Ready to Automate? The Challenges and Benefits of Finance Automation

A question we often hear is why do companies automate their expense, travel and invoice processes?  

No matter the size of your business, finance automation can be hugely beneficial if you know where it’ll make the biggest impact. 

Whether it’s creating expense reports, processing supplier invoices or booking business travel, automation is optimising the way organisations work. It can help free up valuable resources to help streamline and grow your organisation.  

It’s time to take proactive steps towards improving processes, gain a better view into spending and make life easier for employees. We’re going to take you through a few top tips to help prepare you for finance automation. It’s an essential step to ensure a successful implementation, increase adoption across the business and lay a foundation for growth. 

6 Ways to Grow Your Business with Spend Management Automation

Take a look at our six-step action plan for setting up your business for growth.

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1. Identify Core Issues 

In order to make sure your efforts are reaching the right parts of the organisation, you must first identify the main issues within the business, so you can be sure that finance automation will help turn those challenges into opportunities. 

Right now, without automation, your company is sitting on data that could be utilised to help you reach goals faster, but you can’t leverage this valuable information if you don’t have full visibility over spend. When you have access to all your data, you can easily identify areas that need improving and make better informed business decisions. 

In addition to improved visibility, clamping down on non-compliant spend can be a core reason for implementing finance automation. Spend management solutions can flag any spend that falls out of policy before it happens. Finance leaders no longer need to chase employees or worry about any potential fines to the business. 

2. Highlight Areas That Need Attention 

Now you’ve set some goals and know what you want to get out of finance automation, you can identify the areas that will benefit most from digital transformation.  

This is the perfect time to audit your business and highlight where there are bottlenecks, errors and delays or potential risks. Investigate where manual data input or paper-based process can be automated. Or have bad habits crept in such as filing invoices and purchase orders on PC and laptops due to the lack of a centralised cloud-based storage solution?  

Once you know where to focus your attention, you can provide actionable insights for your business and begin finding the best solution that will streamline your processes, save time and money and improve employee satisfaction. 

3. Communicate Your Intentions and Gain Support 

When considering implementing finance automation, it’s important to get buy-in and support from executives and super users. Best practice is to have a senior sponsor, ideally at board level, to champion your intentions, ensure the project is successful and communicate its urgency. In a smaller business where you may wear several hats, still seek the opinion of your staff, as well as talking to your peers operating in the same space, to gauge if there may be any resistance to automation.

A good place to start when selling your idea is to focus on the profit it will bring the business. For instance, finance automation will help future growth ambitions, deliver financial insights that drive informed decisions and futureproof your business with a custom fit finance platform that scales as you grow. 

4. Find the Best Solution That Fits Your Business 

In a saturated market, it can be difficult to know which spend management solution will be most beneficial to your business. Here are a few things to look out for when considering which platform to implement: 

• Will the platform scale as you grow? 

• Does the organisation provide the level of service and support you need? 

• What experience does the solution provider have in this field?  

• Is there a community where you can share experiences? 

• Will the platform present opportunities as well as help with challenges? 

• How quickly can I and my employees get help and advice when we need it 24/7? 

5. Plan for the Future 

Automating your finance processes will bring stability and organisation to your business, but you can take it even further than that.  

Perhaps your business wants to work towards sustainable travel or wants to enable employees to submit expenses anywhere, at any time, or maybe the organisation needs to create insightful reports that help reach goals faster. Finance automation allows you to do all of this and more. There’s no better time to invest in your digital future than today.  

Now You’re Ready 

Whether you’re looking for greater visibility over spend, to clamp down on non-compliant spend or simply digitise tired and manual processes, SAP Concur solutions can help streamline your business and optimise your expense, invoice and travel processes.  

You’ll be supported at every stage of onboarding, implementation and beyond, including 24/7 human support. On top of this, you’ll also have access to the SAP Concur Community, where users come together to share insights, expertise and give tips to make sure you’re getting the most out of the solution. 

It’s easier and more affordable than you think to automate business spend and you can easily configure spend solutions to your exact needs, no matter your size.  

To find out more about how SAP Concur solutions will help your business, take a look at our Expense Demo or Invoice Demo. Also see our eBook for more ways Finance Automation Can Help You Drive Competitive Advantage.