Top 5 Challenges That IT Services for Financial Firms Should Help You Overcome

Top 5 Challenges That IT Services for Financial Firms Should Help You Overcome

Are you struggling with the same obstacles over and over? You’re not alone. There are 5 key issues that financial firms everywhere are putting up with – do you know how IT services for financial firms will help you overcome them?

Finance, just like every other industry, is affected by our ever-changing world. The increase in technological advances alone can leave your head spinning. Although technology is meant to make work easier for everyone, it requires your full attention to keep up.

However, technology is responsible for numerous positive changes in every field or industry. A financial firm can get a lot more done each day with the professional software programs now available, especially if they have the right IT services for financial firms.

Many boring, repetitive jobs are accomplished with these programs and this allows accounting professionals to utilize their time on more important tasks.

Most of today’s financial firms have embraced the changes that are occurring in our technology-driven world. And yet, many are undergoing dramatic changes that affect their business from various angles.

From cyber threats to rising costs, the financial industry is facing its share of tough problems. Savvy business owners overcome these challenges and move forward – with the help of IT services for financial firms. They turn these problems into stepping stones that lead to new opportunities.

Still, these issues can slow down the workflow and require too much attention. The struggle can be tiresome and never-ending…

5 Major Challenges You Face (And How IT Services For Financial Firms Solve Them)

Commoditization Of Your Services

As technology allows larger financial firms to extend their services to greater markets, it can be difficult for your firm to stand out. If you’re all offering the same thing, why would a potential client choose you over someone else?

That’s why you need to harness newer technologies that help you differentiate your services – technologies like the cloud. Research by Xero shows that financial firms that have harnessed the power of the cloud have five times as many clients as those that don’t, for a number of reasons:

• • Being able to better expand as your staff and principals have secure access to each and every client’s financial information.
  • Lower costs in terms of your facility as there’s no need to expand or relocate to better accommodate large equipment and/or added staff members.
  • Greater communication with clients in terms of providing them better access to their financial information.
  • Enhanced productivity as there’s no need to disrupt your staff to make important updates to their systems.

Growing & Sustaining

Given the difficulties with deadlines explored above, how can a financial firm find time to focus on growth? If you’re too busy focusing on one client and then the next, how can you better focus on the big picture?

• • Delegate the non-critical aspects of your work to your team (or better yet, drop them altogether) and invest your time in innovation and new clientele.
  • Communicate changes to your workflow with your clients (and how they may affect them). If you’ll have less time to chat one-one with your clients because you’re focused on serving them better, make sure they understand that.
  • Bring your team in from the ground up on the cultural and holistic changes you’re making to the firm. Make them a part of the conversation so that they can engage with what you’re doing and help affect real change.

Harnessing Innovative Technology

Perhaps the most important challenge that financial firms face is the constant need to update their technology.

You want to have the latest and greatest software programs and network services, but all this can be expensive. To make matters worse, technology is constantly evolving. Today’s smartphones offer advanced features you couldn’t get a year ago.

For many firms, the best way to alleviate this concern is to find an IT company and allow them to handle the technical aspects of your firm’s operations.

Cybersecurity Management

Both in the private and professional fields, cybersecurity is more important than ever – and for your financial firm especially.

The fact is that the cybercrime business has never been bigger – it’s estimated that the global cybercrime industry will cause up to $6 trillion in damages in just a few years. It remains such a lucrative business because targets – like your financial firm – keep failing to learn how cybercriminals operate, and how to protect against it.

That’s why you need to implement security solutions:

• Email filtering
• Two-factor authentication
• Automated password and user ID policy enforcement
• Comprehensive access and password management
• Whitelist or blacklist external traffic
• Patch/update all IT and security systems
• Manage access and permission levels for all employees.
• Review existing technical controls and take action to plug any gaps.

Changes To Code & Compliance

The degree to which tax code continues to change makes it so difficult for accountants to keep up – but you still have to. In order to serve clients, you need to be able to advise on their taxes, no matter how they change.

As noted by senior tax trainer Robyn Jacobson, “Most of the tax policy I’m seeing at the moment is in response to groups of taxpayers who are not complying,”.

“Sometimes there are only small groups of people in certain industries who are not complying, but the government will turn its attention to that entire industry. It’s like the old expression, ‘using a sledgehammer to crack open a walnut’.”

Furthermore, The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has had an impact on absolutely everything financial firms deal with, from entertainment expenses to depreciation. The 186-page document is confusing, to say the least – but with the right software, you can automatically call up any new rate as needed.

What’s the secret?

The truth here is very simple; it’s not a ten-point list, or a comprehensive, complicated strategy. The one thing to look for in IT services for financial firms is a team that understands the financial industry and the technology involved in it.