Finance and Compliance should be best friends. After all, both functions care deeply about accuracy, integrity, and preventing losses — whether financial, reputational, or ethical. Yet, in many organizations, the two departments operate on parallel tracks, rarely intersecting until something goes wrong.
It’s understandable. Finance teams focus on numbers, systems, and reporting cycles, while Compliance focuses on behaviors, policies, and risk mitigation. But when these two groups collaborate intentionally, they can amplify each other’s effectiveness and create a far more resilient organization.
This is the fifth in our series on wildly effective ways for Compliance to work with other functions. The others can be found here: Human Resources, Audit, Procurement, and Legal.
So, how can you strengthen your partnership with Finance? Here are four practical, high-impact ways to get started.
1. Ask Finance to Flag Exceptions for You
Finance sees nearly every dollar that moves through the company — and with that visibility comes opportunity. Ask the Finance department if they can flag exceptions in the expense system – especially those related to gifts, hospitality, or entertainment that fall outside of policy thresholds.
For example, if the policy caps gifts at $100, but a $175 bill slides through for reimbursement, Finance can tag that transaction for review. This isn’t about policing employees — it’s about pattern recognition. Over time, you’ll identify trends, spot potential weaknesses, and intervene early before minor oversights become major issues.
2. Align on Payment Controls for High-Risk Third Parties
One of the best compliance controls you can implement sits squarely in Finance’s domain: payment holds.
Ask whether Finance can structure the payment system so that high-risk third parties cannot be paid until Compliance signs off on their due diligence and approval status. It’s a simple but powerful safeguard.
This ensures that due diligence isn’t bypassed under pressure to “just pay the vendor,” and that Compliance remains a gatekeeper for higher-risk relationships. Many ERP systems already have functionality that can enforce such controls — it’s just a matter of working with Finance to switch them on.
3. Combine Financial and Compliance Due Diligence
Finance often performs its own checks before onboarding a new vendor — verifying tax IDs, bank accounts, and payment terms. Compliance, meanwhile, may be conducting corruption, sanctions, or reputation checks on the same entity.
Why not consolidate these efforts?
Ask Finance what due diligence tools or platforms they use and explore whether financial and compliance vetting can be integrated. You may discover opportunities to streamline workflows, eliminate duplicate efforts, and reduce onboarding delays. Plus, when Finance and Compliance share visibility into vendor risk, both functions make better, faster decisions.
4. Explore AI Tools for Financial and Compliance Monitoring
Many Finance departments are already experimenting with artificial intelligence to detect anomalies in spend patterns, invoices, and transactions. These same technologies can help Compliance spot red flags that traditional manual reviews might miss.
Partner with Finance to understand what AI or analytics tools they’re using. Could those systems flag unusual vendor payments, split invoices, or recurring charges that hint at policy violations or corruption risks?
By collaborating here, Compliance doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel — you can leverage Finance’s technological investments to enhance compliance oversight.
Build a Partnership That Pays Dividends
When Finance and Compliance operate in silos, both lose visibility and leverage. But when they collaborate, they multiply their impact.
Start by having a conversation — not about controls or audit findings, but about shared goals: transparency, integrity, and protecting the business. Over time, as you align systems, data, and insights, you’ll find that your partnership doesn’t just reduce risk — it improves performance.
After all, the best financial results come from doing business the right way. And that’s where Finance and Compliance are truly better together.