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10 Ways to Use Automation Software to Address Top CFO Concerns Going into 2025
Over the past few years, the role of the CFO has expanded to include new responsibilities. Priorities shift and focuses change as the world around us changes in response to technological advances, the economic and political landscape, and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As we look ahead to the next year, CFOs face a variety of challenges. For many of these challenges, implementing Business Process Automation (BPA) software in financial departments can make a big difference. With BPA software streamlining business processes, increasing efficiency, supporting accurate data collection, and other valuable tasks, CFOs can equip themselves, their companies, and financial departments to face the future.
1) Changing Responsibilities
In an interview with Forbes, CFO Jeff Laborde identified changing responsibilities as one of the top challenges that modern CFOs face. Not only has the nitty-gritty for managing finances changed but Laborde says “more and more boards are expecting their CFOs to help foundationally drive outcomes and not be a scorekeeper, or resource allocator, or owner of the purse strings.”
One of the benefits of BPA software is that it supports efforts to make financial departments play a more strategic role in the company. From procurement to accounts payable, automation streamlines core business processes and takes over routine tasks to free up employees to focus on more value-added contributions. By providing finance departments with the tools to operate more strategically, CFOs are better equipped to “foundationally drive outcomes” in their companies.
2) Facing Economic and Political Uncertainty
Overall, surveyed CFOs are optimistic going into the end of 2024 and looking forward to 2025. However, the U.S. presidential election and the possibility of a recession make the outlook uncertain. According to research by StrategicCFO360, over 50% of CFOs expect at least a mild recession. Couple that with the uncertain political landscape, and it’s hard to predict what’ll happen in the next year.
Automation software can’t predict the future, but it can make sure that your company has the data needed to make an informed response to whatever happens. Budgeting, forecasting, and planning for the future is much easier—and useful—when you’re working with accurate, timely, accessible data. Automation software streamlines financial processes and maintains meticulous records, making it simple to access useful data. It can even generate certain reports for you, though it’s still best to entrust people with data analysis.
3) Complying with Regulations
Regulations change frequently, and staying in compliance is an ongoing challenge. This is true for both external regulations (e.g. tax policies) and internal regulations (e.g. purchasing policies). Failing to comply with external regulations puts your company at legal, financial, and reputational risk. Failing to enforce internal regulations can lead to issues including fraud, cash flow problems, and difficult audits.
With flexible automation software that allows you to customize the system, you can automate a lot of regulation compliance. With software like we offer here at NextProcess, you can customize it to match your company’s exact needs and update the system as needed. You’ll be able to automate compliance for things like purchasing policies, payment record keeping, and invoice processing.
4) Managing and Retaining Talent
At the Future of Finance & CFO Exchange hosted by the Shared Services & Outsourcing Network (SSON) in 2024, the CFOs in attendance identified “talent management” as their top challenge. Finding the right people to hire is tough in today’s job market, and keeping them isn’t much easier. There’s also the challenge of managing talent while balancing people and technology in the workplace.
Many factors contribute to an employee’s decision to stay with your company, and BPA software can be a valuable tool for supporting retention efforts. User-friendly software can make it much easier to train new hires. It also supports existing employees’ efforts and makes their jobs easier by streamlining financial processes. Most people want to do meaningful work that’s contributing to the company, not repetitive tasks like routine data entry that could easily be handled by a computer. By automating finance, you free up employees to work on value-driven jobs.
5) Integrating Systems
Another big challenge facing CFOs involves problems communicating across large organizations. If your company is organized in silos, then it’s hard to coordinate between departments, share data, and develop policies that work for the whole company. It becomes even harder to manage for large organizations with multiple locations, sometimes in different countries.
Cloud-based software makes it much easier to streamline and standardize financial processes in large organizations. With this type of BPA software, everyone in the organization has access to the same system. For example, you can create a centralized procurement system that tracks purchasing across the entire company and standardizes the purchasing policy. No matter where employees are physically located, they’ll all use the same purchasing system. This had the additional benefit of collecting all the data related to purchasing in one central software platform.
6) Tightening Security
Data security is an ongoing concern, particularly in the digital world. Fraud prevention and cybersecurity are increasingly one of the responsibilities of a CFO. With so many types of fraud and scams out there, as well as hackers trying to steal data, many companies are strengthening security measures.
One of the ways you can improve security in the finance department is by partnering with a reliable software supplier. Unless your company is a data security expert, it’s likely that the software company will have more experience managing cybersecurity and the tools to do so effectively. For example, NextProcess is an SSAE-16 and HIPPA Compliant service provider. We handle digital security for you, and we routinely update our software to ensure you won’t fall behind on new data security measures.
7) Bettering Data Availability and Analysis
In a recent survey of 500 CFOs, 49% said that “Data analytics and reporting” had been added to their responsibilities within the last two years. Good data is vital to an organization, and more and more often the responsibility for analyzing and reporting on financial data falls to the CFO directly.
As mentioned in point #2, BPA software automatically keeps meticulous records and can generate some reports for you. It won’t take over data analysis—that’s a task that still requires a human touch—but it makes it much easier for CFOs to access the timely, reliable data they need for accurate analytics and reporting. The software automatically collects data related to financial transactions and stores it in a digital database. The database is simple to search and the software is capable of generating a variety of reports to match your company’s needs.
8) Managing Capital Expenses
In the most recent edition of The CFO Survey by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta, about 25% of survey respondents said that their firms’ capital expenses (CapEx) are constrained by available financing. These companies can’t invest in capital projects to the extent that they would like. Even so, over 60% of firms plan to invest in new equipment of some kind within the next six months and over 30% plan to invest in land or structures.
When companies must invest in capital projects but also need to be extra careful about finances, it’s vital to have good tools for managing capital projects. CapEx Management Software centralizes the whole process of managing capital projects on an easy-to-use platform. The cloud-based software updates in real-time, ensuring that everyone working on the projects can see accurate, timely information. The centralized platform makes it easier to collaborate across departments, manage budgets, and keep CapEx on track.
9) Reducing Costs
Reducing costs is an ongoing concern for CFOs. Every company wants to save money. At first, investing in new technology might not seem the way to do that because of the upfront costs associated with automation software. However, the return on investment can be impressive.
Automating business processes leads to faster processing and reduced costs. In the accounts payable department, for example, companies with fully automated AP save an average of $14.93 per processed invoice compared to manual invoice processing. You’ll also be able to eliminate late fees and take advantage of early pay discounts because of the faster processing times. Here at NextProcess, our clients typically break even in 9-12 months and see additional reductions in processing costs over time.
10) Automating and Digitizing with Technology
Many companies have either already automated their financial processes, partially automated, are in the process of automating and digitizing, or plan to do so soon. As technology becomes an even more central part of finance, CFOs face challenges related to technology, digitization, and automation. Technology can help optimize financial processes, but deciding when and how to digitize and automate can be tough.
There are several options for automating and digitizing financial processes. One of the simplest types of BPA to use and implement is cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). It’s a web-based application that works much like Microsoft 360 or Google Suite. Rather than installing software onto company computers, you’ll log in to use the software online. This makes implementation quick and easy. It also means your software supplier will keep your automation system up to date for you, including important security updates.
If cloud-based BPA sounds good to you, NextProcess is a great option. We’re the only automation supplier with modules for capital project management, procurement & purchase orders, accounts payable, travel & expense, and payment disbursement. You can get just a few of the modules, or use them all to provide a complete end-to-end solution. Contact us today to schedule a free demo and see how our different modules can help your company meet the challenges you’ll face in the next year.
