What is Finance, Accounting, Controlling and Procurement?

Finance represents core processes for any company, and successful management and execution of the finance processes are a necessity, if a company wants to succeed and grow.

IT and finance have been closely linked for decades with ERP and Business Intelligence as key connectors, and this linkage grows tighter and tighter for every year. In the IT area, we have seen an increasing usage of experts from the freelance market for many years, and, currently, we experience the same trend for finance positions.

In Right People Group, we believe that the finance area in the next decade will be heavily affected by the advances in technology. Many processes in finance are still manually carried out, even though they are highly “rule-driven”.

Looking at the advancements in Artificial Intelligence fields, like pattern recognition and machine learning, we believe that most of these processes will be made fully automatic in the years to come.

But wait! – Before we get all carried away talking about AI and drawing up big lines for the future, let us first make sure we understand the basics.

We will start by looking at the financial statement, which is the core document that summarizes the financial situation of a company. The below video gives a short and precise explanation of the key components in the financial statement.

Role of the CFO

The CFO is overall in charge of Finance and the role contains many different elements. To be a successful CFO, it is crucial to have complete control of the basics such as accounting, compliance and forecasting, and at the same time to work on a strategic level and be a part of forming the company strategy.

Finance vs. Accounting

The exact difference between accounting and finance can be blurry for some. Very roughly, accounting is focused on documenting the past and finance is focused on optimizing the future. But this guy explains it better than we do:

Accounting and different roles in accounting

Accounting is a core process in all companies. When Right People Group delivers accounting professionals, these 3 roles are the most common:

• Tax Accountant
• Financial Accountant
• Management Accountant

The video below gives an introduction to accounting and explains exactly these 3 areas:

Controlling and types of controllers

In our experience, the controller role in enterprise companies is becoming more and specialized and we see an increasing demand for external experts for these roles. Right People Group most often delivers these 3 archetypes of controllers:

• Business Controller
• Financial Controller
• Project Controller

Let us take a step towards understanding controlling and the actual tasks of a controllers:

Procurement

In Right People Group we feel strongly about procurement. We think it is often an overlooked discipline in in which there is a huge potential for creating amazing business results.

Think about it: The internet has created transparency on a global level, meaning that within a short timeframe, you can research what products and service are available. When you have a certain business strategy, the procurement discipline can bring in the “building blocks” you don’t already have available to realize the business strategy.

This also means that you should not base your strategy on what you have, but instead on what you have and what you can procure in the market. It sounds obvious, but we often see that companies are limited by what they think they can get, because they are underestimating the power of the market.

Right People Group is exactly about that. We are highly specialized in the procurement of external consultants. We know that when you bring in the exact right competences in the right context, then you can create extreme results – and that is exactly what we are here to do.

To understand the more generic procurement process on a basic level, watch the below video that takes its starting point in the difference between purchasing and procurement:

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Do you need help with your Finance ?

Send us an email at info@rightpeoplegroup.com for a CV and hourly rate of a finance expert who matches your project and requirements. You can also read more about our services in this field under Accounting Professionals, Financial Management, Tax Professionals or Controlling.