Digitally mature finance functions can be powerful value levers.
Key takeaways
Digital transformation can be a strategic engine for growth, scalability and value protection.
Chief financial officers (CFOs) must create a finance-first modernization roadmap.
Portfolio company chief financial officers (CFOs) obsess over revenue levers, cost takeout and synergies. But there’s a powerful, often overlooked driver available: the digital maturity of the organization’s finance function. When finance is modern, automated and data-driven, it accelerates the execution of the value creation plan, increases deal certainty and contributes to stronger exit outcomes. When it isn’t, the costs are buried—until they surface as missed targets, diligence friction and a discount on the multiple.
Hidden issues
Most private equity-backed businesses still treat finance as a pre-digital, compliance-only function. Common issues include:
- Spreadsheet sprawl and manual consolidations that extend the close cycles and increase error risk.
- Fragmented systems and siloed data that slow reporting, forecasting and bolt-on integration.
- Reactive, backward-looking reporting that lags behind pricing changes, product mix shifts or operational volatility.
- Control gaps—inconsistent approvals, weak data lineage and audit trails—that create lender and audit headaches.
These issues don’t always appear as a line item, but they tax the value creation plan, leading to slower decision cycles, margin leakage and operational drag that limits scalability.
Finance is often positioned as a reporting factory, not a strategic growth enabler. Investments skew toward front-office systems while finance inherits technology debt, manual workarounds and temporary processes that become permanent. Ownership blurs between IT and finance, talent is stretched, and change can feel risky during the mid-hold period.
The hidden costs surface later. They include delays in lender and board reporting, unexpected quality of earnings (QoE) adjustments, missed synergy opportunities due to slow integration and buyer concerns about scalability. Each issue becomes a narrative tax at exit and a direct hit to the multiple.
Moves that change the curve
The following strategies can solve these issues:
1) EBITDA lift through process automation
Automating high-volume, rules-based tasks (e.g., invoice capture, cash application, reconciliations, intercompany eliminations, allocations, management reporting) reliably reduces 10% to 30% of finance selling, general and administrative expenses (SG&A) in year one while improving quality. The faster wins typically include:
- Close acceleration of 30% to 50% through automated reconciliations, close task orchestration and fewer manual journal entries.
- Accounts payable/accounts receivable (AP/AR) efficiency using touchless processing and straight-through posting that improves vendor relationships and customer experiences.
- Capacity reallocation from routine tasks to pricing analytics, working capital programs and scenario modeling that directly affect EBITDA.
2) Multiple expansion through scalability and transparency
Buyers value confidence. A digitally mature finance function demonstrates:
- Real-time, clean data with consistent definitions of revenue, margin, cohorts and unit economics.
- A scalable backbone that can absorb bolt-on integration quickly, including standard charts of accounts, master data governance and repeatable integration patterns.
- Single-source-of-truth dashboards that link operational drivers to financial outcomes.
These capabilities reduce perceived risk, compress diligence timelines and support a compelling exit narrative. In these cases, the business can scale without breaking the back office.
3) Risk reduction and deal certainty
Strengthening the control environment—through role-based access, automated approvals, policy-enforced workflows, audit-ready logs—reduces error rates and tightens lender, board and sell-side reporting. Benefits include:
- Fewer last-minute adjustments during QoE reviews
- Reduced covenant anxiety and improved lender confidence
- Fewer surprises and smoother audit processes
Deal certainty isn’t just operational hygiene; it’s value protection.
A practical maturity model
Leaders should assess their finance functions across four key areas:
- Technology: Modern cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) and consolidation, close management, financial planning and analysis, and business intelligence tools on a governed data platform. Robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) copilots embedded where rules and repetitive work dominate.
- Process: Documented, standardized and measured. A visible close calendar, exception-based reviews and elimination of key-person risk. Touchless AP/AR where possible.
- Data: Rationalized chart of accounts, clean master data, metric definitions with data lineage and event-driven pipelines that feed reporting in near real time.
- Controls: Policy-led workflows, automated reconciliations, segregation of duties and audit trails built into the process—not bolted on.
A 90-day plan
Leaders can jumpstart this process by following this schedule:
Weeks 1–3: Diagnose and prioritize
- Baseline the close (days to close, manual journals, auto-reconciliation percentage rates), working capital, days sales outstanding (DSO) and days payable outstanding, finance cost-to-serve and reporting delays.
- Map systems, data flows and pain points. Build a heat map of automation potential and risk hotspots.
- Produce a targeted return on investment model tied to EBITDA, cash and diligence readiness.
Weeks 4–6: Execute quick wins
- Launch AP invoice capture and bank reconciliation automation.
- Implement a close checklist and task orchestration.
- Rationalize high-volume manual journals.
- Launch a finance cockpit with 10 critical metrics (e.g., revenue/margin by segment, backlog, DSO, cash forecasts, price and mix, churn and retention, pipeline conversion, unit economics).
Weeks 7–12: Build for scale
- Rationalize the chart of accounts and master data.
- Define the key performance indicator (KPI) dictionary and data lineage.
- Upgrade consolidation and planning systems to support multi-entity, multicurrency and bolt-on integration.
- Establish a lightweight finance center of excellence for data and automation standards, with citizen-led automation guardrails and change management.
Case study spotlight
Situation
A midmarket industrials portfolio company with $400 million in revenue was struggling with a nine-day close, heavy Excel dependency and fragmented reporting across five entities. Finance SG&A was high, and bolt-on integrations were slow, creating friction in the value creation plan.
Action
The CFO engaged the operating team to:
- Implement RPA for reconciliations and AP invoice capture.
- Launch a cloud-based consolidation platform with automated intercompany eliminations.
- Rationalize the chart of accounts and master data for scalability.
- Launch a finance dashboard linking operational KPIs to margin performance.
Results
- Close cycle reduced from nine days to five days.
- Finance SG&A down 18% within 12 months.
- DSO improved by seven days, unlocking $7 million in cash.
- Standardized data shortened diligence by two weeks and strengthened the exit narrative, contributing to approximately 0.5x turn in multiple expansion.
Takeaway
Digital finance maturity is more than a back-office upgrade; it’s a direct lever for EBITDA lift, deal certainty and multiple expansion.
The CFO’s mandate
This is not an IT project; it’s a finance product. Organizations should lead with a finance-first roadmap. This means automating the right processes, standardizing data and controls and measuring functions with metrics that investors trust. When done well, digital finance becomes an operational intelligence hub—one that delivers measurable EBITDA lift, enhances the exit story and builds resilience for the next bolt-on integration.
The takeaway
Treat digital maturity as a core value lever, not a back-office upgrade. The sooner an organization modernizes finance, the sooner it compounds value—quarter over quarter, and all the way to exit.
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