There are many "sexy" and exciting software improvements that you can make in the office of finance (sexy and exciting, of course, being relative terms!).
Shiny dashboards, for example. AI tools, of course, are everywhere all the time at the moment, and they get a lot of attention for being new and interesting.
But in my experience, the biggest actual benefits to the business often accrue in areas that are not quite so flashy or exciting - but which are big timesinks and are easily improved.
What I want you to take from this is twofold - first, appreciate the benefits of unsexy improvements, and second, when you're doing that, don't get blinded by pretty software.
Let's consider the context of managing a workflow.
Often, customers are not interested in talking about workflows - they want to see how users interact with, for example, a planning template, because they're excited about the possibilities of budgetholders having an easier time. But if you really think about your current problems, I'd say the chances are pretty solid that a lot of them are down to not having a workflow tool.
Spreadsheets flying around with no idea who's done what, versioning questions, shambolic reviews/approvals, businesses unable to say how far they are through their budgeting cycle. Problems not exclusively solved through workflow, but it is the first thing to look at - even though it might not be the most interesting topic to discuss.
(I'd say similar about basic ad-hoc reporting by the way - not exciting, but the ability to throw together numbers quickly often fixes a lot of issues, essentially immediately!)
In terms of not being blinded by beautiful fancy interfaces, this can be easier said than done. A clever software vendor will just suggest that some function - like our workflow example - is simply table stakes, flash up a shiny screen, move on to "the good stuff".
But not only is workflow good stuff, it is far from table stakes. Pretty software can mask poor functionality, very easily.
I've seen many, many lovely looking workflow features that are frankly quite useless in real life. One tool I've used has absolutely beautiful "to-do" type lists, but they have no dependency functionality at all - as in, this bit must be completed before that bit. And quite literally every process needs dependencies and ordering to actually work.
I got a bit excited about workflows there, but the point is a broad one. Don't assume that pretty interfaces will actually do what you need.
Now that I've written all that, I realise I don't actually mean you need to focus on the unsexy - what I'm really saying is: look past how exciting a technology is, and actually consider what it can do to improve your business.
And that requires that you first understand where your problems really are, and that you make sure any demos spend time on the functionality that will address those - regardless of whether it's the prettiest bit (or the bit the vendor wants to show you - which are often the same thing).
