Why Businesses Need Real-Time Data and Collaboration

By now, you’ve probably read about “cloud collaboration” at least a hundred times. Cloud collaboration seems to be the talk in every corner of the internet, at least in the entrepreneur’s sphere. All this talk is for good reason. Smooth collaboration fuels a productive workforce, and that’s especially important where financial collaboration is concerned.

To manage financial collaboration, companies use financial management software because it’s accurate. It’s the best (and perhaps the only) way to seamlessly manage your company’s finances with real-time data and collaboration at once. If your business isn’t using software that maintains real-time financial data, it’s time to consider making the switch.

Real-time data is the golden standard

In the business world, data is everything. You make all of your important decisions based on the data you collect and analyze from various sources. At the simplest level, you make purchase decisions based on your current cash flow and the potential ROI for that purchase. At a more detailed level, you might choose to invest in a partnership with another company based on data that shows you can be more profitable by working together.

No matter the situation, data is used to inform important business decisions. However, only accurate data will support making the right business decisions. The best way to ensure you’re working with accurate data is to make sure your sources are updated in real-time. This way, everyone from your company will always be looking at the same data and there’s no chance that it might be out-of-date.

Why real-time data matters

When your teams work with real-time data, they’ll be more efficient. Real-time data supports collaboration at a basic level because it keeps everyone on the same page at all times. There’s nothing worse than teams moving forward with a project based on outdated information. Not only does this increase the possibility of having to redo their work, but it wastes precious time and resources. The better you facilitate real-time collaboration with real-time data, the more efficient your teams will become.

Imagine going back about ten years before cloud-based software became the norm for financial management. You’d likely be using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to track your finances. Each time someone updates the spreadsheet, they’d have to save it as a new file with the current date before emailing it back to the source.

This seems like a decent process, but file names with dates aren’t good enough to ensure the right spreadsheet is being used to make decisions or crunch numbers. Wrong files are opened all the time, and how would anyone know if they’re missing the latest version?

Cloud-based financial tracking software eliminates all of these issues and provides several additional benefits. A huge benefit is better reporting.

Real-time data produces better reports

There’s another reason real-time data, specifically held in a cloud application, is important. Real-time data produces better reports. You can run reports at any time without having to wait for someone to officially update your financials. This makes it easy to run reports on the fly for clients, customers, project managers, and anyone else you may need to run a report for. You won’t have to send off a report with an explanation that the data isn’t completely up-to-date. Not sending off reports with up-to-date information can be a deal breaker for some clients.

Your reports will also be more thorough when your data is updated in real-time. You can run detailed reports with parameters that are important just for the report’s intended purpose and it will be the most accurate version of that report at the time.

Real-time data means less updating

You can only crunch numbers manually to a certain extent. When your financials are updated automatically based on all of your financial input anywhere in the application, it saves you tons of time. All of your numbers will adjust accordingly without any extra effort.

Are you using real-time data in your business?

Do you prioritize using software that maintains real-time data? If not, now is a great time to incorporate this element into your business strategy. You’ll avoid unnecessary mistakes, maintain a clearer picture of where you are, and team members will make better business decisions.