Finance process automation

Finance process automation is worth doing only where a process is both repetitive and well understood. Most finance teams are slow for a different reason: two or three systems are being bridged by hand, and no amount of automation fixes a bridge that should not exist. So the work starts by finding where the hours actually go, and often the first answer is to remove a step rather than automate it.

On a recent systems audit we found seven of thirteen purchase process steps happening outside any system, 56% of bills processed carrying 1.68% of the spend, and roughly 304 manual journal lines a month for collections that could be raised as 24 invoices. None of that needed new software. It needed the process to run inside the system the company already owned.

That is the usual shape. The automation that pays is rarely the impressive kind. It is a purchase request that has to be approved before the commitment is made, a bank feed that removes a re-keying step, a report that refreshes itself instead of being rebuilt each cycle.

Where a build genuinely is the right answer, we cost it against the configured alternative first, so the decision is made with the numbers visible.

Where the work usually lands

  • Procure-to-Pay inside the accounting system, with three-way matching and approval by amount
  • Pre-approval of commitments — a purchase request layer before the spend happens
  • Order-to-Cash defined and enforced rather than described
  • Recurring journals replaced by invoicing where the underlying event is a sale
  • Fixed asset registers moved off spreadsheets
  • Bank integration to remove re-keying
  • Live reporting that refreshes itself, instead of exports pasted side by side
  • Excel and Python automation where a system change is not warranted

How it runs

  1. 01

    Measure where the hours go

    We follow the work as it happens and analyse the system exports behind it. Findings come back ranked by what each is costing annually, so sequencing is an economic decision rather than a preference.

  2. 02

    Remove before automating

    Steps that exist because two systems do not talk, or because a control was never configured, get removed. Automating them would only make the wrong thing faster.

  3. 03

    Configure first, build second

    Most of what companies want already exists in software they own and have not configured. Every build option is costed against that alternative before it is recommended.

  4. 04

    Deliver in sequence

    A roadmap you can act on in order, with the cost of each step known, rather than a transformation programme that has to be swallowed whole.

Recently delivered

A battery-swapping network

A three-day on-site review and five months of system exports analysed, then a nine-step roadmap across purchases, sales and assets, with each build option costed against the configured alternative. None of the nine needed software the company did not already own, apart from one optional build.

Two fixes were made during the review itself and recovered about twelve hours a month.

Read the case

Questions we get asked

What is the first thing we should automate?

Usually nothing, until the diagnosis is done. The highest-value change is often removing a manual bridge between two systems rather than automating it. Findings ranked by annual cost make that decision for you.

Do we need to buy new software?

Often not. On a recent audit, none of the nine recommended changes needed software the company did not already own, apart from one optional build. Most finance teams are running a fraction of what they have already paid for.

How do you decide between configuring and building?

By costing both. Every build option is priced against the configured alternative, and the comparison goes into the report — including the options we rejected and why.

Will this disrupt the team during month end?

The sequence is designed around your close calendar. The roadmap is delivered in steps you can take in order, so nothing has to land in the middle of a close.

How do you measure whether it worked?

Against the numbers in the diagnosis. If a finding said a process was costing a month of one person's time, the test is whether that time came back.

What does a process audit cost?

Fixed fee, fixed scope, agreed before we start — and the written report is yours whatever you decide to do next, including taking it to another firm.

Start with a clear picture.

Fixed fee, fixed scope. The written report is yours, whatever you decide to do next.

Tell us what’s not workingBring us the brief