Best 5 Autonomous Finance Tools for 2024

CFOs are under constant pressure to increase efficiency in operations while at the same time cutting costs, ensuring healthy cash flow. At the same time, they must be able to gather and analyze data to quickly make the right decisions that contribute to business growth. These pressures are driving them to adopt a range of autonomous finance tools, including those in accounts receivable. As a result, many CFOs are planning to move towards autonomous financial solutions in the next three years and increase their IT budget accordingly.

What is Autonomous Finance?

Autonomous finance solutions are technologies or systems that can perform tasks on their own, without needing constant human control or supervision. These systems and technologies are different from automatic ones, which eliminate the tedious and repetitive work involved in manual processes similar to autonomous finance solutions. Unlike autonomous finance solutions, however, automatic finance systems and technologies still require a certain amount of human intervention.

One of the most critical types of autonomous finance platform that finance teams and CFOs should be aware of is autonomous A/R solutions.

Benefits of Autonomous Finance Tools

Autonomous finance fintech applies to a wide range of applications, from autonomous banking and cash flow forecasting and management to accounts payable and payment processing.
It is used to streamline financial processes related to payments, invoice processing, budgeting and risk management which have traditionally relied on manual processes.

Regardless of the application, however, all autonomous finance tools deliver the same benefits:

• Improved accuracy and speed. Automating manual tasks eliminates human error while allowing staff to focus on higher-value tasks. For example, autonomous A/R software automates the generation of recurring invoices and remittance, allowing finance teams to focus on collecting invoices from customers that can best optimize and accelerate their company’s cash flow.
• Ability to deliver a better customer experience. You’ll be able to better streamline A/R processes while leveraging external and internal data to deliver a more personalized experience that makes customers feel understood. In addition, faster and more accurate processes help build customer trust.
• Offers a competitive advantage. If you can offer a better customer experience, scale your invoice collection without compromising on speed or accuracy, and use the data to forecast payments accurately, you’ll likely be ahead of your competitors.
• Ability to scale. Since automation improves speed and accuracy, it is far more effective at scaling than manual methods. A/R solutions in particular streamline each aspect of accounts receivable, from collections to credit management, cash application and disputes and deductions. Without automation, the only real option to scale is to hire more people.

Key Features of Autonomous Finance Tools

Autonomous finance tools allow businesses to quickly improve their processes based on vast amounts of past data and trends that can be processed in real-time to achieve specific goals. Finance teams that want to stay ahead must embrace these tools as partners in their growth that help decrease costs and improve the efficiency of human processes.

These autonomous finance tools also all offer many of the same features, including:

• Automation. Automation helps streamline processes, making them faster and more accurate so that they can be scaled. In accounts receivable, robotic process automation can automate and scale invoice distribution, payments, collections, payment matching and reconciliation.
• AI. AI and machine learning help identify patterns in large datasets and use the insights to make predictions that can be applied towards your business strategy. For example, finance teams might apply it towards cash flow forecasting, credit risk assessment and identifying the best investment opportunities.
• Predictive analytics. Predictive analytics can be applied towards developing more accurate risk management, ranking customers according to their potential to pay overdue invoices, enabling A/R teams to prioritize their collections efforts more effectively.
• Personalization. With the data collected through automation, autonomous finance tools can personalize the customer experience without the need for human intervention. For example, autonomous A/R tools can send dunning emails that are automatically personalized, targeted and sent to the right person at the right time.
• Real-time monitoring. The first step to real-time monitoring is gathering data from different sources, such as different financial software the company uses. After having the data in a centralized place, it can be used for different applications. For example, an autonomous forecasting system with real-time monitoring can alert the company to order more inventory to meet increased demand.

The bottom line: With autonomous finance, a lot of the tedious by necessary functions run in the background and provide unmatched intelligence for your team. This reduces errors and allows your team to focus on initiatives that need sophisticated logic and wisdom that only a human can provide.

5 Best Autonomous Finance Tools for 2024

If your finance team is looking to adopt autonomous finance tools this year, there are a huge range of applications ranging from the supply chain to accounts payable, procurement and expense management. We’ve composed a list focused more on core finance and accounting functions, including accounts receivable.

1. Gaviti

Gaviti’s autonomous invoice-to-cash solution that streamlines every aspect of accounts receivables, from collections and credit management to cash application and disputes and deductions while delivering complete visibility to all A/R stakeholders. It has proven experience lowering DSO, reducing write-offs and lowering risk asset ratio (RAR). Its AI copilot works throughout the entire solution both to gather information, optimize text and workflows, and make proactive suggestions for improvement. (e.g., improve emails, workflows, suggest credit limits, etc).

2. High Radius

High Radius delivers a comprehensive financial suite for CFOs and finance teams that automates your order-to-cash, treasury, payments and accounting processes and delivers real-time insights to help improve your cash flow.

3. Netsuite

As a leading ERP platform, Netsuite has the ability to connect different data systems across with your company and manage core functions together such as finance and accounting, inventory, orders and procurement. As a standard ERP, it also has the ability to send automated payment reminder emails to customers.

4. Zapier

Zapier is a workflow automation platform for both small businesses and non-technical users who want to grow faster and automate manual processes without having to rely on a development team. It also connects with over 5,000 apps, making it extremely efficient for streamlining operations for larger organizations as well.

5. Bill

A financial operations platform targeted towards small and medium-sized businesses, Bill manages both accounts receivables and payables along with expenses and budget, syncing it with the account system to manage the company’s cash.

How Gaviti Delivers an Autonomous Invoice-to-Cash Solution

A/R teams today face numerous challenges, including a lack of standardized processes, excessive time dedicated to manual tasks, and the need for a centralized source of truth for accounts receivable data. Gaviti helps address these challenges by automating as many of these complex A/R processes as possible, bringing organization, visibility, predictability and efficiency to accounts receivable. As an autonomous invoice-to-cash solution, its AI-copilot works throughout the A/R lifecycle to make workflow and communication suggestions in real-time, automating as much as possible yet also giving your staff the tools to operate the most efficiently on their own when necessary.

Many of its modules include autonomous elements, including:

• A/R Collections. Automate and fully personalize dunning workflows with an autonomous AI-process that loops in the relevant roles as necessary and offers unlimited segmentation for a wide range of industries and customer types. Improve dunning workflow performance over time with a data-driven approach.
• A/R Analytics. Create your own custom reports and dashboards with customizable views based on different personas (e.g. Head of A/R, CFO) so that you only see the metrics relevant to you. This includes an AI-powered customer risk score that is updated regularly. View both individual and team performance at a glance.
• Cash Application. Reduce errors and disputes while improving the customer experience by automating manual processes involved in the traditional process of matching payments to invoices with AI-powered remittance auto-matching. That means 100% matching for customers using Gaviti’s payment portal and 95% for payments made to the bank or a lockbox.
• Self-Service Customer Portal. Allow customers to pay their invoices quickly and easily anytime day or night. You’ll be able to also provide multiple payment options for your customer, enabling clients to easily engage with your A/R team and solve common requests independently. Plus, you have the option to send customers invoices or use auto-pay which will charge customers automatically. In additional, the payment portal lets customers see their whole invoice history, including outstanding invoices, in one centralized place.
• Credit Management and Monitoring. Credit applications with relevant information collected from relevant sources with the help of the AI copilot and a suggested credit limit for the reviewer to do a sanity check. Enforce credit limits with automatic alerts to both your collections team and external stakeholders (e.g., VP of Sales) when your customers get close to or extend beyond the predetermined credit limits.
• Dispute Management. Resolve and close disputes in under an hour with alerts with customizable workflows for tracking and routing and resolutions that are communicated in real-time. Discover trends in disputes, leveraging the information to resolve future disputes faster.

Want to learn more about Gaviti’s autonomous invoice-to-cash solution? Speak to a specialist today!

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