Audit compliance and the audit trail are critical components of enterprise operations, and as adoption of advanced analytics and other business intelligence solutions increases, companies need to consider the best way to support data audit needs.

According to Economia, finance departments spend nearly 70 percent of their time on average managing accounts, and only 30 percent analyzing data, despite a large uptick in the adoption of BI platforms. Data analytics and reports still require considerable time reconciling the data trail back to ERP systems to ensure accuracy and authenticity that hinders true progress. This is why businesses need to improve their audit processes to accommodate for faster, more efficient intelligence efforts.

Manufacturing ERP software that supports a new model for BI will encourage further use of analytics and help ensure the success of these efforts. Embedded financial services support will engage audit trail processes more effectively, allowing companies to automate the tracking of data models and reports to their sources. This will free up teams to focus on the true benefits of analytics and start leveraging these tools for their actual purposes.

In order to deploy better audit trail practices, firms will need to invest in higher-quality business accounting systems that will enable automation and ERP support for audit trail compliance. In turn, this will allow companies to minimize their time spent confirming connections, and more time putting those connections to use for profit. Ultimately, this will bring about larger ROI on ERP systems and business management software, while ensuring that evolving compliance needs are met going forward. The end result is a stronger back office to support a manufacturers other initiatives for growth and innovation.