Proformative hosted a webinar titled, “Technology Webinar Series: SaaS Consolidation & Reporting.” This webinar is presented by Mike Leese at Host Analytics, a company dedicated to providing top-level and current analysis on a diverse range of areas. His expertise is apparent throughout the webinar, but the content is especially substantive and useful in certain areas.
Summary
The webinar focuses heavily on what’s known as “the close,” or the finishing of an interaction where all conditions have been met, documents executed and made binding, and a transaction is officially complete. Fortunately, according to Leese, the modern era has brought along incredible new solutions which will allow financial enterprises to close more efficiently, more accurately, and overall more effectively than ever before.
While the webinar deals with SaaS consolidation and reporting in general, as well as other topics, it does demonstrate Leese’s home company of Host Analytics and their cloud-based closing and disclosing application.
Cloud-Based Software
Leese begins the webinar by speaking about the cloud. Cloud solutions and software as a service are relatively new concepts, and even Leese was skeptical of their usability. But he quickly began to fully appreciate the way that cloud software can dramatically decrease costs.
He goes on to outline how on-site software solutions require time and labor-intensive processes like installation, security updates, additional software patches and updates—all these things require time and effort as well as significant money. Additionally, those on-premises solutions require intensive expertise because of their complicated nature. With cloud-based solutions, everything is streamlined, instantly available and easy to use while constantly updating to adapt to new needs and issues.
The cloud also allows for accessibility—all that’s required of you is a device to log in, and all of your information and capabilities are right in front of you.
SaaS and How It Can Help You
Over the course of the webinar, Leese goes on to highlight 3 primary areas where cloud-based solutions and SaaS can positively transform companies for the better and help to streamline otherwise time-intensive and potentially costly operations.
Improved Internal Controls for Financial Statements—Leese highlights the ability to create accurate financial statements based on readily-available data thanks to cloud solutions. With systems like SalesForce or eFileCabinet, many of the records you require are right at your fingertips anywhere in the world, allowing your company to streamline the production of financial statements across the board.
Consolidation when dealing with various entities and currencies—A unified and cloud-based solution also allows you to streamline and consolidate everything you need to, whether you operate internationally and have to deal with diverse currencies, or if you interact with multiple organizations on a daily basis. Cloud-based solutions can create a central system for dealing with issues that might have once required multiple departments, plans, and frameworks to effectively handle.
Seamless disclosure management—With effective content management and analysis software, disclosures can be created, edited, securely stored, and shared with a few simple keystrokes, which can dramatically reduce man hours. That’s the power of SaaS.
Better Budgeting and Forecasting—SaaS and cloud-based solutions have finally taken much of the guesswork out of budgeting and forecasting for the future. Rather than relying on gut instincts and hard-to-pin-down factors, the ready availability of data has never been greater.
Addressing Security Fears with the Cloud
Leese makes a point to address some concerns that the cloud might not be a safe place to store information. Some people believe that using a third-party software system that stores information in the cloud is unsafe. However, he argues that SaaS organizations spend each and every day ensuring security and safety because they recognize that it’s their business—a company could not survive if it didn’t offer advanced security measures and robust safety precautions when dealing with data.
Conclusion
Ultimately, Mike Leese says that resisting the wave of cloud-based software solutions is not only archaic and unproductive, it can lead to a failing business. Rather than dealing with stacks of various on-premises applications, constant needs for system updates, and slow-moving processes, Leese stresses the importance of moving forward into the future with cloud-based solutions in order to let them transform your enterprise for the better.