10 tips to digitize your financial department

Achieve financial automation excellence

Switch the focus from manual entry & control to analysis & insights.

Finance teams often spend too much time on manual actions and controls, at the expense of analysis. As a fintech company, our mission is to shift focus.

Automation eliminates a lot of manual input and repetitive checks. The time freed up creates new opportunities for the finance team.

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10 Ways to digitize your finance department

Shift your finance team’s focus from manual tasks and controls to meaningful analysis and insights.

1. Modern accounting software

Use a high-performance accounting system. It should let you break down data by cost centers and units. It must integrate easily via APIs. Cloud-based systems update automatically and require less downtime.

2. Bank integration

Automate bank statements and reconciliations. Use tools to mark transactions automatically. When payments come from your accounting system, invoices sync without extra steps.

3. OCR for invoices

Use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to automate invoice entries. Machine Learning can suggest categories. Start where it matters most—20% of suppliers that generate 80% of your invoices.

4. E-invoicing

Structured e-invoices (like EDI) skip the need for OCR. They feed directly into workflows, ERP, or accounting systems. Make sure your tools connect easily with your suppliers. Automated checks reduce errors.

5. Mobile expense tools

Let employees capture receipts via smartphone, upload travel expenses easily, and submit approvals digitally. Cut down manual data entry in your finance department.

6. Automation of workflows

Automate purchase-order approvals and invoice processing. If invoices match orders, they post automatically. Finance doesn’t manually intervene in every step.

7. Automated collections & risk tracking

Use automatic reminders for late payments. Add payment-risk assessments so you can focus on high-priority cases.

8. Efficient consolidation

Automate key consolidation entries: intercompany transactions, payables/receivables, goodwill etc. Include reconciliations, deferred tax, and equity checks where needed.

9. 360° reporting

Don’t just look at financial data. Pull in ERP and operational metrics. Centralize KPIs so the whole management team works from the same data. Use dashboards and cloud platforms to show “one version of the truth.”

10. Forecasting & scenario planning

Go beyond spreadsheets. Use your financial and operational data to build “what-if” scenarios and see how different paths affect cash flow.

What to do Next

Now that you know the building blocks, it’s time to act:

Remove manual entries and repetitive checks.
Automate wherever possible.
Focus the finance team’s effort on analysis, insights, and planning.
Get everyone in the organization speaking the same data language.

Now that you have all the building stones to automate your finance department, you can get started. Avoid manual input and repetitive checks with automation and dedicate more time to analysis and insights. That way, you’ll make the finance department ready for the future.

In terms of reporting, BrightAnalytics offers a solution that gives you a 360° overview of your organization. Would you like to learn more about our solution? Register for one of our webinars or request a demo.