However, there are ways to avoid wasting time on manual administrative tasks. Here, technology can become your greatest ally.
In this post we review the administrative tasks that your financial team can automate and which technology is appropriate for this.
It's clear that all the time french email list you spend on manual processing is time you can't spend acquiring new customers, closing sales with current ones, or offering them exceptional customer service.
But what do financial professionals think about this situation? In collaboration with IDG , Sage asked executives around the world which manual financial processes they plan to automate. Financial reporting topped the list, followed by data entry/management and customer service/management.
All of these administrative tasks can be a significant waste of time and effort. Faced with this, companies have realized that automation is the way to gain a competitive advantage for the future.
However, many small and medium-sized companies still admit that they are not using digital tools to manage repetitive processes with little added value.
Below, we review how the automation of these processes allows for increased efficiency and productivity.
“Automation is about making the most of human capabilities,” says Jen Stirrup, founder of Data Relish , a boutique data science and business intelligence consultancy. “This is done by simplifying and streamlining administrative tasks that humans aren’t very good at but that computers are designed to do.”
In a finance department, this could be automatically reconciling payments with a bank account or automating the capture of receipt and invoice data . This frees up employees and leaves them with more time to do other things.
In any case, Stirrup explains that it is not about eliminating people from the equation:
"The goal is to fine-tune processes in order to speed them up, but it is also important to have a brake that allows human intervention to control or reverse a decision made by artificial intelligence if something is not correct."
Shaw Gibbs, Accounting Firm
Sarah Gardener is Outsourcing Director at Shaw Gibbs , a top 100 UK accounting and financial planning firm with offices in Oxford and London. She helps large corporations and high-growth businesses (and their finance teams) implement new technologies and automation applications.