Driving efficiency across the journal entry process

Some of my colleagues have already discussed how implementing AI-enabled finance and accounting (F&A) operations can unlock value from your finance function and create a frictionless future.

Indeed, leveraging a frictionless, AI-based approach to finance can be a game changer in the record-to-analyze (R2A) space. Not only does it shift the focus from transactional processing to partnering with your CFO, but it also gives you the insights and analysis required to make business decisions that drive value-focused outcomes and truly impact your bottom line.

However, delivering frictionless and autonomous accounting operations needs your data to be integrated and consistently available in real time, while every journal entry has to be calculated, prepared, and posted automatically – also in real time. For their part, your finance professionals need to able to monitor and analyze accounting transactions via dashboards that enable them to react quickly if issues arise.

To achieve this requires next-generation, AI-enabled solutions and technology to automate the R2A process, taking your accounting operations – especially the end-to-end journal entry process – to the next level.

Eliminating manual effort in the journal entry process

While many automation solutions only address the front end of the journal entry process, collaborating with technology vendors such as BlackLine and Trintech Cadency can help you validate calculated and prepared journals, maintain standard templates, and support approvals. On top of this, easy integration with your ERP enables you to automate journal entry postings once approved.

However, within the context of the end-to-end journal entry process, this part of the journal entry process is only tip of the iceberg. The majority of effort is hidden in calculating the amount of journal entries based on the data that comes from different sources – all of which has to be manually retrieved, consolidated, and formatted.

Drive AI into the end-to-end journal entry process

But what if there was an innovative, platform-based solution that leveraged a next-generation journal calculation engine and integrated data from across your different sources?

And what if it could easily connect with your existing tools such as Cadency or BlackLine to transform your end-to-end journal entry process through:

• Delivering increased efficiency across journal entry calculation automation and systems integration (up to 60% for a client recently), including data downloading, formatting, and eliminating manual effort
• Driving significant operational savings through reducing manual effort
• Acting as a transformation catalyst to eliminate, standardize, and optimize calculations and source data templates
• Providing easy-to-track, transparent in progress monitoring
• Improving collaboration between teams and eliminating unnecessary emails
• Enhancing transparency, compliance, and control through improving traceability, automation, frictionless data integration, and more built-in checks.