As CEO of Navan Expense, Michael Sindicich is focused on building the world’s best payments and expense management platform at Navan.
Forty-seven percent of finance professionals still manually manage their expense process, according to a 2024 Navan survey of over 200 finance professionals.
Despite its rapid evolution, corporate financial management remains surprisingly inefficient. Many manual tasks, such as reconciliation and chasing down data, can be automated, yet widespread inefficiency continues to drain productivity and drive up costs.
Teams rely on spreadsheets and paper receipts, verify expenses by hand and spend weeks tracking missing or incorrect data. This manual approach introduces human error and wastes time that could be better spent on strategic financial planning.
As a result, a majority of our survey’s respondents noted that expense reconciliation takes between one to four weeks. Yet with automation, this entire process could be reduced to just 60 minutes—leading to measurable cost savings and greater operational efficiency.
The Payoff Of Fintech
With the emergence of modern expense management platforms, advanced technology can now perform tasks such as approvals and reconciliation in seconds. These tools can even prevent out-of-policy spending by verifying the validity of purchases at the time of the transaction.
Key capabilities of modern expense management platforms include:
• Automating expense reports and reconciliation.
• Applying customizable, proactive spend policies that prevent overspending.
• Offering real-time visibility into budgets and spending insights.
• Providing fast reimbursement in multiple currencies and countries.
For accounting and finance teams, automation reduces data entry errors and speeds reconciliation, allowing stakeholders to focus on higher-value activities such as financial analysis and strategic planning. This boosts internal efficiency and enhances decision making across the organization.
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) can further elevate these benefits by curating deeper insights from automated expense tracking, which empowers businesses to make smarter spending decisions and optimize financial performance in real time.
With automation comes real-time control and visibility, which leads to previously unreachable efficiencies.
Automation simplifies the process for employees, too. Corporate cardholders benefit from easier expense submissions and tracking. Mobile apps can automatically capture receipts, categorize expenses and submit them for approval with minimal employee effort. This reduces the time employees spend on administrative tasks, freeing them to focus on their core responsibilities.
Implementing Automation In Finance
While the benefits of automation are clear, implementing these solutions can be challenging. Here are some strategies to successfully integrate automation into financial processes:
1. Invest in automation tools. Modern platforms offer end-to-end automation capabilities for everything from data capture to reconciliation.
2. Integrate with existing systems. Make sure your automation tools can integrate with your current accounting and ERP systems; compatibility is key to maintaining the integrity of your financial data.
3. Leverage AI and machine learning. You can leverage GenAI to automate complex tasks such as anomaly detection, fraud prevention and predictive analytics. Over time, advanced algorithms can improve the accuracy and efficiency of these processes.
4. Train and support your team. Provide training and support so employees are comfortable using new automated systems.
5. Prioritize data security and compliance. Automation should not compromise data security or compliance. Prioritize maintaining the highest data protection standards and regulatory compliance to safeguard financial information.
The benefits of automation extend beyond individual companies to the entire financial ecosystem. As more businesses adopt automated solutions—and the benefits of faster processing and reduced costs—the industry’s collective efficiency will improve, and so should customer satisfaction.
Automation has the potential to impact everyone, from global financial leaders who oversee large-scale budgeting and forecasting to local accountants at home services companies who manage day-to-day financial transactions and reporting.
The Future Of Financial Automation
The future of finance lies in automation. As GenAI and machine learning technologies advance, the potential for automating complex financial processes grows. The next wave of innovation will likely focus on enhancing predictive analytics and improving decision-making capabilities.
Those who adopt automation will lead the way, setting new standards for efficiency and effectiveness in finance.
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