For many organizations, data cleanup and master data management are some of the most complex and expensive challenges. Finding a way to deal with outdated or inaccurate data and seamlessly merge all relevant numbers can be frustrating and confusing. But it is necessary.

Why? In many organizations, fragmented or inaccurate data can have major impacts.  Common issues like customer and vendor duplication can cause reporting to be untrustworthy and undermine faith in the data.

As CFO clearly outlined it, “fragmented, inconsistent product or service data slows time-to-market, creates supply chain inefficiencies, results in weaker-than-expected market penetration and drives up the cost of compliance and reporting. Fragmented and inconsistent customer data hinders accurate revenue recognition, introduces reputation risk, creates sales inefficiencies, results in misguided marketing campaigns and threatens customer loyalty. Fragmented and inconsistent supplier and human capital data have similar-scale effects, as does an inconsistent chart of accounts across divisions or subsidiaries that makes consolidation and reporting complex, slow and error prone.”

To best avoid these issues, you need to compile the data from multiple systems into a single, reliable source of master data.

For most organizations, the biggest challenges with managing master data stem from relying on a variety of non-integrated systems and sources, resulting in manual processes to create duplicated data and, therefore, inaccuracies. Providing your team with shared access to trusted, reliable and clean master data via an integrated system helps to mitigate risk and address these challenges.

Do you have policies established regarding your master data? What kind of validations and reviews are in place for adding, deleting and updating your key information? These policies must be consistently applied in all cases, with workflows and approvals in place. Regular maintenance needs to be done to catch any issues as soon as possible.

Organizations can no longer rely on manual input or outdated numbers if they’re looking for real-time data for timely or relevant business decision making. Your team members need to be involved in a process that allows for a viable cleaning and retaining of data. Your master data management needs to be a streamlined process guided by automated integration and a system that makes connections you can depend on.

True Sky’s tools can help streamline your budgeting process. All you need to do is give us a call. We’re here to help you succeed. Call us today at 1 855 878 3759 or visit www.truesky.com for more information.