4 things your team could be doing instead of updating spreadsheets

What would you do with a few extra hours in your work week?

At a community bank, every hour spent manually entering numbers into a spreadsheet is another hour not spent generating value for your customers and for the bank. Tools like Banker’s Dashboard eliminate the need to record data by hand, by importing it directly from the source. This drastically reduces risk of human error and eliminates the need for time-consuming manual tasks. Banking automation systems also provide instant reports using the freshest data available, so bankers can make more informed decisions faster.

This all sounds great—in the abstract. But what does it mean for your bank? We asked banking experts how community banks could benefit from leaving manual spreadsheet updates behind.

1. Better serve your customers

Embracing automation across the organization can “free up time for employees to focus on deepening the customer relationship,” says Jim Perry, Strategist at Market Insights. “Countless hours are spent on rules-driven manual processes and low-value activities such as data entry and monthly reporting.” Instead, he says, bankers should focus on high value tasks “that improve the customer experience and respond to a real time customer need.”

This can be accomplished, says Dr. Ken Cyree, Dean and Chair of Banking at the University of Mississippi, when banks focus less time on low value tasks and “elevate the high-touch and focused interactions” between bank staff and customers. With tasks like manual data entry automated, bank staff can spend more on these “high-touch” tasks, which “add the most value and therefore generate the most revenue and profit.”

2. Worry less about staffing

It’s simple math: the more hours spent entering numbers into spreadsheets, the more people you need to get the work done. But, says Scott E. Hein, Emeritus Professor of Finance at Texas Tech University, “in this ‘workerless recovery economy,’ labor is in increasingly short supply.” The best way to mitigate this risk, he says, is for community bankers to “make sure that they are using the basic banking technologies to lessen the need for workers to as great an extent as possible.” When each employee reduces the number of hours spent inputting data, more high value work can be done by fewer people.

3. Give employees a sense of job security

However, the advantages of automation do not require banks to move towards a reduction in staff. On the contrary, says Jack McCullough, Founder and President of the CFO Leadership Council: “Moving away from manual tasks will enable employees to focus on more strategic and high value tasks, which makes them a more valuable employee and therefore gives them better job security.”

Marcia (Marci) Malzahn, President of Malzahn Strategic, echoes this sentiment: “Customer interactions and customer and employee retention activities may involve manual tasks,” she says, but “maximizing technology and valuing people are the key.”

Automating low value tasks allows bank leaders to emphasize the value their staff provides to the bank, both in abstract and real terms. The result, says Jack, is “more interesting work, better job security, and the chance to transform your company into a market leader.”

4. Stay competitive

Community banks are, by definition, a part of their community. And whether we like it or not, those communities often include other community banks. In order to stay competitive, it is a strategic imperative for banks to automate time consuming manual tasks. “Your competition is likely going through a similar process, so failure to do so will put you at a competitive disadvantage,” Jack says.

This automation, says Jim, allows banks to “improve efficiency, reduce errors and meet consumers’ growing demand for security, speed and simplicity.”

Ken says a strong relationship between a bank and its customers is central to creating value. “I believe the highest value task for a bank is to provide information to the customer about the specific situation that is faced by the customer,” he says. When bankers do this, Ken says, “that is what builds loyalty and higher income for the bank.” This combination of customer loyalty and higher income will ensure your bank stays competitive no matter what other community banks are doing. 

Ditch the spreadsheet

Community banking used to be defined, in part, by spending hours in front of a spreadsheet. That quintessential aspect of the job kept bankers locked in their offices typing numbers into cells instead of going out into their community and generating value for their customers and their bank.