Overcoming Cyber Risks of Financial Data Silos

HOST: JERRY HERAN: Hello everyone and welcome to Digital Journeys. I will be your moderator today. Joining me are John Barts, Strategic Alliances Director for Cherry Bekaert, and David Apple, Head of the Software-as-a-Service vertical at Sage.

HOST: John and David will be discussing the hidden cyber risk of financial data silos for software-as-a-service companies. With that, let's get started. David, you're up first. What is a data silo?

DAVID APPEL: A data silo is information stored in an isolated system that is not shared across the organization. As you build applications and automate processes, you may add software that becomes insular and holds data in its own place, which makes it difficult to integrate with other parts of the business.

DAVID APPEL: You're ultimately looking for answers, forecasts, and an understanding of where results are coming from, and you want that data accessible. A classic example is a CRM that contains contact information and some order details, but if Finance cannot see it to send invoices, Customer Success does not know the original champion for the project, and Professional Services lacks the business requirements, the process breaks down.

JOHN BARTZ: I see this all the time with our customers. As a former CIO, I experienced this and it is problematic.

JOHN BARTZ: At Cherry Bekaert, we advise clients on operational improvements. A common pattern is that manual processes slow things down, and someone implements a fix without considering the broader use of the data.

JOHN BARTZ: Leaders should ensure projects consider the broader construct and how data will be used across the organization. For example, a vendor payable may arrive in one system and needs to be routed for approval, but approvers may lack context about the invoice, who approved it, or whether sufficient cash is available. That lack of visibility creates compliance issues and increases cost and security risk.

JOHN BARTZ: According to an IBM survey, the average cost of a breach can reach $3.6 million.

DAVID APPEL: John, from your experience, have you worked with clients who experienced a data breach?

JOHN BARTZ: Fortunately, no. In my experience, companies often do not understand the level of investment required to be secure and compliant until they have a problem, which leaves them exposed to potential breaches.

HOST: Let's talk a little more about consolidating financial data and why that's critical for security and compliance, especially as it evolves around cloud-native platforms. David, do you want to take that one?

DAVID APPEL: The whole point of consolidating data is to understand exactly what's happening. You might have multiple business entities, acquisitions, international expansion, new product lines, or different customer cohorts, and you need to know where those data elements reside.

DAVID APPEL: When you approach integrations, there are three tips. First, have a common customer and order master record so fields are consistent and discoverable across systems. Second, know the dependencies and workflow of your systems, for example how a payable flows through systems, updates cash balances, and triggers payment. Third, ask the right questions to understand the past impact of previous decisions and to forecast future business opportunities.

JOHN BARTZ: Those are key points. From an IT perspective, you need a data architecture as part of your overall enterprise architecture, and that is something both Sage Intacct and Cherry Bekaert can help with.

JOHN BARTZ: The more you can have a single source of truth, the better off you will be. As finance and departmental leaders request budgets and new systems, support them but ask how everything will feed into the single system of record. The financial system is the audited system, so the more accurate your financial system is, the more confident you can be in the data.

DAVID APPEL: Sage has a strong product in Sage Intacct, and Cherry Bekaert implements Sage Intacct. Let's simplify how money flows: quote-to-cash for incoming revenue and procure-to-pay for outgoing spend. Sage has made investments to automate these processes and capture dimensional tags that describe region, customer, rep, cohort, department, class, location, and more.

DAVID APPEL: Whether you are a healthcare provider billing patients, a not-for-profit tracking donors, a retail customer tracking e-commerce sales, or a subscription business managing recurring revenue and upsells, Sage Intacct supports those workflows and keeps the central system updated so you can know cash and profitability.

DAVID APPEL: On the payables side, you can track rent, payroll, insurance, and vendor payments. Our customers have consistently rated Sage Intacct highly on G2, TrustRadius, and Gartner Insights across categories such as payables, receivables, general ledger, subscription billing, dashboards, and analytics.

JOHN BARTZ: I confirm that customers place a high value on satisfaction and retention, and that is reflected in G2. Sage Intacct is also supported and preferred by the AICPA, which enhances the application's credibility.

JOHN BARTZ: That relationship with the AICPA has been long-standing. Sage Intacct's API and marketplace partners extend the platform through third-party applications that leverage the Dimensions architecture. Key partnerships with Salesforce and ADP, for example, integrate extremely well with the product.

JOHN BARTZ: If you're in growth mode, the product supports configuration changes and scale. What you need is functional expertise to implement workflows and transform previous processes. That's why Sage Intacct and Cherry Bekaert have been recognized repeatedly as partners of the year for understanding the business application and delivering results.

HOST: Thank you for that. Today's discussion was about identifying these issues early, before they become unmanageable. If you don't address them early, historical data accumulates and it becomes much harder to change later.

HOST: I appreciate your time today. It was a pleasure meeting you, John and David. Thank you for joining us.

DAVID APPEL: Thank you, Jerry. I appreciate the opportunity to help your customers.

JOHN BARTZ: Thanks, David. Thank you, Jerry. I appreciate it.

HOST: Thanks again, John and David, for educating our listeners today. As always, feel free to like and share this podcast. Stay tuned for the next Digital Journeys.