Exploring Finance Automation: Which Business Finance Processes Could Be Automated?

Financial Automation simplifies the financial process by using technology to complete tasks automatically, reducing manual intervention. It helps businesses streamline tasks like invoicing, budgeting, and reporting, saving time and reducing errors. Finance Procedures can become intricate and overwhelming, but they don’t have to be. Automating finances can streamline and simplify various financial touchpoints and workflows.

Here are five crucial areas where finance automation can make a significant difference:

(i) Accounts Payable: Managing a company's accounts payable responsibly and promptly is vital but can be tiresome. This includes tasks such as processing invoices, seeking approvals from relevant parties, and documenting every payment step. CFOs recognize the importance of early payments and discount utilization, along with monitoring processing times, all of which are facilitated by AP automation.

Automating invoicing and expense management enhances finance operations by boosting accountability, saving time, and guaranteeing accuracy. Furthermore, it standardizes procedures and removes obstacles and delays in accounts payable operations.

Today's technology solutions offer assistance with various tasks such as:

1. Digitally capturing bills.

2. Sending notifications for approval requests.

3. Forwarding approved bills for payment.

4. Matching invoices with purchase orders.

5. Reading and synchronizing invoices with accounting software for simplified payment reconciliation.

Automating accounts payable not only saves costs but also enhances supplier relationships. It links AP systems with purchasing workflows to handle approved invoices exclusively. With a connected banking setup, you can manage multiple accounts efficiently and simplify vendor payments.

Moreover, automation aids in budget management by integrating AP workflows with financial planning tools, enabling automatic budget allocation.

(ii) Accounts Receivable: Accounts receivable workflows are like the circulatory system of a business, bringing in revenue through invoicing and managing payments. Unfortunately, many small businesses struggle with unpaid invoices, totaling $825 billion in the U.S., with an average wait time of 72 days. These processes become complicated and time-consuming, requiring coordination among various teams like sales, finance, and customer service.

Automating Accounts Receivable helps you with:

• Simplifying customer onboarding.

• Handling recurring invoices.

• Monitoring late payments.

• Sending payment reminders.

With AR Automation, tracking payment deadlines and following up on delays is unnecessary. Invoices are automatically generated, reconciled with accounts, and paid punctually. Debtors and customers get timely reminders for upcoming payment dates.

(iii) Accounting and Reconciliation: Around 80% of manually created Excel sheets contain mistakes and errors. Financial Automation guarantees consistency, accuracy, standardization, and transparency in your accounting records by swapping old-fashioned accounting processes with technology solutions.

Modern accounting software like Xero, Freshbooks, Quickbooks, and Zohobooks ensures books are accessible, ready to use, and understandable by all. They also automate accounting and reconciliation processes for businesses.

Automating real-time data collection, recording and reconciliation enhances decision-making and boosts the usefulness of business data. By reducing the risk of fraud, it consolidates and reconciles various data from various sources with minimal human involvement. This leads to accurate, thorough, and compliant real-time analytics, financial reports, and dashboards offering better financial insights.

(iv) Expense Management: Businesses face daily expenses across various departments and functions, including both small and large expenditures.

Managing these expenses can be costly and challenging. Employees collect receipts and submit expense reports, which managers then approve. The finance team matches invoices with entries and processes reimbursements, adding complexity to the process.

With integrated tools and connected banking solutions like OPEN, CFOs can handle expense management. These tools automate recording, reconciliation, and processing to ensure timely payment and accurate claim matching.

(v) Payroll: Managing payroll can be the most complex and demanding, involving various entitlements, superannuation, leave policies, fringe benefits, and more. Software solutions like Payfit, Bamboo HR, etc are indispensable for businesses, saving time and effort. Automating payroll streamlines the process reducing the need for reconciliation and aligning payroll with HR functions. This simplifies checking for errors and revisions, enabling quick salary payments.

With OPEN's connected banking solution, small and medium businesses can make payouts and receive payments effortlessly. Visit Open.money for more content.

Explore our comprehensive E-book on Business Finance Automation to discover how to incorporate Finance Automation into your company.

https://register.open.money/business-financial-automation-ebook/