How AI And Automation Will Improve Finance’s Workflows
Artificial intelligence is becoming more of a presence in everyone’s life.
In fact, even the staunchest of technophobes can’t avoid some level of AI or automation. For instance, a quick call to the bank is at least partially AI-based, as these systems use keywords or phrases to either answer questions or direct you to the appropriate representative.
Most of this is due to accessibility. Because of the cloud, tools that were previously attainable to only large corporations are available across the board. Whether AI is used for sales, marketing, finance, or human resources, its sheer magnitude is obvious. IDG’s “2018 Cloud Computing Survey” found that 73% of businesses run a minimum of one application on the cloud, and many of those cloud-based applications are automation tools.
Security has also played a role in the rise of cloud-based systems and AI. The cloud is sometimes more secure than hosting everything in-house, and firewalls, anti-malware protection, integrity monitoring, and intrusion preventions (among other measures) can protect sensitive information. This means small businesses can feel comfortable putting sensitive data on the cloud. After all, it has quite literally leveled the playing field.
As AI-driven tools continue to improve operational processes, another opportunity presents itself: saving more time. Time is a limited commodity, especially for finance teams. They deal with many manual processes that take time away from other high-priority tasks (such as account reconciliation and variance analysis). The vast majority of manually generated spreadsheets contain mistakes, for instance, and someone must track down and fix these errors. That’s precious time wasted, especially if the process could be automated.
In pursuit of employee retention, you want to give your team room to focus on high-level initiatives. Even some CFOs find themselves dealing with accounts payable tasks, but that shouldn’t be a core function of their role. Their time is better spent on growth, efficiencies, and international expansions.
According to Accenture, 81% of CFOs feel they should be identifying and targeting areas of new value, and another 77% want to drive business transformation with technology. AI and automation could make that possible. These tools have the power to change the finance team as a whole. And as you begin to implement more technology into your operations, you’ll begin to experience increased benefits.
One of these benefits is AI’s ability to eliminate manual back-office tasks. Need an invoice or a report? It can be done in a matter of minutes.
