An evolution is taking place in the accounting and finance space. It relates to the expectations company leaders have for their staff, and the expectations staff have about work today, believes Adem Turgut, CEO of financial automation software provider SolveXia.

“The CFO, the department of the CFO, is no longer one of just number crunching. The companies really want their teams to help with charting a course to success,” he says. “And at the same time the people doing the job are also expecting different things. People want more value from their work. They want to feel like they’re making a difference.”

It would be great if these two ideas aligned but instead, says Turgut in a recent webinar, Automating Talent: Transforming Finance and Accounting Through Advanced Technology, it’s resulting in a talent shortage, with 84% of CFOs saying they are experiencing a talent gap. “The demands on the finance function are greater than ever before: CAs are expected to provide strategic analysis; not just a record of past performance,” he says.

“Specifically skills or focus in areas like strategy and analysis, planning, strategic insights and so on, it is widely reported that the CFO simply can’t find enough of these skills and resources. Existing staff are burnt out, doing repetitive day-to-day work, and they just don’t have time to learn new skills or embark on these new exciting projects.”

Applying automation to mundane tasks

As many firms can’t afford to hire more people, Turgut believes they should be upskilling the people they already have. Meanwhile, automation can act like a “sidekick” or a “strategic ally” working alongside humans on the more repetitive, tedious tasks.

“Automation can be used to handle the repetitive, mundane work that takes up loads of time (such as data entry, reconciliation, reporting), so teams can concentrate on analysis and strategy,” he says. “Some automation software can also help you with analysis and insights, and give you detailed visual reports of what’s happening and why.”

How SolveXia works

SolveXia is a cloud automation and AI platform that runs entirely in a user’s browser. It works by ingesting data from a number of sources – enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, data warehouses, OneDrive accounts, Excel and text files – and can then be configured to run any repeatable data transformation process that the user does, including reconciliations.

It can include calculating, managing rebates, regulatory reporting including reporting to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), reporting for tax and reporting to the local tax authority. “We’ve automated well over a thousand different processes on the platform over the years and so the system has the capability to do your data transformation really quickly, effectively with the click of a button, and then produce outputs in a variety of formats.”

SolveXia also offers human support to make sure customers’ processes are running the way they should be.

“The first goal is to automate away the routine and mundane work and then the second is to redeploy the time and energy that you save into new, more analytical and strategic endeavours,” Turgut explains.

“It’s not simply about doing your existing task faster and with greater accuracy… it’s about helping you do more of that strategic and analytical work as well. In my experience it is a tool that levels up the existing team, makes them better and makes them more valuable for their companies.”

Find out more

Learn more about SolveXia: solvexia.com