FP&A teams know the problem all too well: routine tasks pile up, dominating your days, while those high-value, strategic projects get stuck waiting on the back burner.
Month-end reporting, budget updates, forecast modeling - it's all essential work, but it’s also extremely time-consuming. Before you know it, another week has passed without making much (if any) headway on the initiatives that really matter.
The solution?
FP&A automation.
More and more FP&A teams are using artificial intelligence and cloud platforms to systematize those repetitive, manual processes. And who can blame them? By implementing new FP&A automation software, they can slash the hours spent on mundane work and free up time for more impactful analysis.
If you’re ready to step off the reporting treadmill and focus on projects that drive valuable insights and strategy, then it’s time to embrace automation in FP&A.
In this blog, we’ll explore:
✅ Why FP&A teams should embrace automation
✅ Areas of FP&A that can be automated
✅ What the future of FP&A automation looks like
What is FP&A automation?
Simply put, FP&A automation means leveraging technology to streamline the repetitive, manual processes that bog down finance teams.
We're talking about all the Excel spreadsheet wrangling, data entry, and report formatting that bloats your days, but adds little value.
By implementing the latest automation software and tools, you can systematize those recurring FP&A tasks around budgeting, forecasting, and reporting.
This involves establishing standardized models, workflows, and analytics to handle mundane and repetitive tasks automatically.
Sabrinthia Donnelly
Why every FP&A team needs to embrace automation
In the past, FP&A teams often found themselves caught up in manual, time-consuming tasks. Collecting data, updating spreadsheets, and generating reports took up a lot of their time, leaving little room for the kind of deep analysis and strategic thinking that can truly drive a business forward.
With FP&A automation, this scenario shifts dramatically, allowing finance pros to focus on what they do best: analyzing data, uncovering insights, and advising on strategic decisions.
When you think of automating FP&A processes, think:
➡️ Freed-up resources previously bogged down in spreadsheets.
➡️ Accelerated processes measured in minutes not days/weeks.
➡️ Reduced errors and accounting misstatements.
➡️ Continuous planning and forecasting cycles.
Automating mundane and redundant tasks in FP&A allows for continuous, agile processes that keep pace with today's fast-moving marketplace.
Rather than being reactive, FP&A professionals become proactive partners, able to prescribe data-driven decisions that drive growth and competitive advantage.
Sabrinthia Donnelly
What areas of FP&A can be automated?
FP&A automation can revolutionize several key areas within the finance function. Let's delve into some of them:
Data collection & integration
One of the most time-consuming tasks in FP&A is gathering financial and operational data from various sources.
Automation can streamline this process by integrating data from different systems, such as ERP, CRM, and HR software. This ensures that all relevant data is collected efficiently and consistently, providing a comprehensive view of the organization's financial health.
Financial reporting
Generating financial reports is a staple of FP&A, but it's also repetitive and prone to errors when done manually.
Specialised FP&A tools and software can produce these reports quickly and accurately, ensuring that stakeholders have timely access to critical financial information. This includes standard reports like:
- Income statements
- Balance sheets
- Cash flow statements
- Customized reports tailored to the specific needs of the company
Budgeting & forecasting
Automating the budgeting and forecasting process can save a huge amount of time and improve accuracy.
The best tools can handle complex calculations, scenario analysis, and what-if modeling, providing FP&A teams with better insights to forecast future performance and plan accordingly.
Dashboarding & visualization
Presenting financial data in an easily digestible format is essential for decision-making.
By automating these processes, you can easily create dynamic dashboards and visualizations that provide real-time insights into key financial metrics, helping executives and other stakeholders to quickly grasp the financial status and trends.
Scenario planning
The ability to analyze different financial scenarios is vital for strategic planning. Automation can facilitate this by quickly modeling various scenarios based on different assumptions, helping organizations prepare for potential future developments.
Sabrinthia Donnelly
Getting started
If you want to introduce FP&A automation, there are a few steps to help lay the groundwork:
📝 Evaluate as-is workflows
Which processes soak up the most resources for marginal value? Target those first.
✅ Get stakeholder buy-in
Educate colleagues on automation goals and collaborate on priorities.
📈 Start small, deliver a quick win
Prove out benefits before expanding automation.
🔎 Vet software vendors
Align offerings' strengths and costs to key needs around forecasting, reporting, etc.
The future of FP&A automation
Recent research has revealed that 92% of finance leaders are already or planning to automate at least half of their processes within the year. But what does the future hold for FP&A automation?
Leading analysts forecast automation adoption to soar over the next few years as solutions become more capable and accessible. Here are just a few of their predictions:
- 👆🏻 Surging investment: FP&A teams will earmark more budget for automation tools.
- 📅 Continuous planning: Real-time performance tracking supplants static cycles.
- 🔮 Improved insights: Machine learning excavates valuable intelligence from data.
- 📊 Better decisions: Timely analytics and models feed strategic choices.
Rather than getting stuck manually moving data and producing reports, FP&A will pivot to continuous forecasting, predictive analytics, and prescriptive guidance - the keys to finance leading business growth.
FAQs
Can you automate financial analysis?
Absolutely! A lot of the number crunching and report generating in financial analysis can be automated. Think of software doing the heavy lifting of sorting through data, doing calculations, and spitting out reports. This leaves the analysts free to dig into the why's and what-ifs, which is the really fun part.
Will FP&A be automated?
Yep, it's already happening! A bunch of the routine stuff in FP&A, like pulling data together and making basic forecasts, is moving over to automation. It's not about replacing people, but more about giving them time to tackle the big-picture strategy things that robots can't do.
What is FP&A technology?
FP&A technology is basically a collection of tools and software that help with financial planning and analysis. It's all about making life easier for finance teams, with advanced features for pulling data from different places, making it look pretty in charts, and helping predict future trends.
Download our Finance Tools of Choice Report!
Our ultimate directory of finance tools is here, bringing you the best tools and software of 2023 that finance pros swear by.
We've gathered insights from industry leaders to spotlight the tools finance professionals can’t do without. These aren't just any tools; they've been vetted, tested, and proven effective.
Download the report to find out what tools made the list.👇
