As your company grows, so do the risks of doing business. More employees mean that you can’t watch over every transaction. New markets and expanded product lines mean additional regulations and compliance requirements. To maintain control of the risks that naturally follow growth, you need the audit trails and formal business processes that an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system can deliver.
The risk of fraud
According to a study by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, 77% of all frauds occur in one of six departments:
- operations
- accounting
- sales
- upper management
- customer service
- purchasing
Through centralized data management, an ERP system can connect the information from all of those departments. Audit trails will identify when and who entered transactions. Automated workflows that ensure proper approvals reduce any employee’s temptation to make a bad decision.
With more employees working outside the office, data is spread across devices outside your control. Providing employees access to the applications and information they need through secure connections via the internet can reduce the amount of you data that are on flash drives and laptops.
The risk of non-compliance
The amount of time required to track and document data that meets all the regulatory requirements, from lot tracking to HIPAA, can be a huge burden for a growing company. In addition to routine financial reporting, accounting employees need to understand and comply with complex reporting requirements.
By replacing your accounting system with an ERP solution, centralized data and audit controls will simplify compliance and reporting for all kinds of regulatory control. ERP will enable:
- Easy-to-use audit reporting to conform with government requirements.
- Internal controls and workflows to ensure processes that maintain regulatory compliance.
- Automated approval processes to keep the business moving forward while ensuring compliance.
Keep your company growing without spending all your time worrying about the risks. Let’s talk about upgrading you ERP system to give you better internal controls.