Key points covered in this article:

• Process issues often show up as everyday frustrations like delays, unclear ownership, repeat work, inconsistent execution, and overreliance on tribal knowledge. These are usually signs of flawed workflows rather than people problems, and they can create unnecessary cost, inefficiency, and operational risk.
• Effective process improvement starts with making the current workflow visible and identifying where work stalls, gets duplicated, or depends too heavily on individual knowledge. From there, organizations should focus first on clarity, then efficiency, and only after that consider speed or automation.
• Small, targeted changes to finance and operations processes can improve turnaround times, reduce rework, and strengthen audit readiness without requiring major new technology investments. In many cases, the best results come from simplifying work, clarifying roles, and removing friction points that no longer add value.

Every organization has processes that could work better. When invoices pile up or approvals stall, it’s tempting to blame people or technology. More often than not, though, the real problem is the process. Fortunately, process improvement doesn’t always require new technology or a major organizational initiative. Often, the biggest gains come from making work clearer or removing what’s getting in the way. Many organizations already have what they need to get started. The first step is learning to recognize what a struggling process actually looks like. 

Five Signs the Process Needs Attention

Most process problems don’t show up with a label attached. They show up as complaints: 

“This takes too long.”  

“Nobody knows who’s responsible.”  

“Why do we keep doing this twice?” 

It’s tempting to treat those as people or performance issues, but if you listen past the frustration, those complaints are often telling you exactly where the process is breaking down. The more steps, handoffs, and approvals a process has, the more opportunities there are for work to slow down, get stuck, or break down. 

These are five of the most common warning signs of process issues.

Bottlenecks. Let’s say an invoice arrives and needs approval before it can be paid. It sits in someone’s inbox for a few days. Then it gets sent to someone else for coding. By the time everything is approved, month-end close is behind schedule and vendors are calling about payment. Beyond the frustration, there’s a financial cost with potential late fees accumulating and staff simply spending extra time on tasks that should have been closed out weeks ago.  

Rework and repeat work. Sometimes work comes back because something was missing the first time. Other times, someone has to do the same work again because systems don’t communicate or the process requires duplicate steps. Either way, people are spending resources on fixing work or repeating it instead of moving to the next task. 

Unclear ownership. One person finishes their part of the task and sends it to the next department. However, no one in that department is sure who owns this part of the process. Everyone assumes someone else has it. The work stays untouched until a deadline forces someone to investigate and nudge it along. 

Inconsistent processes. When the same request is handled differently depending on the department, the office, or who happens to be working that day, there is no predictable flow. This makes training new staff difficult, covering absences painful, and scaling the organization without adding cost nearly impossible. Inconsistency also creates risk, since internal and external stakeholders receive different experiences and different outcomes. 

Tribal knowledge. When critical processes exist only in one employee’s head instead of in documented procedures, the organization is one vacation or departure away from real operational and compliance risk. This is especially dangerous during year-end close and audits, precisely when the organization can least afford disruption. 

“Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” — W. Edwards Deming 

Building Better Processes

When organizations recognize these warning signs, the instinct is often to buy new software or automate the work. Those solutions may feel like the right step, but they rarely solve the root cause of the problem. 

A better approach starts by making the process visible. Look at how it actually operates today, not how it’s supposed to work according to a policy manual. Talk to the people involved. Follow the handoffs. Look for where things stall, get sent back, or depend on one person knowing what to do next. Once those friction points become visible, it’s much easier to identify and prioritize the high-impact changes that will make the biggest difference. 

From there, leaders are encouraged to focus on three priorities. 

Clarity comes first. Start by removing ambiguity. Roles, ownership, and what “done” looks like should be clearly defined. Then ask whether each step belongs in the process. Some approvals, reviews, and workarounds exist because they’ve always been there, not because they add value. Remove the ones that don’t. The goal isn’t to eliminate internal controls. It’s to make sure every step has a clear purpose. 

Efficiency is the next priority. Now that the process is clear, improve how the work moves from one step to the next. Clarify handoffs. Reduce duplication. Make sure everyone shares the same definition of what “complete” looks like before work changes hands. When expectations are clear, work is less likely to become rework. 

Speed should be considered only once clarity and efficiency are in place. That’s when automation and technology can make a difference. As a general rule, don’t automate a bad process. Make the process better first. Technology is an amplifier. Whatever is already happening – good or bad – you’ll usually get more of it. 

Process Improvement in Practice

The examples below illustrate how these principles can be applied to common finance and operations processes.  

Invoice Processing. Invoices were coming in missing coding information, getting routed to the wrong approver, and bouncing back. Vendors were calling for updates and month-end close was dragging. The organization defined what information an invoice needed before it could move forward and clarified approval responsibilities. The result was faster processing and fewer vendor calls. 

Procurement. Purchase requests kept getting sent back because employees didn’t know how many quotes were needed, who had signing authority, or what a complete request looked like. The organization investigated, better defined the rules, and communicated those expectations across all departments. The back-and-forth dropped off and approvals moved forward. 

Grants and Audit Support. Documents were scattered across folders and inboxes, and only a few employees knew where everything was located. Audit season meant weeks of searching and unnecessary stress. By assigning clear ownership, standardizing file locations, and clarifying handoffs, the organization entered its next audit with cleaner documentation and a smoother process. 

Organizations looking to improve should start with one process that is creating the most frustration. Talk to the people who do the work every day, because they are usually the first to know where the process breaks down. Map how the work actually happens, not how the procedure manual says it should. Then remove one source of friction before reaching for a technology solution. Small improvements build momentum, and one successful change often leads to the next. 

The Opportunity Ahead

For most organizations, the opportunity to improve is already within reach. Streamlining processes often recovers staff capacity, reduces costs, and lowers compliance risk, all without adding headcount or new technology. To learn more about how to identify and improve the processes that matter most, contact PBMares Risk Advisory Partner Bronach Branan.