Implementing the OKRs model in any organization’s finance department can significantly help with better revenue generation and increased profit margins. Finance OKR examples are great for understanding how you can achieve all targets.
The department is the company’s heart, responsible for managing finances that enable an organization to think and plan. This can be impossible without a robust system to regularly charter cash flow, revenues, and expenses.
The finance department is directly accountable for its performance, and implementing OKRs will help strengthen the individual departments.
You can find out how useful they can be with finance OKR examples. You can enjoy some benefits by implementing OKRs in the finance department.
Benefits of Using Finance OKRs
OKRs or Objectives and Key Results help the finance department solve challenges and create focus beyond everyday tasks. This helps them connect to strategic priorities. Here are some of the different ways it can benefit the department:
- It helps them align with the strategic goals and lay the foundation of the business-as-usual work.
- The key results help them continue focusing and leverage the high KPI and metric awareness. This is key in monitoring progress and driving adaptation.
Their focus and alignment are at the forefront with OKR, and the finance team OKRs can help improve the workflow, too.
So, it is important to know how it helps them before we explore the different finance OK examples.
Finance OKR Examples to Implement ASAP!
Here are some popular finance OKR examples that help you achieve results faster! Check these out:
Finance OKR Example 1
With this OKR, you can easily get the most out of your efforts. This one of the different finance OKR examples brings you closer to the objective of clearing external audits successfully. Here’s how it would look:
Objective: Pass external audit successfully
Key result 1: Reduce the number of audit findings to less than 5
Key result 2: File 100% of the vendor and customer contracts appropriately in Dropbox repositories
Key result 3: Reduce time of audit from 6 weeks to 4 weeks
This is one of the most common finance OKR examples that can help boost your team’s productivity.
Finance OKR example 2
This one from the list of examples helps you adopt a new system – it may be enterprise resource planning or any other system. Here’s how it would look:
Objective: Accounting records for a new system
Key result 1: Identifying and fixing core reporting issues as per the new system migration
Key result 2: Finding and developing five reporting equivalents for the new system or tool
Key result 3: Analyzing 5-10 expense types that can help identify cost-saving opportunities
Finance OKR examples 3
This one saves the day when there are accounts receivable/payables. It is a simple strategy that helps simplify and improve procedures within your department. Here’s how it would look:
Objective: Simplifying and improving internal procedures
Key result 1: Increasing expense-type categorization to more than 85% of invoices
Key result 2: Reduction in late primary document reporting, for instance, bringing it to 15% from 40%.
Key result 3: Reducing payment processing time – halving it – for the status from “application” to “paid.”
Finance OKR example 4
Objective: Simplifying the annual budgeting process
Key result 1: Reviewing and training department heads on the new process
Key result 2: Reviewing the budget across the organization and their proposals before the next quarter
Key result 3: Getting the sign-off for the final budget from all leads
Finance OKR example 5
This is probably the one that should be implemented across departments. This OKR helps improve the reporting process in the department. Check it out:
Objective: Improving the financial reporting process in the department
Key result 1: New financial department hiring for improvement in workflow
Key result 2: Moving physical records to cloud-based storing solutions
Key result 3: Closing 100% of the financials within 2 weeks of the end of the quarter
These were all the different finance OKR examples that help your department succeed and boost the outcomes. It is also a great way to keep your team motivated and focused on the goals.
How Does OKR Help the Finance Department?
OKR, or Objectives and Key Results, is a strategy that helps individuals and teams track challenging goals. The OKRs can help office operations, and the finance department adheres to their targets.
Here are some of the different ways OKR helps the finance department:
1. Accurate Records
With OKRs in place, the finance department will maintain the records more accurately than ever. This department must undergo maximum scrutiny, and OKR simplifies the process.
The department can develop objectives they need to fulfil at the end of each financial quarter and, by the end of the quarter, tally their records to ascertain if they have met the objectives.
The key results will show whether the objectives were rightly chosen and whether the team has met the goals. Thus, setting goals in the finance department can prove difficult as it depends on the market dynamics.
However, with a plan and action system in place with the help of OKRs, it is possible to stay ahead of impending financial disasters. And it is also easier to mitigate problems if they happen to arise suddenly out of nowhere.
2. Maintaining Focus
By implementing OKRs with the help of Finance OKR examples, it is possible to engage the employees’ attention. Consequently, they have a specific objective to fulfil, and they know the goals they have to attain.
The finance department employees have to be constantly vigilant when managing cash flow, and the onus of meeting the financial goals also falls on them.
With OKRs in place, they have a trajectory to follow, which helps them stay focused on meeting their financial targets.
In addition, it helps in achieving the team’s operational goals and the company at large without digressions.
3. Alignment
With OKRs in place, it is easier for the finance department to align their results with the objective. First, every objective should produce three to five results for the company.
Moreover, the department does not just know what expected results they are looking at. They are eager to achieve them.
The team is better equipped to make choices and informed decisions with their goals set. They can answer questions like the best way to reach the desired target in the next three months and subsequently in the next six months.
It offers a step-by-step progression chart, helping the organization look to the future and simultaneously align its vision with the prospects.
Day-to-day activities are more comfortable to monitor as the plan’s execution occurs seamlessly along the hierarchy.
4. Tracking
The organization’s finance department needs constant tracking because of the excessive number crunching they must go through. Moreover, it is easier to track the department’s performance with complete transparency with a predetermined set of goals.
Each team member works individually towards those goals, but it becomes a collective effort without anything amiss at the end of the day.
The finance department can also use OKR software tracking to monitor progress and share the OKR progress across the team. Thus, the milestones that the department must achieve cease to become abstract concepts and become real goals that yield tangible results.
Top-tier companies worldwide are using OKRs for the finance department with excellent results.
5. Points of Reference
With OKRs in place, keeping the organization’s progress “on track” seems less of an ordeal. Moreover, there is no need to employ harried tracking methods on employees.
Research shows that employees do best when they work in a relaxed ambience, and OKRs give them a point of reference to come back to whenever they want to comprehend where they started from and where they should be beheaded.
If there are faults with the numbers, the finance department can correct them without much damage. This is owing to the results that will always be shown within a limited period. As soon as it is time to achieve the first micro-goal.
Wrapping It Up!
With OKRs in the finance department, many companies have become go-getters rather than merely speculating about the future. The finance OKR examples will help you know how to set it up for your department.
They plan to achieve their objectives, with a clear overview of the key results they are looking at, which has made this system invaluable to many organizations today.
To develop effective Finance OKRs for your business, refer to top Finance OKR examples and get a head start.
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