Enterprise employees tend to think it’s solely the CEO’s job to provide the organization’s strategic vision, but the CFO is right there with them, rolling up their sleeves and identifying new ways to create more efficiency and derive deeper insights that will help scale the entire business.
This is where automated accounts payable solutions become absolutely essential. Taking advantage of AP automation not only clears the finance team’s to-do list of the most basic tasks but also empowers the CFO to make stronger decisions based on deep spend management analytics.
Navigating today’s landscape
As Emburse’s report, “How Finance Leaders Can Thrive During a Recession in 2023,” detailed, our survey of 400 finance leaders uncovered four massive challenges:
- High inflation
- Market volatility
- Employee burnout
- Employee retention
Any of these can stifle scalability on their own. Combined, they create a perfect storm that CFOs must navigate if they want to keep driving growth.
AP automation is the path to strategic growth
The vast majority of CFOs we surveyed (95%) implemented some kind of automation in 2022 but also said there was much more work to be done in 2023. Their goal? Use AP automation solutions as the foundation for a digital transformation that unlocks deeper visibility into the organization’s spend management. From there, CFOs can identify ways to combat inflation and volatility, while also giving their employees the quality working experience they want and expect.
How can AP automation do all of that?
1. It gives CFOs an opportunity to outsource non-strategic, menial tasks
Invoice processing and AP automation can be outsourced entirely to SaaS providers like Chrome River. The end result? The entire finance team is elevated from paper chasers to agile strategic advisors that can now focus on bigger-picture business needs that scale growth. Just like that, CFOs are getting more value from their employees, and employees are feeling more valued and less stressed.
2. It identifies obstacles and opportunities for improvement
In addition to eliminating employees’ menial tasks, CFOs have turned to two key strategies to navigate today’s landscape: improving budget accountability and increasing the visibility and analysis of the organization’s spending. When you automate AP, these strategies are covered.
A robust AP automation platform includes comprehensive analytics that give a more holistic, more transparent view of how the business operates. For example, AP automation solutions can identify problems like lagging sales or quality-control issues. From there, CFOs have the insights they need to streamline day-to-day operations and improve the speed and efficacy of decision-making. These insights also give them the power to spot opportunities to tighten the belt, which can help minimize the effects of high inflation and market volatility.
3. It makes it easy to refine the organization’s vision and plans for growth
Especially in challenging economic times, it’s absolutely vital for CFOs to understand where and how spend is happening across the organization so they can make adjustments. The sooner they can spot obstacles and opportunities, the sooner they can pivot to a new growth strategy.
The best AP automation software eliminates the data silos hampering so many enterprises and generates complex reports, charts, and dashboards — all without having to rely on technical staff. With greater clarity into what’s working and what could be working better, CFOs can make changes faster than if they had to wait for bigger, more expensive trends to emerge.
The AP automation imperative
Technology that can optimize spend is no longer a nice-to-have. AP automation unlocks too many strategic doors for CFOs to ignore. Without it, accelerated growth is incredibly difficult, if not impossible. Discover how Chrome River removes the barriers to strategic growth — even in the toughest economic times — and empowers CFOs and their teams to work smarter, faster, and more cost-efficiently so that the entire organization can shine bright.