From Reporting to Relevance: Building Capacity through Alignment, Automation, and Development

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Episode #147: Too many finance teams are stuck formatting data while the decisions fly by. We tackle a smarter way to work: build capacity by aligning effort to strategy, automating the grind, and developing the skills that turn reports into results. Stephen walks us through a practical approach for FP&A and accounting leaders who want to shield their teams from noise, prioritize what matters, and partner with IT to unlock automation without a costly tech overhaul. The focus is simple—reduce friction, raise insight, and spend more time advising than assembling.

We start with clarity: how to map every role and deliverable to a strategic objective, choose the leading indicators that actually drive action, and say no to work that doesn’t move the needle. From there, we dig into process and systems—standardizing inputs, automating routine pulls and reconciliations, and using collaborative workspaces so knowledge isn’t trapped in inboxes. Along the way, we challenge the culture of daily fire drills and offer a guardrail: route ad-hoc requests through a priority gate so the team’s best hours aren’t lost to random tasks.

Finally, we talk people. Coaching time management, building stronger analysis and storytelling skills, and running short, focused development sprints can transform morale and output. A tighter partnership with IT helps you ship quick wins—scheduled queries, clean templates, and self-serve dashboards—that free analysts to interpret trends and shape choices. Expect clear takeaways you can apply this week: an audit of calendars and tasks, a skills plan that sticks, and an automation backlog that delivers measurable time back.

Episode outline:

1. Clarify priorities and align with strategic goals,
2. Leverage tools and automation, and
3. Build capacity through development.

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Episode Transcript

Stephen McLain (00:05):
In the last two episodes, I talked about how
both fpna and the accountingteam can be more strategically
aligned throughout theorganization, with operations,
with senior leadership and otherdepartments.
This week, we dive into how wecan help our team members to
find and build more capacity asleaders. We must coach our team

(00:27):
members to become more efficientand to grow. We must hold each
person accountable for the tasksthey are responsible for by
setting clear expectations andestablishing a more structured
framework teach them how toprioritize the most important
tasks and not be distracted withleast important requirements. We
as leaders create systems andimprove processes to better

(00:51):
support them. That's whatfinance leaders do. Set
expectations, coach your team togreater accomplishment and
create the best environment forsuccess. Please enjoy the
episode. Welcome to the financeleader podcast where leadership
is bigger than the numbers. I amyour host. Stephen McLain, this
is the podcast for developingleaders in finance and

(01:11):
accounting. Please considerfollowing me on Twitter,
Facebook, Instagram andLinkedIn. My usernames and the
links are in this episode's shownotes. You can also follow
finance leader Academy onLinkedIn. Thank you. This is
episode number 147, and I'll betalking about helping your team
members build the right capacitythrough efficiencies and

(01:33):
alignment. And I will highlightthe following topics. Number
one, clarify priorities andalign with strategic goals.
Number two, leverage tools andautomation. And three, build
capacity through development. Ihave loved sharing the last two
episodes. I have talked aboutbeing more strategically
aligned, but this takes moreeffort. This requires a

(01:56):
partnership and trust by alwaysasking the following, are our
goals aligned, and whatinformation do you need to be
more successful so we don't haveto guess about the key metrics.
What trends are you seeing andwhat direction are we going in?
What can we do better? The fpnaand accounting teams, who are

(02:18):
willing to evolve beyond justreporting and becoming a
strategic partner will see theirorganization become more
successful in an already chaoticmarketplace and economy. We need
to dissect metrics to fullyunderstand how they behave and
what leaders need to make betterdecisions. We must look at the
most important and impactfulleading indicators so we can

(02:41):
change direction, if that isrequired before our competition
does I last shared episodenumber 146, strategic
accounting, not just reporting.
What if your accounting team didmore than just close the books?
What if they helped shapeoutcomes before the month end
process begins. We explore howto evolve accounting from a

(03:02):
reporting function into a truestrategic partner that
translates numbers intodecisions. Please go back to
listen to that episode, in caseyou missed it. Now, let's help
our team members, includingourselves, build capacity
through prioritizing anddropping low quality and non
urgent tasks and requirements.

(03:23):
Also, let's do this withoutbecoming a micro manager. When I
say, build capacity, I bet thatpeople are hearing me say, add
more tasks. And that's not true.
It's doing the right tasks,attending the right meetings,
working on clearing yourschedule to ensure we work on
what's important and then eitherdelegating or deleting
everything else. We build theright capacity to add the most

(03:46):
value and to have the mostinfluence over the key projects
of the organization. Our rolesin finance and accounting come
with many requests and tasks. Wemust help many other employees
to be compliant, like submittingexpenses and other ways that
they need help. Now, let's bereal. Non finance and non
accounting people get lost inhow to follow proper procedures.

(04:09):
So it becomes our job toeducate, to guide and to help
people from across ourorganization to do a myriad of
required activities. A wellimplemented structure helps to
manage the daily requirements tocreate an environment of
success, leaders should create arepeatable system of support for
their team members. Now, whatcan we do to support decision

(04:32):
making? Everything we do as ateam must add value, such as
helping a leader understand thefinancials a little bit more
provide clarity on how thebusiness is performing, give
context on a key metric thatmatters, develop a more accurate
forecast that helps to commitour resources more efficiently,
and even calculate projectionsthat assist senior leaders make

(04:54):
decisions on product lines andservices there are. Many ways we
can help support ourorganization. One thing we often
can't control is how much seniorleadership puts everyone through
emergency fire drills every day.
We all deal with it. We have aplan or a to do list for the

(05:15):
day, and then we get pulled into answer a number of random
questions or requests fromsenior leaders. We do this
because something has come up,but if this is an everyday
occurrence, then our process isflawed. I will talk more about
this in an upcoming episode.
Please subscribe to the podcaston the platform you are
currently listening to, and alsoplease subscribe to my weekly

(05:37):
email. I am bringing this topicup this week in this episode
because it's important asleaders to help our team members
to have a better workexperience. There are factors we
can control as the leader of ourteam. We can help them with what
meetings they attend, how theyprioritize tasks, what tasks
they have assigned to them, andwe can protect our team by

(05:59):
telling others to leave themalone when they need something.
You can tell other leaders toreach out to you if they need
something. So you can decide thepriority. You can also determine
what additional training andresources your team needs. You
have more control than yourealize, and you can help manage
your team members so they cansucceed. Now, let's talk about

(06:20):
helping your team members findmore capacity. Number one,
clarify priorities and alignwith strategic goals. We are all
busy and can get easilydistracted. Team leaders can
help by shielding their peoplefrom unwanted distractions from
outside the team. As a leader,you have immediate impact that
can shape what your team membersare going through each day. What

(06:41):
can you do is to clarify thepriorities for each person, for
the team and the priorities forthe organization. You can help
your team members understandbetter what the organization
needs from them. One thing Ilike to do is to show how the
work of each person supports astrategic objective. This helps
to give the team purpose and toshow that what they are doing

(07:05):
matters to the organization. Howare your team's processes and
how helpful are the systems thatyour team is using? Do your
systems share data easily, or isthere a lot of manual work
required? We want to focus onsupporting decisions rather than
just random data gathering. WhenI look at accounting and finance

(07:26):
teams, I see lots of busy workbecause systems don't share
data. I see a lot of time informatting reports instead of
finding and sharing usefulinformation and insights. Number
two, leverage tools andautomation. The daily grind of
our staff accountants can bedetrimental to their morale,

(07:47):
usually, because our processesare horrible and our systems
don't support automation. I seeorganizations try to buy
separate solutions that don't gotogether well. You have to
manually move information fromone system to another, and then
you have to spend wasted hoursformatting data instead of
analyzing it. Automate as manyof your routine tasks as

(08:10):
possible. Now how can it helpyou automate reports? So all you
need to do is run the query, usecollaborative tools and
workspaces to maximize othersknowledge your teammate next to
you may very well have theanswer you need, and you may not
know it until you startcollaborating. Number three,

(08:31):
build capacity throughdevelopment. Improved skills,
especially on time management,help to grow better habits,
which means more efficiency anda more excellent work product. I
want to encourage you as aleader, to coach your team
members, to develop the skillsand habits that matter. We
should strive for a continuousimprovement culture. We don't

(08:53):
have complacency with ourcurrent skills level. We are
always looking to upskillourselves, which in turn will
help us later, as our careermoves onward and upward. As a
leader, what is yourrelationship with the IT team?
They can help you tremendouslyin automating processes that are
capable within the limitationsof the system you have

(09:14):
currently, I can't stress enoughthe importance of having a
positive professionalrelationship with it. Now for
action today, I would recommendconducting an assessment in
three areas to help your teambuild better capacity. The first
assess each team member'sschedule, task list and work
requirements to coach them tobetter prioritize, reassign and

(09:36):
even delete some tasks based onteam and organizational
priorities. Second, whattraining or development needs
does your team need assesshabits and skill level to help
determine how to build aprofessional development plan
that can benefit your team best?

(09:57):
And finally, I would recommendpartnering with it to. Determine
what automation that you candevelop to save time on work
products and reporting that isrequired continue to find ways
to be more efficient and to helpimprove the daily grind of your
team. Today, I briefly talkedabout helping your team members
build the right capacity throughefficiencies and alignment, and

(10:19):
I highlighted the followingpoints. Number one, clarify
priorities and align withstrategic goals. Number two,
leverage tools with automation.
And three, build capacitythrough development. This
episode is about helping youthink through how you can best
assistyour team members to have a more
focused and efficient work dayso they can concentrate on the
most important tasks in the longterm. This should alleviate

(10:43):
stress and worry from systemsthat don't support you, from
processes that are overly manualand getting stuck in the wrong
meetings. It's about puttingyour effort into the most value
added tasks and meetings and tonot waste any more time. It's on
us as finance leaders to figureit out. I hope you enjoyed the
finance leader podcast. You canfind this episode wherever you

(11:06):
listen to podcasts. If thisepisode helps you today, please
share with a colleague untilnext time, you can check out
more resources at finance leaderacademy.com and sign up for my
weekly updates so you don't missan episode of the podcast, and
now go lead your team and I'llsee you next time. Thank you.
You.