Despite the rapid rise of AI technology in finance, nearly a fifth of UK finance decision-makers still rely on Excel as their primary tool for processing invoices, a Yooz report has revealed.
The 2024 Yooz State of Automation in Finance survey shares insights from 1,550 finance and procurement professionals working in organisations across the US, UK, France, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, UAE and South Africa.
It is the fourth year running that Yooz, a cloud-based purchase-to-pay (P2P) automation provider, has conducted its research to gain insights into the opinions on the challenges as well as opportunities finance decision-makers face.
The 2024 report shows finance leaders now adding proactive business value, a shift from 2021’s focus on pandemic-driven digital transformation, 2022’s talent shortages, and 2023’s inflation and hybrid work challenges.
Yooz highlights a clear disparity between finance departments advanced in their digital transformation journey and those lagging behind. Mirroring the figures from both 2023 and 2022, the reliance on spreadsheets is one of the factors contributing to the widespread lack of finance function efficiency and productivity.
Nineteen per cent of UK finance decision-makers admitted to using spreadsheets as the top method to process their accounts payable (AP) invoices.
Embracing automation
The report highlights a growing emphasis on the integration of AP automation with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, as well as the adoption of AI and machine learning to enhance data accuracy and operational efficiency. Despite the evident benefits, the pace of automation adoption remains slow, with only 28 per cent of finance decision-makers categorising their organisations as advanced in digital transformation.
“After several years of reactive measures, our 2024 annual research confirms that finance decision-makers are now proactively looking to deliver business value,” said Laurent Charpentier, CEO of Yooz. “The emphasis on improving productivity and obtaining better information to facilitate informed decision-making demonstrates a clear commitment to elevating the strategic role of the finance department within the business.
“Finance decision-makers who do not shy away from the evolution of AI in their departments will be in a prime position to make informed decisions quickly and add real corporate value.”
According to Yooz, the primary objectives for automating the AP process are reducing errors (37 per cent), improving financial control and forecast accuracy (33 per cent), and reducing costs (32 per cent).
The most important factors when evaluating automated AP solutions are fast implementation and minimal training requirements (31 per cent), powerful and accurate data extraction (29 per cent), and user-friendly platforms (28 per cent).
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