5 benefits of integrating Salesforce with your financial management solution

For today’s finance leaders, easy access to financial data from across the business is vital to help them make informed, strategic decisions. Yet all too often, many finance leaders struggle to obtain a consolidated view of their organisation’s finances.

Sage research reveals that 64% of Australian CFOs believe integrating financial and operational data is the most challenging aspect of their job.[1]

For many organisations, the lack of data integration is no more challenging than between the finance and sales departments. Let’s take a look at why.

The problem with isolated technology platforms

Salesforce is the platform of choice for many sales teams. While the Salesforce CRM serves as a powerful tool to help them efficiently locate prospects, nurture leads, and close deals, it can also present a challenge.

For many organisations, their Salesforce CRM is isolated in the sales department. This means there’s an organisational obstacle preventing financial data from flowing seamlessly through to where it’s needed most – the finance team.

Benefits of integrating Salesforce with your financial management solution

A solution to overcoming this obstacle is by integrating Salesforce with your financial management solution. For instance, Sage Intacct integrates seamlessly with Salesforce. It takes just a few clicks to set up that pipeline and let data flow both ways between the two platforms.

For example, Salesforce quotes instantly translate into Sage Intacct orders to speed up quote-to-cash via automated workflows, and revenue recognition becomes far more refined once sales and accounting data automatically sync.

Here’s how integrating Salesforce with your financial management solution can benefit your finance and sales teams.

1. Eliminate manual data entry

Your finance team will no longer need to perform the time-consuming and error prone task of manually moving data from sales to finance. Both departments will be able to seamlessly exchange information.

2. Easily track the customer journey

Your organisation will gain visibility of the customer journey, from beginning to end. For example, an integrated Sage Intacct and Salesforce solution allows you to track prospects as they transition from prospect to client, without any interruption.

3. Access to real time data

Finance and sales will have a pipeline to share data between each other, which means everyone will have access to the most complete, current, and accurate data available. For example, integration between Sage Intacct and Salesforce means all users have access to the latest information about product inventory and price lists. Sales teams can verify prices in real time and see the timing and financial impact of revenues, renewals, upgrades, and more – all from within Salesforce.

4. Facilitate collaboration between finance and sales

Integrating the finance and sales departments means integrating the technology each runs on. When both teams are connected by technology and share critical data, it creates significant opportunity for collaboration. For example, with Salesforce Chatter embedded inside Sage Intacct, your sales and finance teams can readily communicate with each other.

5. Uncover new insights

Your finance team will gain a consolidate view of financial performance across both sales and finance. Once companies have visibility across departments, they can start to understand the good and the bad of financial performance holistically—and arguably accurately for the first time ever.

[1] CFO 3.0 – Digital Transformation beyond Financial Management, Sage, 2019