Three ways automation can turbocharge finance processes
As the driver of cost-related efficiencies across the business, finance departments need to demonstrate the competent handling of company funds. This pressure often starts by demonstrating optimised and tech-driven processes within the finance function itself, explains Jason Toshack, Vice President and General Manager ANZ Oracle NetSuite.
As noted by McKinsey & Company research, finance teams have reduced business costs by almost 30 per cent over the past decade, but are now looking at how to achieve even higher levels of efficiency in the coming years.
While maximising resources plays a key factor in this, inefficiencies can often creep into finance processes, regardless of the team’s skills and experience.
These inefficiencies frequently come in the form of labour intensive manual processes.
There are numerous manual tasks such as invoicing, expense processing and accounts receivable that are carried out by the finance team. These add little value to the bottom line and can result in inefficient time usage, drawing upon staff resources that can be allocated to higher value or more strategic forecasting and planning tasks.
Automating these repetitive, and often mundane, processes can have a lasting and positive impact on the business. It has the potential to deliver substantial benefits to the finance team, and can help to drive the overall success and wellbeing of the business by reducing drains on resources and increasing productivity.
Three key ways finance teams can benefit from automation and access untapped resources:
1) Increase efficiency
Manual processes are frequently inefficient and can be a burden on a business, with tasks like manual invoicing often taking time and resources that could be better directed elsewhere.
Tasks undertaken by the finance team, such as manually entering vendor bills, creating invoices and processing customer payments, can be very labour intensive, especially if the business is dealing with multiple transactions at once.
However, repetitive financial tasks are ideal solutions for automation. For example, automating financial reporting and consolidation – a notoriously tedious and time-consuming task – can help the finance team expedite the month-end close, and often with fewer people.
2) Make better use of staff
With the workforce still in the depths of a national skills shortage, finding talent can be a difficult and time-consuming task for many businesses. The pool of experienced job candidates has dwindled over the past few years, resulting in significant wage inflation.
However, the efficiency gains financial process automation solutions can offer mean that the skills shortage does not impair the finance department’s ability to do its job. With automation taking care of repeatable processes, more work can be achieved with fewer people.
Moreover, finance team members can be redeployed to other activities. The boost in efficiency offered by automation can free up time for team members to focus on higher-value activities such as analysing data and providing strategic insights.
3) Reduce mistakes
By their very nature, manual processes tend to increase the potential for human error. Even small errors can have a big impact on businesses, opening up the potential for bottlenecks and double handling, which lowers efficiency. In some cases, such errors can even affect customer satisfaction and lead to compliance-related issues.
But finance process automation can dramatically reduce the risk of human error. When it comes to accounts payable, for example, automated processes can compare invoice details to purchase orders and receiving documents to ensure pricing, unit quantity, and totals match – all without the potential errors caused when handled manually.
This three-way automated matching process can simplify accounts payable processes and eradicate the cost of human error. It does this by automatically scheduling approved invoices for payment while flagging anomalies for further investigation by finance team members.
Accessing automation
Technology adoption is key as the finance function works to demonstrate the efficiency and diligent management of resources within its own department. With process automation, the team has the potential to maximise resources and contribute significant value, not just in its own function, but throughout the company as a whole.
