15 Best Financial Management Software 2024
Get a complete and accurate view of the financial health of your company using state-of-the-art technology and help your business thrive.
Manufacturing ERP Explained:
An Overview of Financial Management
Financial Management is a broader concept that involves various processes intended to align a company’s financial position with its long-term strategic goals and objectives. It involves deep strategic planning, analysis, and management of the company’s finances, in addition to evaluating the allocation of existing funds.
The goal of Financial Management is to safeguard the company’s financial health, increase shareholder wealth, find high-income opportunities for investments, make timely & informed decisions, and increase the financial stability & profitability of the business. According to a research report by Allied Market Research, the financial planning software market is forecasted to reach $16.9 Billion by 2031 at a CAGR of 16.6%. Different factors are driving the growth including financial awareness, and the need for financial & compliance solutions among the SMEs.
Definition of Financial Management Software
Financial Management Software is an end-to-end system of financial management that consolidates financial data and empowers businesses with a comprehensive set of financial tools to support long-term financial sustainability and growth.
ERP Software automates various functionalities such as invoice generation, billing, cash flow optimization, maintaining audit trails, and complying with government regulations. It is a comprehensive system that empowers modern-day businesses with powerful planning, forecasting, financial reporting, and budgeting capabilities.
What Are Different Components of Financial Management Software?
Corporate Accounting
This component involves streamlining various day-to-day financial operations such as the generation of the company’s leader accounts, maintaining Accounts Receivable (AR) and Accounts Payable (AP), and managing payrolls, among others. Replacing manual data entry with automation improves accuracy and efficiency.
Treasury Management
Companies have to deal with financial, reputational, and operational risks. Making long-term and futuristic decisions may not be possible without assessing these risks. Treasury Management is a key component that helps with managing these risks. Your business can benefit from a simplified reconciliation, optimum investment returns, and healthy credit lines.
Financial Planning
Financial Planning involves various activities such as auditable revenue management, multi-scenario planning and collaboration, cost analysis, and expense management. All of these collectively help boost financial transparency and establish trust with external stakeholders such as shareholders, vendors, and government bodies.
Compliance Management
Changing regulatory framework poses a significant risk for businesses of any type. Compliance Management enables them to identify and mitigate various regulatory risks at different levels within the same organization, and multiple branches and subsidies. Effective use of this component helps minimize uncertainties, better control over business operations, and maintain audit trails.
Asset Management
Fixed Asset Management System is another important component that helps businesses track asset worth and working capacity, and track down unproductive assets. With the best financial management tool, they can calculate the depreciation of assets based on their wear and tear. Ultimately, they benefit from increased Return on Investment (ROI) and lower costs.
Collections Management
With so many modern-day businesses giving EMI fixed installment options to their customers, Collections Management is not necessarily limited to only banking and non-banking financial businesses. It allows businesses to establish different collection strategies, manage late-stage collections, keep a detailed log, and make use of highly efficient communication tools.
Employee Expenditures Management
A company selling television sets may require its technicians to perform site visits at customers’ homes for problem identification and repair. During such visits, the technicians may incur traveling, food, and other out-of-pocket expenses. This component provides an easy interface for paperless management of submissions, approvals, and reimbursement of expenditures, alongside fraud detection and automated report generation.
Multi-dimensional Reporting Tools
Financial Management System provides multi-dimensional reporting tools for obtaining meaningful insights into the operational performance of the company and benefiting from data visualization features. These multi-dimensional reporting and analytical tools ensure your business aligns with the predefined organizational objectives and manages risks effectively.
Income Management
Income Management provides comprehensive billing and payment management and automates compliance with various auditing standards. With better compliance with internal and external auditing, the company can prevent legal challenges from occurring due to non-compliance. It will benefit from risk mitigation and identification of financial vulnerabilities.
Risk Management
The Risk Management component deals with fraud identification, risk awareness, and identification. With a risk awareness plan in place, businesses will be in a better position to identify and address risks on time and take corrective measures. Businesses that engage in risk identification and prevention are more likely to prevent disruptive events, financial losses, and irreversible damage to their reputation.
Which Modern Technologies Are Incorporated in the Finance Module in ERP?
Cloud Storage
Financial Management Systems often hold user data on the superior cloud technological architecture that securely stores business data on remote servers and makes it accessible throughout different locations and devices. With the cloud, employees can access it in real-time no matter where they live, work, or the nature of the device they use. With better access to organization-wide data in real-time, businesses can experience accuracy in their decisions, and higher revenue growth.
Artificial Intelligence
The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) empowers businesses with automation which minimizes human errors. It enables trend identification, and scenario comparison, and brings accuracy to business decisions. AI algorithms are an effective tool that modern-day businesses can leverage for a variety of day-to-day tasks such as data analysis, risk identification, and portfolio optimization.
Robotic Process Automation
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) automates various higher-level tasks such as tax preparation, identifying patterns in data sources, and employee payroll management, which results in time and cost efficiency. The increasing use of RPA enables companies to resolve operational complexities, prepare to deal with uncertainties, adapt to market changes, and optimize workflow.
Blockchain Technology
The use of Blockchain technology allows businesses to benefit from improved authenticity, security, and transparency, and adopt effective risk management strategies. Blockchain allows businesses to leverage mutualized standards from superior credit reporting. Through the use of blockchain, they can also lower the cost of issuers.
Modern Futuristic Capabilities of Financial Management
Highly-reliable Cloud Infrastructure
The finance module in ERP stores your data on highly secure and reliable cloud infrastructures. Your data is protected with industry-grade encryption algorithms. These servers offer a large storage volume with low latency and higher read-write speed.
High-velocity Scalability
Your business benefits from the high-velocity scalability of ERP servers. These high-volume servers can be adjusted to meet the peak-time requests through more resources. They offer optimum performance no matter the situation.
Exceptional Instantaneous Reporting
Businesses that use spreadsheets suffer from the problem of fragmented reporting. They lack integration between different spreadsheets and suffer from the problem of obsolete data and data fragmentation. Financial Management software brings instantaneous reporting, and ad-hoc reporting so that businesses can meet their planned strategies and become agile.
Financial Agility
Government rules and regulations keep changing from time to time. Companies have to keep updated to avoid fines, penalties, and reputational damage. The finance module in ERP helps you focus on your work while making sure your business stays agile with new regulatory changes.
Modern User Interface
ERP is an out-of-the-box solution that delivers a modern and user-friendly user interface to help you focus on your day-to-day operations, save time, and maximize productivity. The UI is updated from time to time to deliver new features.
Top-notch Business Solution
The finance module in ERP is a top-notch business solution that contains preconfigured modules and capabilities that cater to different business departments and functionaries. They provide consistent workflow in all activities across your company.
Artificial Intelligence
The use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is powering up modern ERPs. With AI, businesses get better decision-making power and personalized recommendations. It transforms the traditional way of business activities.
Richly-detailed Financial Reports
Decision-makers get access to richly detailed and customized financial reports that drill down your data and provide powerful visualization. They can monitor costs, control expenditures, and make timely and informed decisions.
Data Analytics
The adoption of Data Analytics helps businesses derive meaningful insights by analyzing historical data. It uncovers anomalies, market trends, and patterns by examining historical data which helps make informed decisions to save costs, and increase agility.
Benefits of Implementing a Financial Management Software
Heightened Accuracy
For any company, accuracy and consistency in the financial operations is paramount. The finance module in ERP reduces paperwork and automates various financial operations. Your business gains consistency in the data, reduces accounting errors, and eliminates potential penalties for non-compliance.
Adapt to Regulatory Standards
The finance module in ERP plays a transformative role when it comes to financial management. It keeps track of all the latest regulatory requirements and helps your business adapt to them. It is a right-fit product that helps your business stay compliant with current and future regulatory standards.
Data Security
The best finance management software provides a secure environment for storing sensitive data. It protects your data at rest and in transit using industry-standard cryptographic algorithms. Moreover, it provides role-based Access Control permissions and the ability to detect suspicious activity.
Consolidated Financial Data
These days, companies operate at a global level. They may have headquarters in one country, and branches in another. ERP in Financial Management consolidates financial data across all sources into a single place, whether inter-company, inter-plant, or inter-division. It ensures that everyone has access to the same and accurate information.
Remote Accessibility
ERP financial management software uses cloud technology to store the business online. As the data is stored on the vendor’s servers, it is accessible to all employees from any location, and device of their choice. It eliminates duplication and the need to transfer data from one computer to another.
Analytical Tools
Businesses need access to real-time and accurate data to make informed decisions. ERP financial management software converts structured and non-structured data into easy-to-readable forms, intuitive charts, and reports which helps decision-makers understand the impact of future decisions, predict risks, and identify opportunities.
Financial Automation
The best finance management software brings financial automation. It automates the generation of financial reports, tax preparations, and payroll management, among others. It frees up the employees to spend more time on productive tasks. Overall, it brings efficiency to the organizational work and reduces the time required to perform the tasks.
Strategic Financial Planning
The finance module in ERP facilitates financial planning, forecasting, and budgeting. Its performance reporting capabilities enable companies to measure business performance at various levels, keep up with planned strategies, and effectively plan and implement their future course of strategy. With access to company-wide aggregate data, financial teams are in a better position to make reliable plans.
Why Do Modern Businesses Require the Finance Module in ERP?
A Financial Management System allows modern businesses to evaluate business performance. If the business is performing better, the system will help with better strategic planning to grow it further. If the business is operating at a loss, it will help you understand what factors could be contributing to it, and how to recover from it.
Furthermore, the best finance management software helps you with limiting your expenditures. You can plan taxes, and employee benefits, and perform Cash Flow Analysis to ensure you have sufficient cash to meet the everyday business expenditures.
It ensures the availability of an adequate supply of funds
It ensures optimum resource utilization of the financial assets
It ensures a stable capital structure throughout the organization
It ensures equilibrium between equity financing and debt financing
It helps effectively plan strategies for a higher ROI on investments
It ensures the safety of organizational investments
It ensures optimum returns on shareholders’ profits
How is a Financial Management System Different than an ERP?
The Financial Management System and ERP differ in various aspects. Here is a tabular comparison of their features:
Financial Management System | Enterprise Resource Planning | |
|---|---|---|
Scope | Focuses on solely managing financial operations
| Focuses on managing pan-company-wide processes |
Objective | Facilitate financial planning, budgeting, and forecasting | Provide greater visibility, facilitate strategic planning, streamline workflow |
Example | Financial Analytics, Reporting, Multi-currency Transactions, etc. | Finance, Quality Control, Sales, Human Resources, Production, Inventory, Supply Chain, etc. |
Implementation Complexity | It is fast and comparatively easier to deploy | It is complex, resource-intensive, and affects various business operations |
Upgrades | Mostly focused on financial changes and regulatory compliances | Focused on a wide range of business operations and their regulatory implications |
Cost | It is a cost-effective alternative for companies that need access to only financial features | It is costly and complex with an extensive set of features |
How Beneficial is a Financial Management System Integrated with ERP?
A Financial Management System integrated with an ERP facilitates access to mission-critical tools that facilitate real-time and accurate data with powerful insights, visualizations, and intuitive charts & reports. It provides a pan-company-wide integration to facilitate workflow automation. It eliminates manual data entry and allows identification of the source of the error and taking corrective measures.
A Financial Management System integrated with ERP provides a higher degree of control over a company’s finances and operations. With the powerful modules and capabilities provided by ERP, the company gets in a better position to track its financial assets, and their performance, and limit expenditures.
15 Best Financial Management Software 2024
1. Sage X3
Sage X3 is an all-encompassing solution that allows businesses to take effective control of their core business processes and benefit from flexibility, usability, and performance. It offers a host of features including Accounts Payable Automation & Receivables, invoice generation, and financial planning features. It is designed to automate both internal and external workflows. It provides a host of configuration options, role-based user profiles, and customized dashboards.
Features:
- Demand visibility and efficient sales handling based on historical data
- Optimal efficiency in the supply chain operations with supply chain management tools
- Smart and robust Inventory Management System
- Intelligent price management features to adequately meet market requirements
- Consolidated financial reporting and multiple reporting & customized dashboards
- Automate and control processes including purchase requisition
- Tailored and flexible deployment options
2. Sage Intacct
Sage Intacct is one of the most popular and highly reliable Cloud ERP tools available that help you transform your business dynamics and gain competitive advantage. As the best Finance Management Software, it is suitable for small and mid-sized companies who want to leverage its extensive capabilities to automate financial operations, limit costs, and gain competitive advantage. It encompasses Order Management, Cash Management, Maintenance Management System, and General Ledger, among others.
Features
- Unparalleled data visibility to identify data flows, patterns, and trends
- Advanced reporting capabilities to plan and adapt to changing conditions
- Fully customizable interface to meet specific business and industry needs
- Comprehensive management of Accounts Payable Automation & Receivables
- End-to-end tracking and recording of lease transactions
- Time and expenditure management
- Comply with regulatory bodies and reduce penalties
3. Cube
Cuber finance software exclusively caters to only small businesses and startups. It is a nice-to-have Financial Management software that offers amazing compatibility with Excel spreadsheets, and Google Sheets. If your business operates at an international level, there is a multi-currency feature as well. ERP in financial management comes with powerful Multi-scenario Analysis capabilities that allow you to compare different scenarios before making financial decisions.
Features
- Offers advanced analytical features and Data Visualization
- Highly scalable and customizable interface
- Provides excellent collaboration tools to facilitate teamwork
- Powerful budgeting and data forecasting features to make accurate predictions
- Integration with external systems for real-time data exchange
- The UI is beginner-friendly and intuitive
- Supports strategic planning across multi-companies
4. Vena
Vena is a complete financial solution targeted for Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs). It comes with automation capabilities, powerful financial planning, advanced analytics, and budgeting tools. Financial Managers can perform What-if Analysis, and streamline their collaboration features to make timely & informed decisions.
Features
- Offers powerful data integration, budgeting, and forecasting features
- Facilitates workflow automation that uses rule-based logic
- Audit trail to trace the origin of financial activities and identification of potential frauds
- Email integration
- Project, production, and payroll management
- Customizable dashboards
- Advanced security features
5. Workday Adaptive Planning
Workday Adaptive Planning is a robust finance management tool that comes with consolidated reporting, operational planning, workforce planning, and visualization features. It is powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), which allows businesses to leverage powerful forecasting features.
Features
- Scenario Comparison to identify potential outcomes before making financial decisions
- Integration capabilities with third-party ERPs and legacy systems
- Up-to-the-minute insights
- Intuitive charts and reports
- Pan-organization operational planning
- Plan, budget, and forecast
- Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial intelligence (AI)-driven insights
6. Anaplan
Anaplan is another alternative that provides complete visibility into the company’s financial operations so that decision-makers can focus on strategic tasks relating to finance, operations, customer support, and marketing. Its pre-build “What-if” scenario planning tool enables your organization to determine potential outcomes before making policy decisions.
Features
- Strong and accurate predictive analytics
- Handle routines for employees such as hours, benefits, payroll, and compliance
- Reduce risks, and maximize profits with powerful Demand Planning
- Predictive AI and state-of-the-art technology
- End-to-end forecasting
- Predictive intelligence tools
- Operational planning
7. Prophix
Prophix is another finance management tool that automates various operations such as planning, forecasting, budgeting, and reporting. It provides a seamless way to extract data from General Ledger, automate complex financial calculations, plan capital expenditures, convert currencies, Accounts Receivable Automation, and perform Profitability Analyses.
Features
- Excellent financial reporting, planning, and budgeting features
- Multi-currency support
- Audit trail
- Financial consolidation
- Workflow automation
- Excellent automation capabilities
- Intercompany management
8. Oracle Essbase
Oracle Essbase is a complex financial management solution that provides a best-in-class architecture for multi-dimensional analysis. It comes with a host of templates to start from. With a single interface, employees can create and share ad hoc models, and collaborate in teams. It provides excellent data backup, data migration, and data monitoring features.
Features
- Instantaneous analytics
- Intuitive charts and customizable dashboards
- Extensive set of predictive modeling tools
- Multidimensional data modeling
- Powerful & highly accurate What-if Scenario analysis
- Integration with Microsoft Excel, legacy, and ERPs
- Provides an autonomous database and complex hierarchical modeling
9. Xero
Xero is a cloud-based tool specifically targeted for only small and medium-sized businesses. It doesn’t support large businesses with complex operations. Xero is cross-compatible. Meaning, you can use it on computers, tablets, and mobiles with just an Internet connection. You can create invoices from predefined templates, categorize bank transactions, schedule recurring payments to your vendors, and much more.
Features
- Supports automated billing and invoicing
- Generation of Bank reconciliation Statements
- Remote accessibility with a mobile application
- highly integrated with third-party tools
- It provides an intuitive and beginner-friendly interface
- Expenditure tracking
- Payroll management
10. Zoho Finance Plus
Zoho Finance Plus is one of the popular financial management tools available online. It provides a GST-compliant unified payment system to generate GST-compliant invoices from hundreds of beautiful templates. You can personalize those templates and choose your desired localized payment gateway (such as UPI, credit card, debit card, net banking, cheques, and cash) for receiving your payments. Zoho makes it easier to manage multiple projects and keep track of the customer’s invoices.
Features
- The finance module in ERP provides an extensive set of accounting features
- Invoice generation and expense management
- Robust financial reporting with email alerts
- Access to automation and workflow management tools
- Supports execution of custom functions
- Supports multiple currencies throughout the world
11. Acumatica Cloud ERP
Acumatica Cloud ERP is an affordable modern financial management tool that provides a single, unified interface to integrate different departmental functions. It enables payroll processing, eCommerce integration, resource optimization, tax management, and vendor & customer relationship management, among others.
Features
- Encompasses Financial Management, Project Accounting, and Reporting & Analysis
- Facilitates Workflow Automation
- Customizable dashboards
- Cloud-based mobile app
- Create personalized dashboards, reports, inquiries
- Cyber security features- data encryption, access control
- Safe and easy backup to deal with data emergencies
12. Oracle NetSuite
Oracle NetSuite is a financial management software that acts as the central repository of your company’s financial information. The finance module in ERP integrates various business operations such as finance, manufacturing, supply chain, e-commerce integration, invoice generation, and customer relations. NetSuite also powers businesses with a global presence with its real-time currency conversion features, local tax rate calculations, and VAT-based tax report generation.
Features
- A single platform for unified business management
- Extremely scalable and feature-rich software
- Provides e-commerce integration
- Global business management
- Highly powerful analytical features
- Supports key business operations
- A wide range of tools to establish pan-organization-wide visibility
13. QuickBooks
QuickBooks is another accounting and financial tool that facilitates a single system to track your assets, liabilities, and billable expenditures. It supports tracking of current and past bills, employee time & expenditures, and effectively managing relations with your customers.
Features
- Cash Flow Management
- Extensive integration with third-party legacy tools
- User-friendly interface
- Bank Reconciliation
- The finance module in ERP streamlines tax preparation
- Comprehensive expenditure tracking
14. FreshBooks
FreshBooks is a cloud-based financial management software that caters to small business owners who want to get a complete snapshot of their financial reports and revenues and receive payments through different mediums. It provides an easy interface to toggle between different reports, and a sidebar on the left to track expenditures.
Features
- Advanced billing and invoicing
- Robust inventory handling, expenditure Management & Tracking tools
- Robust integration with third-party solutions
- Data collaboration and excellent project management tools
- Cloud integrity with mobile application
- Employee time tracking
- Multi-currency support with finance module in ERP
15. SAP Business One
SAP Business One is a complete Business Management Software that provides robust integration with SAP-ecosystem products. It integrates different business functions such as purchases, sales, inventory management, and customer relationship management, among others. finance module in ERP provides a system to oversee different business operations, reduce human errors, and streamline operations to improve efficiency.
Features
- Built-in Business Intelligence Tools
- Advanced customizability
- Integration with Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- Service management
- Sales Management System with advanced analytics and reporting
- Bank Reconciliation
- Efficient marketing campaign management
Important Parameters to Choose the Best Finance Management Software
Data Security
In today’s era, businesses are moving from paper to digital data and the cloud. Thus, cybercriminals are looking for ways to steal confidential business information. A good Financial Management software should use industry-grade encryption technology to protect your data during transit and at rest and protect business secrets.
Ease of Use
The accounting management solution should have an easy-to-use and intuitive interface. The difficult interface could require extensive training which could eat up many work hours that could be used for productive purposes. Moreover, your company will spend a lot of money on additional support services.
Scalability
Scalability is the ability of your Financial Management software to expand with growing business operations. As your business expands from the local to the global level, so should your ERP. The finance module in ERP should accommodate new data and growing operational needs without impacting its performance and efficiency.
Remote Accessibility
Modern businesses are leveraging cloud technology to gain access to their data at any time and eliminate upfront hardware costs associated with the traditional On-premise ERP. Choose an ERP that stores your data on the cloud so that you can access it from any device and location at any time.
Budget Allocation
The cost of Financial Management Software may depend on several factors such as the modules offered, the level of customization required, the nature of your industry, your company size, the number of users who will be using the system, and other add-on services. Make sure that it aligns with your budget.
Implementation Time
Different ERPs may take different time to implement throughout the organization. Choose a Financial Management software that takes relatively less time to implement to avoid disruptions in normal business activities and potential risks. A good Financial Management software should support deploying it across the organization in a phased manner.
Top Industries We Serve
Food & Beverage
Alcohol
Pharmaceuticals
Packaging
IT Services
Furniture
Chemical
Logistics
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Financial Management All About?
Financial Management is a continuous process of administering a company’s financial activities and wealth through strategic planning, organizing, directing, and controlling its financial resources. It involves various activities such as analyzing capital requirements, allocating and raising adequate capital funding, performing debt-equity analysis, and budgeting, among others.
What Are the Skills Required for Effective Financial Management?
Financial management is a complex process that plays a vital role in the development and growth of the company. As such, financial managers and finance teams are required to possess the following skills:
- Integrity towards his/ her work
- Communication and leadership skills
- Strong analytical ability to derive fact-based conclusions
- Strategic planning, decision-making, and budgeting skills
- Creative approach and the willingness to learn new things
- Know-how about the latest happenings, and emerging technologies in the industry
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