Digitalization has led to organizational changes in all walks of life, and the financial services industry is no exception. As a booster of economic development, the primary task of the financial services industry is to support the high-quality development of the real economy. In order to better realize the shift from focusing on efficiency to taking into account efficiency and profit, more and more financial service companies are taking the lead in elevating the digital transformation of finance to the perspective of enterprise strategy, using digital tools to pull together business and financial data between enterprises, breaking the shackles of a large number of manual operations and lengthy processes in the past, improving the management and control capabilities of complex businesses with multiple business formats, and achieving further cost reduction and efficiency increase.
Recently, in the "100 Questions on Digital Transformation of Enterprise Finance" column launched by Heccce and Future Finance Human Research Institute, Wang Guojun, Deputy Director of the Finance Department of Oriental Xinhua and Head of the Smart Finance Cloud Platform, and Yan Yujie, Senior Vice President of Heccet, discussed how enterprises can adopt flexible and agile tools to cope with complex cross-management scenarios.
The following is a transcript of the live chat (with abridgement):
Hesi: In recent years, the financial industry has been required to "move from virtual to real" to serve the high-quality development of entity enterprises, while enterprises themselves are also facing the need to slim down and improve efficiency.
Wang Guojun: Founded in 2012, Orient Xinhua is a holding company established in Shanghai by China Orient Asset Management, one of the four largest asset management companies in China. The company focuses on the non-performing asset relief business, builds a unique investment ecosystem around the four major business systems of private equity funds, real estate management, asset management, and cultural and creative industries, and steadily develops into a diversified industrial chain integration service group. In the high-quality development of financial service entities, Oriental Xinhua has been actively exploring new strategies and tools to promote the high-quality development of the real industry. For example, the Bright Galaxy Art Commercial Center in the Jinhua TOD project, "Hanbi Zijin City", can perfectly integrate art and commerce through innovative design and strategy, so as to provide consumers in the region with a richer and high-quality life experience.
As a diversified asset management company, Oriental Xinhua needs to adapt to market changes in multiple industries more quickly and cope with the challenges brought about by multi-format operations, and the digital construction of enterprises is obviously the key to the development of enterprises. We have unified the collaborative office entrance from top to bottom, introduced professional digital management applications, reconstructed business process design automation solutions, deeply integrated financial data and business data, realized the integration of business and finance, and improved operational efficiency. Through continuous iteration of information construction, reduce operating costs, improve the profitability of the real industry, in order to cope with the increasingly fierce market competition environment, and further help the managed entity projects to achieve sustainable enterprise development.
Hesi: What is the digital blueprint of Dongfang Xinhua, what role does the digital transformation of finance play, and how does the finance department dismantle the implementation of digital construction?
Wang Guojun: Dongfang Xinhua's digital blueprint is based on an efficient, refined and transparent enterprise operation management system. We hope to integrate financial management and business operations more closely through digital tools and strategies, so as to improve the overall operational efficiency and decision-making effectiveness of the enterprise. Oriental Xinhua plans digital construction into three stages:
• In the first stage, basic informatization construction, from 2016 to 2020, according to the needs of each business line, the information department cooperated with each professional line to carry out the construction of a professional ERP system, successfully transferred the original offline production materials and working methods to the online, and realized the informatization integration and precipitation of each business line.
• In the second stage, the digital construction of business and finance, from 2021, our finance department will lead the digital construction of business and finance, and the goal of this stage is to optimize business processes, realize process automation, make data interconnected, and improve data mobility. We introduce new applications, new tools and new technologies to optimize business processes and break down data silos, and at the same time improve and optimize the data architecture to achieve a smooth flow of data, ensuring that all departments can quickly access and utilize data as needed, thereby improving the overall operational efficiency and decision-making effectiveness of the enterprise.
• It is expected that from 2025 onwards, a large amount of data accumulated based on information infrastructure and digital construction will enter the third stage, that is, the stage of intelligent decision-making. At this stage, we will be committed to using advanced technologies such as big data and enterprise AI intelligent services to fully digitize the enterprise management and decision-making process to achieve higher efficiency and smarter decision-making capabilities.
At present, all walks of life are undergoing a transformation based on digital and intelligent technology, but digital transformation is inseparable from the drive of "data". For most traditional enterprises, data management in the financial field is the most mature and accurate, because financial data itself is an important basis for measuring and determining the operational performance of enterprises. In the process of digital transformation of Dongfang Xinhua's business and finance, the group's finance department led the construction of the overall structure. From a strategic point of view, the finance department clearly understands the end point of the company's overall business flow, and works backwards from this end point to work backwards. Therefore, we carry out two-way integration from the financial side and the business side, so that finance can better penetrate into the business, and at the same time, make the business closer to finance and achieve an organic combination.
When implementing digital transformation, we should follow the following steps for refinement, that is, clarify the implementation goals, sort out the business process, personnel training, and project review.
Goal setting is crucial, and it is necessary to clearly define the strategic goals, stage goals of the transformation, and to be precise about the strategic goals, and to be clear about what the problem needs to be solved. This requires a deep understanding of core business processes, such as business management, cost control, treasury management, etc., and identifying which areas can be digitally optimized to improve efficiency, reduce error rates, or strengthen process control. At the same time, identify key data indicators, such as order volume, sales, turnover rate, cost gross margin, and profit, so as to grasp the operation status of the enterprise in real time, support decision-making, and identify key implementation elements.
We then set out to standardize and optimize our core business processes, including the business processes themselves and the technical algorithms behind them, paving the way for automation and digitalization. In this process, we applied the revenue and expenditure management platform as the core platform tool for the digital transformation of business and finance, not only reorganizing the business from budgeting and expense control, but also completing the construction of automation capabilities, such as a series of financial management solutions such as bank-enterprise direct connection and voucher automation, so as to realize the seamless integration of data and processes and promote comprehensive digital transformation.
The human factor plays a decisive role in digital transformation. Once the goals are clear, it is important to ensure adequate communication across departments to ensure that everyone understands and agrees with the goals and that they share the importance of digital transformation and its impact on business value and effectiveness.
In the end, we will continue to follow up on the progress to ensure that the project achieves the expected results, and make timely adjustments and optimizations based on feedback to ensure the successful implementation and continuous improvement of digital transformation.
Hecc: One of the purposes of financial digital transformation is the integration of industry and finance, and the most important thing to solve the integration of business and finance is the problem of data islands.
Wang Guojun: In the process of the diversified development of Oriental Xinhua, the front-end of different business formats has used vertical ERP systems in their respective fields to manage their businesses. With the development of the business, we found that each business line was relatively independent, and the barriers between systems gradually became significant. To this end, Oriental Xinhua introduced Hesi Fee Control as the process center of the financial side. Through this platform, Oriental Xinhua extracts the data related to financial revenue and expenditure in the business system through a standardized process, disassembles different businesses, and then combines the fields with commonality to realize the unification and standardization of data on the two lines of revenue and expenditure. This not only improves the efficiency of data processing, but also enhances the transparency and availability of data, and greatly promotes the deep integration of business and finance. In addition, Oriental Xinhua also pays attention to the continuous optimization of the data governance system to ensure the accuracy, integrity and security of the data. Through the above measures, the data silos between systems have been successfully broken, and a solid foundation has been laid for the digital transformation and long-term sustainable development of enterprises.
Hesi: Reducing costs and increasing efficiency is a hot topic at present, what work has Dongfang Xinhua done in the digital construction of cost control?
Wang Guojun: In the current market environment, doing a good job in cost control is an effective means to promote the sustainable development of enterprises. In the past, due to the multi-organization and multi-format cross-management mode of Dongfang Xinhua, the complexity of diversified business led to many judgment conditions for approval nodes, complicated and scattered documents, difficult to trace, and high time-consuming audit, which made budget control difficult and lagging business and financial data analysis and other pain points, so we responded to the digital construction of cost control through the following three points, namely the selection of intelligent cost control system, business process standardization and budget management.
The first is the choice of an intelligent cost control system. According to its own organizational characteristics and actual business needs, Dongfang Xinhua found that the Idea Fee Control software can solve the ability of front-end payment data collection, data processing and data analysis excellently. It is worth mentioning that the original logic of Hesi Cost Control is to control the whole process before, during and after the event according to the matter as the starting point, which is perfectly in line with the company's management model. As a SAAS software, the characteristics of the company's cost control are not only that its core cost control management functions have a high degree of productization, maturity and stability, but also that the document engine, approval flow engine and rule engine at the bottom of the system reflect strong flexibility and agility, so as to achieve the ability of APASS products, which can not only meet the company's needs for stability, but also quickly adapt and respond to business changes. This combination of agility and stability makes Hopes-Wise an ideal choice for our financial digitalization upgrade.
The second is the automation of standardized processes. Dongfang Xinhua has standardized and automated the payment business process, and needs to do three things in this link:
• First, it deeply analyzed and sorted out the internal organizational structure of the enterprise, and clarified the roles and responsibilities of each department in the business flow. According to the organizational structure and business needs, a comprehensive and operable reimbursement policy has been formulated, including the reimbursement standards for various expenses, approval authority and limit setting, as well as the type and format of required documents.
• Second, the approval process has been simplified and optimized, and functions such as automatic approval, multi-level approval and conditional approval have been set up, so that the approval process can be flexibly configured according to the reimbursement amount, type, department, etc.
• The third is to formulate budget management and implement process control, cost control is not only to process reimbursement applications, but more importantly, to carry out effective budget management. The budget module can manage the cash flow well, track the budget implementation in real time, and make necessary adjustments according to the actual situation. At the same time, we conduct a post-evaluation of budget implementation to optimize the budget formulation process, ensure the rational use of resources, effectively reduce costs, and ultimately improve business efficiency.
Hecc: After the launch of Hecce cost control, what positive changes have been made in Dongfang Xinhua's cost control?
Wang Guojun: After the launch of the cost control system, there has been significant improvement in process operation, process approval, and data statistics:
• More convenient and intelligent process operation
Previously, Dongfang Xinhua used DingTalk to approve and reimburse expenses, although it solved the operational transformation from offline to online at this stage, it was still extremely inconvenient for employees to upload invoices, that is, they had to upload invoices through the computer, and then select the corresponding expense control subjects. After the launch of the company, invoices and electronic documents can be imported in batches, and the subjects can be identified and automatically matched through OCR, which greatly facilitates data entry and management, and liberates the working time occupied by employees in expense reimbursement. Moreover, employees can submit reimbursement applications at any time through their mobile phones or computers, regardless of location and time.
• Easier and more efficient approvals
The invoice identification and verification and duplicate checking capabilities of Hecce Cost Control effectively systematically check invoices, avoid additional workload and possible errors caused by repeated processing of invoices, and automatically generate invoices into ledgers, greatly reducing financial invoice management. In the document approval process, the risky processes will be fully disclosed through the setting of the document engine and rule engine in the early stage, and the approvers can make decisions more effectively.
• More accurate and comprehensive data statistics
This is one of the benefits of leading the digital transformation of finance from finance, through the design of the underlying form and automation logic of Hopce Cost Control, we can classify and manage various expenses of various organizations in a more granular manner, and clearly distinguish different types of expenses. This refined management method enables us to carry out cost control more accurately, and conduct in-depth statistics and analysis of expenses, so as to formulate more effective cost control strategies.
In general, the financial personnel can use the cost control system to improve the operational efficiency of the enterprise more intelligently, obtain data information more accurately, and control costs more effectively to continuously support the realization of the company's strategic goals.
Hecci: Based on the capabilities of the Hesi ledger module, Oriental Xinhua has flexibly assembled the "Integrated Management Solution for Procurement and Marketing", how is this solution realized and what impact does it have on the enterprise?
Wang Guojun: In the process of promoting the online implementation of the company's cost control system, I found that there is a very fascinating feature in the company's cost control software - the business object management module. This module can make different objects into business cards, so that the data can be presented more vividly and intuitively in the process in the form of chart progress bars. As a financial person with a natural sensitivity and artistic pursuit of data structure, I made full use of this feature, and with the support and assistance of our partners, I objectified the business attributes related to the contract and built an "integrated procurement and sales management solution".
The solution was built on the flexibility of the company's agile, low-code product capabilities, and was customized based on my in-depth understanding of the company's procurement and sales processes. By building supplier ledgers, purchase contract ledgers, customer ledgers, and sales ledgers for objectification, the details of each transaction can be clearly seen, including the amount, time, supplier or customer, etc., which enables enterprises to better track and manage the entire procurement and sales process. At the same time, the system can automatically identify whether the supplier and customer are the only marks under the multi-legal entity, and let the contract be managed through events, from the framework agreement to the master agreement to the supplementary agreement to track the contract signing and payment under a matter, so that the budget in the contract can achieve a flexible combination of one-to-many, many-to-many or many-to-one.
After the implementation of this plan, first of all, for the enterprise level, the optimization of data silos is solved, the department wall is broken, and each department will have its own management ledger for the contract, and the business, events, and contracts are summarized together through the integrated management module of self-built procurement and marketing, so that relevant managers can obtain comprehensive information from it, and at the same time ensure the consistency and accuracy of data, and the caliber of cross-departmental communication is also consistent, so as to efficiently promote the implementation of project management.
Second, for business personnel, there is no need to manually enter a large amount of data, which reduces the workload, greatly improves work efficiency, reduces redundant operations, and improves the accuracy and timeliness of data, which more effectively supports decision-making.
Third, for the finance department, through automated management ledger and visual business processes, cost control and budget management can be more easily, and payment progress and execution conditions can be comprehensively tracked to ensure accurate data support, thereby improving data quality and work efficiency.
Overall, the "Integrated Procurement and Sales Management Solution" has greatly optimized our work process, improved the operational efficiency of the enterprise, and improved the convenience of our employees.
Hecc: After experiencing the digital transformation of finance, what benefits did Dongfang Xinhua's employees, finance, and management get from it?
Wang Guojun: The digital transformation of finance has achieved significant improvements at all levels of business, finance and management, which not only broadens the breadth and depth of work, but also enhances work capabilities.
From an employee's perspective, digital transformation has dramatically improved the ease and efficiency of business processes. For example, in the mode of on-site execution and centralized management of the headquarters, employees can submit reimbursement applications through their mobile phones at any time, and quickly upload electronic invoices using the intelligent OCR recognition function of the Hesi cost control system, and the system can also automatically identify expense subjects, which rarely need to be manually adjusted. This process eliminates the need to print the original e-invoice, and all steps are completed directly online, speeding up the business.
From a financial perspective, digital transformation has reduced the audit pressure on finance staff, freeing up more time and energy to devote to more important financial work. The automatic invoice identification and verification function of the cost control system significantly reduces the manual operation requirements of the financial department in invoice audit. In addition, through the optimization of business processes, the core business data can be segmented, and financial personnel can use multi-dimensional data combinations to quickly conduct business analysis and generate reports related to operating data to support front-end business to make rapid decisions.
From a management perspective, digital transformation enables real-time tracking and timely updating of data in terms of budget management. Through the budget management module of the Synsys cost control system, the management can gain an in-depth understanding of the detailed expenditure of each budget and adjust the problem of exceeding the budget in time. In the daily approval process, by setting preset conditions and project tags, approvers can quickly screen relevant business processes, realize approval and monitoring anytime and anywhere, and effectively improve the financial control ability of enterprises.
Hesi: Under the empowerment of digitalization, what are the contributions of finance to organizational management, integration of industry and finance, and corporate business?
Wang Guojun: Digital empowerment has had a profound impact on enterprise management, which is reflected in four aspects: more flexible organizational structure, simpler business processes, clearer approval processes, and smoother integration of business and finance.
First of all, through digital transformation, Dongfang Xinhua has achieved the flexibility of its organizational structure. In terms of precise allocation of personnel roles and permissions, we have changed the management model from a single company model to a business-line core approach, which allows each team and individual to clarify their responsibilities and greatly improve the efficiency of collaboration.
Second, digital tools have made our business processes more streamlined. We have successfully streamlined more than 100 complex business processes into 18 core processes, so that each employee can have a clearer understanding of their roles and responsibilities in business development, and effectively improve work efficiency.
Third, our approval process has also become clearer thanks to digital empowerment. We use the electronic approval system to track all approval requests and status in real time, avoiding delays and conflicts caused by information asymmetry, and improving approval efficiency.
Finally, we have made significant progress in the integration of business and finance. By building a unified data platform and implementing an information sharing mechanism, we have succeeded in breaking down the information barrier between business and finance. For example, the contract ledger management application we introduced integrated procurement and sales has improved execution efficiency by 50% and driven a 10% increase in overall project revenue.
What are the quantifiable indicators achieved by the overall effectiveness of Oriental Xinhua's financial digitalization?
Wang Guojun: In terms of optimizing human resources, 5 accounting personnel in the team have successfully transformed into financial business partners, which not only saves 60% of labor costs, but also optimizes the team structure and enhances the value of the finance department.
In terms of improving business efficiency, whether it is expense reimbursement, account generation, or business data processing, Dongfang Xinhua has obtained faster processing speed, more accurate data docking and more efficient workflow. Through the BI system, a cockpit of the commercial sector was built, so that the business and financial personnel can effectively communicate and make decisions quickly and accurately, and the efficiency is increased by 80%.
In terms of R&D cost savings, we achieved full savings. The efficient combination of the agile financial revenue and expenditure management platform and the data linker avoids the traditional and expensive secondary development costs and saves millions of development costs.
In 2020, the Ministry of Finance issued the No. 6 document of Finance and Accounting, which clarified the legal effect of the filing of electronic accounting voucher reimbursement, and in September 2022, the state issued the "Paperless Reimbursement Filing and Storage of Electronic Invoices by 2022", and in 2023, the state launched a pilot project for electronic accounting voucher data standards. It can be seen that the state has been vigorously promoting paperless "reimbursement-accounting-filing", how does Oriental Xinhua implement this policy?
Wang Guojun: In response to the national paperless policy, Oriental Xinhua has widely implemented electronic documents in procurement, sales, finance and other departments through close cooperation with Hecci to improve work efficiency, and realized the submission of reimbursement applications and the upload of electronic invoices through the mobile terminal, and the system automatically generates electronic invoice ledgers and realizes automatic payment. At the same time, with the EAI module of Heccce, we generate financial documents according to the voucher rules of different documents.
Although the trend of electronic accounting files has become irreversible, due to the high cost of docking and adaptation and the large investment of manpower and material resources, we have not yet fully implemented electronic accounting files. Therefore, at present, we use the grayscale method in business financial file query and financial accounting, that is, part of the use of the platform and part of the traditional financial ERP. This gradual approach both ensures the smooth running of the business and prepares the way for a full move to digital. We will continue to advance the digital process to achieve greater efficiency and quality in our business operations.
Heccide: Heccce proposes a full-link closed-loop of "consumption-accounting-archiving", which eliminates the reimbursement actions that required a lot of manual investment in the past, and helps to achieve the real "no reimbursement" through the product capabilities of Heccus cost control, Heccce collection, Hesi payment, and Hece Mall. From a practical point of view, how do you see the impact of this full-link closed-loop on the digitalization and integration of enterprise finance?
Wang Guojun: The full-link closed-loop concept of "consumption-accounting-reimbursement" is an important step in the digitalization of enterprise finance and the integration of industry and finance. This model not only greatly simplifies the traditional reimbursement process, reduces manual operations, improves efficiency, but also achieves true "no reimbursement". Through the application of products such as Hopce Cost Control, Hopce Collection, Hopce Payment, and Hopce Mall, we are able to better manage the company's various financial activities and further improve the accuracy and efficiency of financial management.
From a practical point of view, the impact of the full-link closed-loop on the digitalization and integration of business and finance of enterprises is far-reaching. First, it can help enterprises to grasp the situation of various expenses more accurately, so that the cost control is more accurate; secondly, it allows the financial department to better manage the budget and avoid various problems caused by cost overruns; finally, the full-link closed-loop is also conducive to improving the work efficiency of employees, reducing their time investment in reimbursement and other links, so that they can focus more on their main work content.
For Dongfang Xinhua, we will continue to actively embrace digitalization and use excellent digital tools such as Hesi to promote the company's integration of business and finance. In the future, we will continue to pay attention to and research new digital technologies and concepts, and continuously improve our financial management capabilities to better serve the company's business development. At the same time, we will also explore more new possibilities on the basis of full-link closed-loop, such as deeper financial management and decision-making support through data model analysis and AI technology learning.
Hesi: In terms of automation and intelligence of financial operations, digital and intelligent transformation is inseparable from the application of new technologies. How do you see the application of new technologies in the field of finance and accounting, and are new technologies more opportunities or challenges for enterprises?
Wang Guojun: The application of new technologies in the field of finance and accounting is undoubtedly a huge opportunity, but it also brings some challenges. For example, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, etc. can greatly improve the efficiency and accuracy of financial management, and then better business forecasting, cost control, budget management, and decision support. These technologies also allow finance staff to free themselves from tedious day-to-day transactional tasks and focus on more valuable strategic tasks.
However, the application of new technologies also brings some challenges. First, enterprises need to invest a lot of resources in technology research and development and updating to maintain their competitive advantage in digital transformation, secondly, enterprises need to cultivate and introduce talents with relevant technical knowledge and skills to meet the needs of new technology applications, and finally, with the application of new technologies, enterprises also need to deal with the integration between technology and traditional business processes to avoid conflicts and chaos.
As future financial professionals, they need to start from changing their own thinking, cultivate diversified capabilities, constantly broaden their horizons, deepen the depth and breadth of professional knowledge, become compound talents, and actively respond to the changes of the times and the transformation of their own functions.
![Warm and humid weather is getting stronger! Fog is thick in some areas! A new round of rainfall is spreading in the south! It is still frequent in the later period[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)