Finance process automation uses technology to streamline tasks like consolidations, billing, and reconciliations. It improves speed, accuracy, and audit readiness while freeing teams from manual work. With AI-driven tools, finance functions evolve from operational bottlenecks into strategic business drivers, enabling smarter decisions and scalable growth.
For too long, finance teams have been stuck in the cycle of spreadsheets, manual entries, and endless reconciliations.
These outdated processes not only slow down operations but also introduce unnecessary risks and reduce visibility at a time when companies need clarity and agility more than ever.
Finance process automation changes that. By leveraging technology to take over repetitive and time-consuming tasks, businesses can unlock new levels of speed, accuracy, and control across their financial operations.
From month-end close to intercompany eliminations, automation empowers finance teams to work smarter and scale faster.
In fact, 73% of finance leaders say automation makes them more efficient, and 38% of finance professionals spend half their workday on manual tasks. These numbers highlight the growing pressure—and opportunity—for organizations to evolve their operations and embrace smarter tools.
Today, the most innovative companies are moving beyond rule-based automation and embracing AI-driven tools that adapt, learn, and integrate across systems.
These tools aren’t just about saving time: they’re about transforming how finance contributes to strategic growth.
If you’re ready to eliminate bottlenecks, reduce errors, and modernize your finance stack, keep reading to learn how automation is reshaping financial operations and how to start applying it in your own workflows.
What is Financial Process Automation?
Financial process automation refers to the use of technology to perform routine finance tasks that were previously handled manually.
This includes everything from data entry and reconciliations to more complex workflows like consolidations and intercompany eliminations.
At its core, finance automation removes the repetitive, time-consuming steps from financial operations and replaces them with streamlined, reliable, and rule-based systems.
In today’s fast-paced business environment, relying on spreadsheets or disconnected legacy systems isn’t scalable. Financial automation ensures data flows smoothly across systems, allowing finance teams to focus on analysis and strategy instead of data wrangling.
Examples of Finance Automation
Here are some of the most common finance workflows that can be automated:
- Month-end close: Automating the collection, validation, and reporting of data for faster closing cycles.
- Accounts payable (AP) & receivable (AR): Invoice capture, matching, and payment processing.
- Expense management: Auto-categorizing and reconciling employee expenses.
- Financial consolidations: Aligning different charts of accounts, currencies, and legal entities.
- Billing and accruals: Automating recurring billing, revenue recognition, and period accruals.
- Intercompany eliminations: Matching transactions between entities and eliminating duplicates for consolidation.
Which Processes Should Be Automated?
Finance leaders are under pressure to do more with less: faster closes, cleaner audits, and deeper insights without expanding headcount.
Yet too often, their teams are buried under repetitive tasks that don’t contribute to strategic outcomes. Automation offers a way out, but knowing where to start is key.
The best candidates for automation are high-volume, rules-based processes that require little human judgment but have a big operational impact. By targeting these areas, finance teams can eliminate delays, improve accuracy, and spend more time driving business performance.
Below are the top finance processes worth automating and why they matter:
Repetitive Tasks
Manual data entry, invoice processing, and report generation consume countless hours across finance teams. These repetitive, low-value activities are ripe for automation, freeing up resources for higher-level analysis and collaboration.
Rule-Based Workflows
Processes like expense categorization, billing logic, and approval routing follow predictable patterns.
Automating these steps reduces friction, improves consistency, and ensures compliance with internal controls.
Time-Intensive Operations
Month-end close, consolidations, and reconciliations often stretch over days or weeks.
Automation accelerates these cycles by streamlining data collection, validation, and reporting, helping teams close faster without cutting corners.
Error-Prone Processes
Tasks that involve manual matching or cross-system data entry, such as intercompany eliminations or journal postings, are vulnerable to costly errors. Automating them reduces risk and increases confidence in reported figures.
Compliance-Heavy Activities
Audit preparation, documentation tracking, and internal reporting can become a logistical burden. Automation ensures clear, traceable records—boosting audit readiness and easing regulatory compliance.
How to Set Up Finance Automation
Finance automation delivers the most value when it’s implemented with structure and intention. This isn’t just a tech rollout, it's a transformation of your finance operations. From identifying automation candidates to rolling out new systems, success depends on clearly defined steps.
Evaluate Current Workflows
Start by mapping out your existing finance processes. Look for tasks that are highly manual, repeated frequently, or prone to delays and errors.
These could include invoice processing, financial consolidations, or journal entries. Understanding where your team spends time (and where errors occur) helps prioritize what to automate first.
Set Clear Goals and KPIs
Before choosing tools, define the outcomes you’re aiming for. Are you trying to shorten your month-end close? Reduce manual reconciliations? Improve audit visibility?
Clear goals ensure alignment across stakeholders and help you measure ROI once automation is in place.
Choose the Right Technology
Not all automation platforms are built for finance. Choose tools that integrate easily with your ERP, billing, and reporting systems.
Look for flexibility in handling structured and unstructured data, as well as the ability to scale with your business. AI-driven solutions can offer more adaptability as your operations become more complex.
Standardize and Clean Your Data
Automation relies on structured, high-quality inputs. If your chart of accounts varies across entities or vendors are recorded inconsistently, automation may simply replicate the mess. Take time to standardize formats, centralize your data sources, and clean up legacy inconsistencies before launch.
Roll Out in Phases
Start with a high-impact, low-risk process that demonstrates value quickly. Once you see results, scale to more complex workflows. Involving your finance team in testing and iteration helps smooth the transition and ensure adoption.
Monitor, Measure, and Improve
Track performance metrics before and after automation to understand its impact. Continue to refine rules and processes as your business evolves. Automation is not a one-and-done initiative—it should improve continuously alongside your operations.
The Benefits of Automating Finance Workflows
When done right, finance automation doesn’t just improve workflows, it transforms the entire finance function.
The benefits touch everything from speed and accuracy to strategy and scalability, making automation a key investment for forward-thinking teams.
Here are some of the most valuable outcomes automation delivers:
- Faster close cycles: By automating data collection and validation, finance teams can shorten the time it takes to close books and deliver reports.
- Improved data accuracy: Reducing manual entry and reconciliation decreases the likelihood of costly errors or discrepancies.
- Stronger audit readiness: Automated workflows maintain consistent records and provide clear audit trails for every transaction.
- More time for strategic work: By eliminating repetitive tasks, teams can focus on forecasting, analysis, and decision support.
Ultimately, automation equips finance leaders with the tools they need to operate with greater confidence, agility, and impact, setting the stage for long-term growth and resilience.
Finance Process Automation vs. RPA vs. AI Agents
Traditional RPA works well for simple, repeatable tasks. Finance automation platforms improve this by offering end-to-end workflows. AI agents take it further by adapting in real time, interpreting unstructured data, and offering predictive insights.
How Nominal Powers Finance Process Automation
Nominal is purpose-built to modernize finance workflows through intelligent automation. Unlike legacy tools or basic RPA, our AI agents handle:
- Consolidations: Automate the alignment of different charts of accounts, currencies, and reporting structures.
- Intercompany eliminations: Intelligent matching and removal of intercompany transactions.
- Billing & accruals: Automatically apply rules for recurring billing and recognize revenue accurately.
- Audit readiness: Maintain a clear, traceable audit trail with embedded compliance features.
Finance process automation is quickly becoming a necessity for businesses that want to move faster, reduce risk, and scale strategically.
By removing the manual burden from critical processes like consolidations, billing, and audit preparation, automation turns finance teams into strategic partners rather than data processors.
With the right tools and a thoughtful implementation plan, finance leaders can unlock real-time insights, improve compliance, and drive stronger performance across the organization. Nominal gives you the intelligent automation platform to make this a reality.
Book a demo to see how you can transform your finance operations.
