgeting. Virtually all of you said that you use Excel for budgeting. This is why we created BudgetFYi! It’s integration with actual reporting data provides pre-populated templates with as much (or as little) actual data as you desire such as prior year or YTD. In other words, you can accelerate the budget process right out of the gate that reflects actual data, relevant accounts, organization charts and any predefined targets.
• Analytics, Analytics and more Analytics. To a person, you all feel that financial analysis is the most important function to have in the FYIsoft suite of products. We agree! Knowing how important insights can be in helping businesses improve their profitability, cash flow, and value, can be the gamechanger for a lot of companies, especially now. We hear you and want you to know that continuously enhancing our financial analytics software is front of mind for everyone on the Dev team.
• You Can Never Have Enough Support. So true and now more than ever. With FYIsoft, we realized early on that customer support would be the “thing” that would make or break our product and thus we have strived to be better than anyone else in servicing our customer base. We need the product to be great but in order to succeed, we need the support of that product to be second to none and we’re doing that! We thank you for letting us know that out customer support team is on point.

As we continue to modernize the finance and accounting function to further enable our users with greater productivity and better tools to do an already complex job, our commitment to our customers will not only allow them to manage the demands of today’s disruptive and unprecedented dynamic business environment, but it will also allow them to move beyond outdated accounting processes and point solutions, and empower their teams to work smarter and more efficiently. If you are interested in learning more about FYIsoft and or its User Group Conference in October in Naples Florida, click here.