An Unprecedented Time in Business
Big and small businesses alike have been indelibly impacted by the fallout from COVID-19 and global stock market valuations, geopolitical tensions, and supply chain issues. According to PwC, “while overall deal volumes in 2022 were below the record-breaking 65,000 deals in 2021, they remained 9% above pre-pandemic levels.” This is because deals made in uncertain times often are more successful.
As more companies are considering or completing M&A transactions, it’s important to consider all steps necessary to combine two organizations successfully. Mergers and acquisitions are notoriously messy. Integrating two business cultures, two sets of potentially redundant employees, two disparate operating systems, two brands, etc., can be exhausting for both organizations. Many M&A transactions lead to unforeseen costs, especially if their accounts payable and receivable systems are poorly integrated. It opens the door to confusion about financial metrics and reporting; employees leave, and institutional knowledge is lost.
Start with Your Spend
To remedy this, when companies are considering a merger or acquisition, they should also consider AP automation investments to enhance visibility within the new combined organization and create opportunities to eliminate previously manual and inconsistent processes. Once automation is synchronized and the two companies’ financial systems are one, you now have human capital to take on more high-value tasks, lessen stress within the ranks, and focus on being good partners to vendors.
When introducing AP automation after a merger or acquisition, several benefits materialize:
- Redundancies in financial processes, software, or vendors occur
- Expenses can be better aligned with vendor volume insight
- Duplicate expenses, such as memberships, tools, or software costs, are more easily identified
Experts Agree
According to Accenture, “When two companies merge, integrating their Finance functions is a major imperative. Variations in financial standards and procedures can prevent the merged entity’s Finance function from effective daily operations, impacting both internal and external stakeholders. Integration of this key function is also time-sensitive: the entity’s leaders, not to mention investors, demand consolidated financial statements with earnings and projections as soon as possible. Additionally, a merger cannot achieve many potential gains without committed support from Finance.”
Both parties involved in the merger or acquisition need to have detailed plans beforehand. They must continue meeting their financial commitments. These commitments can include reporting and earnings guidance for stock exchanges, compliance agencies, financial institutions and investors; internal reporting for management; billing, collections and cash applications for customers; and invoice receipt and payment for vendors.
The Path to Success
The Institute for Mergers, Acquisitions and Alliances lays out 10 critical success factors for finance function integration:
Planning
- Define the future-state operating model.
- Assess potential synergies and assign ownership and tracking responsibilities.
- Establish the “must haves” for Day One.
- Establish the “like to haves” for Day One, taking lead time into account.
Resources
- Announce the Finance leadership for the new company.
- Identify key people and the risk of their exit, and work to minimize loss.
- Set full-time integrators in Finance to drive the process and deploy reliable resources as needed to backfill them in operating the daily aspects of Finance.
Implementation
- Set details, clear milestones and manage accordingly.
- Work closely with IT for the Day One and future-state framework.
- Build momentum for a larger transformation of Finance.
Close Well
No matter the integration plan, automation will undoubtedly play a part. Which processes get automated, become “must haves” versus “like to haves”, will vary from case to case. Thankfully, financial process automation can be done quickly, and the merger or acquisition doesn’t need to be held up for process automation planning and implementation to take place.
Not only can the right AP automation system provide detailed analytics that can help your finance team address many of the issues above, but you will also have access to analytics that offer you an overall view of expenses. The right AP automation partner can give you a quick, big-picture view of your finances while also making your workflow more efficient.
Selecting a financial tech partner to facilitate process optimizations across the organization can be difficult. Choosing one that provides training and eases the minds of the already stressed employees is imperative. This will reduce turnover among the Finance Team. Accenture stresses the return on investment in the automation of financial processes: “Only through proper investment in process and system automation, such as integrating financial and management reporting processes and tools, can the cost of Finance be reduced, service levels to the business be optimized, and finance function synergies be realized.”
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