The skills gap is a real problem for many industries, and is a particular concern for businesses seeking to achieve optimum efficiency within their financial processes. These act as the engine room for many businesses, ensuring effective spend management and consistent cash flow, so that all responsibilities – to employees, suppliers, and customers, can confidently be met.
It’s not surprising then that our recent business survey found finance professionals named attracting and retaining talent as the number one challenge to overcome in the next 12 months – above other pressing issues such as achieving cybersecurity and managing/achieving regulatory compliance. More than one-third (35%) also say their accounts payable (AP) team in particular is struggling to reduce its high staff turnover.
This is mirrored in the findings of other industry experts too, with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW) sharing data last year showing 64% of finance teams struggled to recruit and retain sufficient talent to fulfil their internal control responsibilities, while just 35% said they had enough strategic thinking talent, and 34% had the talent to effectively analyze data.
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Without getting on top of these crucial financial processes, how can businesses hope to survive and thrive in the increasingly challenging economic environment?
Technology is the key to solving this. The imperative now is to transform the role of finance professionals, elevating the job from number-crunching and paper pushing into a modern, dynamic, strategically vital position within the business. And implementing the right business process automation technology can make this happen, quickly, and measurably.
Take accounts payable – the process of paying suppliers accurately and on time. It’s a simple enough activity, right? It’s certainly important to maintain good terms with suppliers to ensure a consistent, reliable supply chain. But too often, problems occur. Launching its new Fair Payments Code in 2024, the UK government referenced figures stating late payments were costing small and medium-sized businesses on average £22,000 per year each, and poor practice was leading to around 50,000 business closures annually. Organizations that depend on suppliers for their own business success must surely take heed.
Automating invoice payment processes can help ensure late payments are a thing of the past, and also reduce or even eradicate instances of errors, omissions, and other issues that lead to payment delays. We were shocked to discover from our survey that over one-third (35%) of AP professionals said they had to manually intervene in the processing of at least 60% of their supplier invoices. This does little for supplier relationships, but crucially, it is a significant factor in the battle to attract and retain finance talent.
Skilled and experienced accounts professionals are worth their weight in gold and should not be relegated to fielding calls from disgruntled suppliers. That’s hardly a gratifying or rewarding experience for either party, and it certainly won’t mean your talent is going home happy at the end of the day. When organizations implement the most effective and powerful technology solutions for processes such as AP, it not only leads to faster, error free output and higher productivity for teams, but also creates a more professionally satisfying and fulfilling environment for talent. The smartest accounts professionals want, and should be focusing on higher value, strategic tasks, instead of frequently having to intervene and correct poorly automated payment processes using outdated technology.
One of the many strategies suggested for bridging the skills gap in finance is for businesses to develop more effective diversity, equality, and inclusion (DE&I) within their teams. To do that, they must present finance roles as attractive to a wider, and often discerning talent pool, offering tangible career opportunities and potential for learning, development, and progression. New entrants to the function – whether they be school leavers, university graduates, or older career switchers, are looking for long-term career prospects as well as day-to-day job satisfaction. Our survey found 25% of respondents were struggling to retain talent using legacy finance systems, as competitors with more automated processes can offer a better working experience.
This is wholly avoidable, now that available digital solutions can seamlessly automate critical business transactions for greater efficiency, accuracy, and financial health. Many organizations use AP automation as their starting point for adopting a wider e-trading or Purchase to Pay strategy, and an efficient AP can act as a one-stop shop for all invoicing and payment processes, working with existing financial software and ERP. Technology has the potential to transform productivity across all financial processes, ensuring talent will follow.
New technologies such as AI, with its immense potential to accelerate processes, and its next iteration, agentic AI, are already transforming the way that the most tech-savvy organizations are operating. Agentic AI builds on automation capabilities to autonomously make decisions, analyzing and refining as it goes, continually adapting to become ever-more effective and requiring little human intervention. Crucially, when correctly implemented, this powerful technology augments human talent, allowing people to shine in their roles.
Getting the most benefit from these AI powered technologies requires a new set of skills for finance professionals, who have to understand the way AI works in order to ensure it is deployed for the most suitable business case uses. It is crucial to understand the value of data quality too, ensuring it is clean, well categorized, and compliant with data regulations, to avoid mistakes and unintended bias in the outputs. The best talent will have a keen interest in and appetite for using this technology, to enhance their own experience of work as well as productivity and profitability for their employer.
Without a doubt, the organizations that invest in the most effective technologies will attract, and retain the smartest, analytical and strategically focused finance talent, giving them a considerable edge over competitors. Combining their professional skills with the power of automated process technology can help ensure optimum productivity for greater profitability, as well as building a level of efficiency that satisfies key suppliers, and keeps finance talent engaged and delivering their very best, every day.
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