What is Financial Reporting Software?
Financial reporting is an important process for businesses of any size and industry. Companies need to be well-informed and updated on the financial status and performance of all the relevant factors in their business or group. As such, a financial report provides important information to managers, investors, and all other important stakeholders.
Through proper and efficient financial data reporting, businesses are able to analyze, plan, and benchmark their business decisions to help them come up with effective strategies in regard to their finances.
In the past, companies used a lot of income statements, balance sheets, and bookkeeping tools to facilitate their financial reports. However, now the process is intuitive and convenient with the help of financial reporting software.
These software solutions have made creating financial statements and reports an easier task because many of the workflows are now streamlined due to automation. Instead of requiring a manual reporting process, finance teams can access all the information they need from a single, user-friendly dashboard. The software integrations mean that all financial data is readily available, saving business owners and team members a significant amount of time.
Financial reporting software also helps to boost performance efficiency. Since all custom reports are in one place, checking for accurate metrics will no longer be a problem. As such, the number of accurate reports increases, and financial management becomes more efficient.
The most common features of financial reporting software include the automation of processes (i.e. automatic billing, financial statements, accounts payable, and payroll), invoicing and other basic accounting tasks, tax preparation, and templates for quotes and estimates. The majority of financial reporting software also provides access to multiple users.
It is essential to note that financial reporting software is not only for large companies; midsized, startup, and small businesses can also significantly benefit from using these solutions.
Popular Financial Reporting Software Products
Financial Reporting Software Vendor Landscape
The Market Radar™ below shows the top Financial Reporting Software vendors on Crozdesk. It ranks vendors based on the Solution Strength (user reviews, satisfaction) and Vendor Size to provide an overview of the Financial Reporting Software market landscape. You can find the winners in the recent Financial Reporting Software Awards list.
Types of Financial Reporting Software
There are a variety of financial reporting software solutions in the market. The selection of options is quite wide-ranging, from the most basic to the most complex.
As such, financial reporting software solutions can be categorized according to the features that they carry. For example, there are programs that provide mostly reports and information related to performance, costs, and other important factors. Financial reporting software under this category is called business intelligence (BI) software.
On the other hand, accounting software is something that accountants can make good use of. It helps with budget and expense management, among other things.
Finally, there are tools for financial reporting that focus on resource management in addition to expenses and budget. These fall under the enterprise resource planning (ERP) software category and can help with operations such as project management.
The basic types of financial reporting tools, however, are based on the software’s deployment method. These are divided into three categories:
Cloud-based
Cloud-based financial reporting software offers universal access because everything is in the cloud. It is also the preference of small businesses because it does not require the business owners to update the system themselves. In addition, there is no maintenance fee, and it comes at quite an affordable price. In fact, it may even be the most affordable of the three basic management software types.
On-premise
This type of financial reporting software, uses the local server of the client for hosting. This may not be a good option for first-time users because the setup process is complex and can be time-consuming. In some cases, it may even require hardware installation. Aside from this option having an initially high price, on-premise financial reporting software is a single license tool.
Software as a service (SaaS)
SaaS financial reporting software uses the vendor’s server for hosting. Setup, installation, and maintenance are not the client’s responsibility, so first-time users need not worry about anything. In addition, payment is often on a monthly basis, which makes it a practical option even for those with a limited budget.
How to Choose Financial Reporting Software
As previously stated, there are a lot of options to consider when choosing the best financial reporting software for your business. Therefore, it is important to first learn and understand what you need to look for before getting a specific financial reporting tool.
Determine what type of software your business needs
Before choosing a product, you need to know what kind of financial reporting software will suit your business’s needs. You should aim to choose user-friendly software with an interactive dashboard to make it easier for your business to draft accurate reports. Other key features of the software will depend on the specific types of reports your organization needs.
For example, some businesses may be more focused on expense tracking and would need accurate expense reports to fulfill their needs, while others will want a product tailored more to cash flow, liability management, or even ad hoc reporting. There are many different types of software to choose from, but the end result completely depends on your business’s financial management goals.
Compare your choices
Many popular accounting software solutions, such as Quickbooks, give first-time users the opportunity to trial their software for no additional price. This can help businesses, especially small businesses, find the best software for them without having to pay an upfront fee. By comparing different solutions, it will allow for a clear view of how the software will fit into the business's processes.
Check the features
While it is important to make sure the financial reporting software solution of your choice will allow you to use performance metrics such as cash flow statements, balance sheets, expense reports, or income statements, there are other features the ideal software should possess.
A good financial reporting software is easily customizable. It should allow you to change formats and layouts, use templates, and add custom fields, among other things.
In addition, financial reporting software must be able to export data, such as from reports and the dashboard to PDF files so they can be shared with others such as your stakeholders and supply chain.
Also, integration is an important factor in financial reporting. The right software solution should make it easy for you to integrate APIs or CRM capabilities, so you have a centralized place for your data.
Lastly, you should make sure the software allows access for multiple users. This is important because being able to easily share reports will make financial planning and forecasting easier.
Choose a user-friendly dashboard
Having financial reporting software with an intuitive dashboard is crucial. The dashboard is where all of your business's most relevant financial statements and data entries are summarized and displayed. It's important for your chosen software to be able to deal with large amounts of financial data while still displaying it simply, so it’s easy to find the necessary information. For example, Sage Intacct provides users with multiple simplified dashboards that create accurate custom reports and generate clear visualizations to make data easy to interpret.
Benefits of Financial Reporting Software
Financial reporting software is an ideal solution for businesses and organizations in need of tools that can help improve their financial management. In addition, workflow management will be streamlined because of the reporting process automation. Any company, regardless of size, that aims to make a mark in its industry will greatly benefit from these solutions. Here are some of the main benefits of financial reporting software:
Automation
A benefit of financial reporting software is that it provides a simpler and less time-consuming way to manage financial processes. The solution’s automation helps to streamline processes that would otherwise require manual data entry. This means that you are guaranteed to receive accurate reports and metrics quickly.
The automation is also customizable; you can set up automated workflows to control which specific processes you want completed automatically. For example, financial reporting software can automatically create balance sheets, which benefits business owners because it allows them to keep track of their accounts receivable.
Improves financial planning
Financial reporting tools can help improve your decision-making and financial planning. The financial data in your business's custom reports can help you with accurate financial forecasting. Having a centralized place for all of your financial data makes it easy to view the important cash flow information you need to facilitate your financial planning. Having an efficient strategy can help your business reach its KPIs.
More efficient bookkeeping
Another benefit is that it makes it easier to monitor your business's financial activity. Having access to accounting reports can eliminate manual bookkeeping errors and create general ledger reports to give you a holistic view of all of the business's revenue and expenses on one centralized platform. This is far more efficient than manual bookkeeping because it allows you to access important information quickly.
Financial Reporting Software Buyer Guide 2025
Product recommendations, vendor rankings, market overview and tips on how to select Financial Reporting software for business. Published in June 2025.
Financial reporting is a legal requirement for businesses. Businesses have to maintain a record of their finances, including the money they earn and spend during a financial period. Effective financial reporting requires compliance with the relevant account...
FREE DOWNLOAD Financial-Reporting-Software-Buyer-Guide-2018.pdfCommon Features of Financial Reporting Software
| Feature | Feature Description |
|---|---|
| 2-Factor Authentication | Adds an additional layer of security by requiring an extra step in the login process. Usually external devices are required for this or a text message with a verification code is sent to the user when trying to login. |
| Accounts Payable | Keep on top of payables and manage what you owe to creditors and suppliers. |
| Accounts Receivable | Track unpaid invoices and keep on top of what your customers and debtors owe you. |
| API | Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are programmatic intersections with external products or platforms that allow for custom integrations with your own solutions or other solutions you are using. |
| Balance Sheet | A common financial statement used as a snapshot of a business's assets, liabilities and capital at a particular point in time. |
| Billing/Invoicing | Issue bills and invoices to customers, often combined with tracking capabilities for outstanding payments. |
| Budgeting | Planning and tracking capabilities for financial budgets and plans often used to manage funds across different departments or for investor / shareholder oversight. |
| Calendar Management | Manage and update calendars for scheduling or consolidation of events across teams, departments or business functions. |
| CRM Integration | This indicates whether integrations with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software are supported by a software application. |
| Dashboard | Dashboards are digital interfaces commonly used to visualise data or give quick access to important features and functions of online platforms. They often serve as an overview gateway in software applications. |
| Data Export | Exporting functionality can be used to streamline the migration of data sets and information across systems, platforms or applications. |
| Data Import | Importing functionality allows you to use data sets from other systems or platforms to cut down on data entry requirements or to more easily migrate records from similar applications you have used in the past. |
| Data Visualization | Data visualization features render a visual interpretation of data sets through the use of charts, infographics and other visual cues generally in form of a reporting dashboard. |
| Document Comparison | Compare and contrast different versions of documents and browse revision histories to consolidate collaborative changes. |
| Expense Tracking | Track employee travel and other expenses to stay on top of budgeting requirements and reimbursements. |
| External Integrations | Integrations with other software products or platforms to improve efficiency and compatibility across systems. |
| Forecasting | Forecast upcoming expenses, sales, revenue, user levels, etc. through the use of predictive methods and past data. |
| General Account Ledger | Track transactions in the form of account information to prepare financial statements and reports. |
| Multi-Currency | Support of different currencies for payments, accounting purposes, taxes, reports and more. |
| Multi-User | Supports more than just one user account and generally allows for collaboration with colleagues. |
| Notifications | Includes notification support and sends you alerts with information on important events and other time sensitive instances. For example through push notifications on mobile phones or email notifications. |
| Payroll | Manage employee payroll to keep track of taxes due to the government, pension schemes and payments to employees. |
| P&L | Support for Profit & Loss statements in financial / accounting systems. |
| SAP Integration | Integrates with common SAP services. |
| Scheduling | Schedule tasks, resources, appointments, payments, communications, etc. |
| Tax Management | Manage tax payments and reporting requirements to ensure compliance with local or national taxation regulations. |
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