Why Manufacturers Should Integrate Financials into Their ERP

Walter Little | Product Manager

Third in a Series – Integrating Financial Management

There’s no doubt your ERP houses an abundance of information that keeps your manufacturing operations running on a daily basis. Whether it’s financials, cash flow, inventory, or supply chain data, connecting your financial systems with your ERP can better guide your teams through the critical decisions that impact your bottom line.

In this third article of our ERP Integrations series, we will examine the many benefits that manufacturing businesses can realize by using Strategic’s Financial Integration solutions.

Time to Automate Financial Operations

Too many finance and accounting teams find themselves manually extracting financial data from their legacy business systems. If this scenario sounds familiar, you’re not alone. A Forrester study found that nearly 50% of companies rely on spreadsheets to perform audits and controls that management relies on for financial transparency, risk assessment, and compliance. Beyond tedious, this practice results in both delays and reporting inaccuracies.

If you’re relying on spreadsheets to pull reports together, you’re likely overlooking valuable information that is costing your business money. Luckily, Strategic Information Group offers integrated financial solutions for your ERP that can provide your organization with a competitive advantage.

Turnkey Integration Solutions

Strategic has developed seamless integrations that manufacturers can use to get the most out of their financial systems. From leading financial automation companies Concur, Coupa, and OANDA, to Strategic’s Enterprise Banking Solution (EBS), manufacturers have several turnkey ways to connect banking data with their QAD ERP. Additionally, our deep understanding of QAD’s data structure accelerates time-to-value with pre-built connectors, standards integrations, and content packs to get you timely, meaningful data from day one.

• OANDA (Currency Converter): Gain ready access to OANDA, the world leader in currency data solutions and trading technology with Strategic’s OANDA Foreign Exchange Rate Interface. The Interface allows you to automatically load foreign currency exchange rates into QAD and import exchange rates following any schedule you define. It removes the need to manually enter data and eliminates clerical errors, all with a turnkey module that’s easy to set up and administer.

• Concur (Expense Management): Using Strategic’s Concur-to-QAD Adaptor delivers seamless integration with the leading travel, expense, and invoice management solution. It ensures general ledger financial information is properly captured, enabling you to achieve faster data synchronization of expense line items between Concur and QAD. This expedites reimbursement processes and ensures your employees get paid faster. It even eliminates the duplicate errors so common with manual entry.

• Coupa (Spend Management): With Strategic’s QAD API for Coupa, you gain seamless integration with the leading spend management solution that empowers organizations with the visibility and control to spend smarter and safer. The API for Coupa enables you to gain coordinated control over your procurement, invoicing, and expense management.

• Enterprise Banking Solutions (EBS): Strategic’s Enterprise Banking Solution is a collection of high-efficiency banking processes that enable you to automate certain banking transactions and complement QAD financial workflows. From ACH and wire transfers to direct debit, bank statement imports, and more Strategic EBS can help reduce manual work, gain efficiencies, and minimize the risk of human error. Specifically, Strategic EBS:

  • Transfers financial data using advanced encryption and bi-directional communication

  • Adapts quickly to requirement changes

  • Streamlines workflow with built-in approvals and email notifications

  • Supports more document types, handling a wide array of banking processes

  • Provides flexible purchase options and free upgrades

• Strategic EBS offers seamless access to your banking data from leading institutions including:

  • JP Morgan Chase

  • Bank of America

  • HSBC

  • Wells Fargo

  • Citibank

  • Bank of the West

  • Fifth Third Bank

  • Huntington Bank

  • Silicon Valley Bank

  • PNC

Talk to Strategic

If you are looking for fast ROI, streamlined business processes, better resource utilization, and increased business agility that delivers a competitive advantage, ERP financial integrations for QAD are an excellent choice. Talk with us to learn more and find out which of our solutions is right for you.