If you’re like most people, the financial aspects of your life are probably the last thing you want to deal with. Between work, family, and social obligations, there’s just not enough time in the day. But if you’re not careful, the financial stress can take a toll on your health and well-being.
Automation can help you handle your finances, and the sooner you start, the better. In fact, many financial professionals are using technology to help their clients. Whether it’s automated trading on a full-service firm’s proprietary trading platforms or using a credit card processor for online purchases, automation can help you save time and money without sacrificing your lifestyle.
CEOs might save up to 20% of their time on financial duties that could be automated. These include studying McKinsey reports.
It’s not just big Wall Street firms that have begun using technology in finance. You don’t even need an MBA from Harvard to know that automated trading is changing the way the financial world operates. Even some small firms have found success by automating processes.
Benefits Of Automation In Finance
The automation of finance teams has been a growing trend in recent years. Robotic process automation (RPA) and finance automation tools have been increasingly adopted by finance teams to improve efficiency and accuracy.
However, there are still many challenges associated with the automation of finance teams. For example, finance teams need to be able to effectively communicate with each other and share information. In addition, finance teams need to have access to the right tools and resources.
McKinsey predicted a second wave of automation and AI in 2017, with robots handling between 10% and 25% of banking jobs.
Finance processes can be automated with the right solutions. This can help finance teams and leaders save time and energy. Financial data can be automatically collected and analyzed with the right tools.
1. Technology Saves Time And Money
Automation has many benefits, but one that you might not have considered is the power it holds over your budget and your schedule. Whether you’re a full-service broker or a retail investor, automation can save you precious time and money.
You can automate simple tasks such as enrolling clients in investment plans, receiving payment for commissions, or transferring funds between accounts. More complex tasks include reconciling your accounts daily, processing a trade in real time, sending alerts on market changes, or including financial information in a letter.
2. Compliance Reduces Risk Exposure
Technology isn’t just helpful; it’s essential for compliance standards of almost every industry today, including financial services firms. If you don’t have automated systems in place, you’re leaving yourself vulnerable to litigation and fines.
Without an adequate system for monitoring, reporting, and handling transactions, you’ll find it hard to meet your regulatory obligations.
3. Technology Keeps You On Top Of Your Clients’ Needs
Technology can help smooth out the roughest places in your clients’ financial lives. One company that uses automation in finance is Wealthfront (we’ll talk more about them later). They use a combination of accounts that are fully automated — down to the asset allocation — and human advisors who act as filters between customers and the automated portfolio selection process. The hybrid system helps clients avoid a great deal of unnecessary trading and taxes.
Bot contacts with humans in the banking industry are predicted to reach 90% by 2022.
4. You Can Manage Your Entire Operation From Virtually Anywhere
If you’re managing multiple locations, you might consider outsourcing some back-office operations to a third party or cloud platform. If you decide to do this, you’ll get an opportunity to use technology for automation in finance in many forms, including accounting, portfolio management and reporting, compliance monitoring and enforcement, trade execution, online account opening and application setup tools, customer communications and more.
5. Technology Helps Your Business Grow Faster Than Ever Before
In order to help your business grow, you need to experiment with the latest technology trends. You can use technology to automate processes that have historically been time-consuming and expensive to maintain. Automation can help your business increase sales, eliminate costs, and improve quality of service and support.
6. Investments Are Less Risky Than Ever Before
In the past, investors had more trouble making risk-free investments because the barrier for entry was too high for field experts to handle on their own. But technology has lowered that barrier and lowered the risk of portfolio management through automation in finance.
In fact, automated trading tools are built to make the market safer by implementing a specific set of rules in real time. This strategy keeps the trader from making risky decisions and stops them from giving into human emotion.
7. Technology Can Help You Ride Out An Economic Storm
The financial crisis that began in 2007 caused a lot of problems for U.S. banks and credit unions — including dropping interest rates on savings accounts, which left consumers feeling all but abandoned by their banks and frustrated with what felt like zero interest on their money balances. Some banks actually began charging fees for checking accounts. But technology can help you avoid these issues so you can focus on providing quality service to your clients.
8. Technology Can Help You Gain A Competitive Advantage Over Rivals Who Choose Not To Use It
If you’re looking for an edge, start integrating technology that supports automation in finance into your business practices today — whether it’s helping clients invest with an online tool or using automated events to track client investments and communication efforts.
9. You’ll Keep Customers Happy
Studies show that the use of technology in finance can help you provide a better customer service experience. Because it’s integrated into your business operations, you can provide clients with more information and better communication, which will help them feel confident about their investments and more likely to stick with you for years to come. All these reasons are why automation in finance is growing so fast and is here to stay!
The Top Use Cases For Automation In Finance
Finance automation solutions can help businesses automate financial processes and improve efficiency. Machine learning can be used to automate expense reports and other finance processes. Financial process automation can help businesses save time and money.
Accounts Payable Automation can reduce invoice processing time by 10%. Automation of invoice capture saves MineralTree 1 hour per day.
With the rise of expense management and finance automation technology, automating business processes has become easier than ever before. By utilizing process automation and machine learning algorithms, businesses can streamline their operations and save time and money.
1. Manage Your Assets
One of the most common uses for automation in finance is for the fund managers and advisors to manage the assets of their clients. Automation allows them to keep track of all their client’s investments, withdraw funds, and review transactions.
2. Manage Your Compliance Obligations
Technology can help you meet your regulatory obligations and make sure that you’re doing everything possible to ensure a secure and compliant environment for your clients. It can also provide you with time-saving features that reduce transaction processing time and let you avoid errors that could lead to expensive issues down the road.
3. Manage Your Liabilities
For many business owners, compliance is a top priority. Automating everything from client identification and onboarding to monitoring and reporting can ensure that you’re staying current with your obligations so you don’t have any costly penalties or fines hanging over your head. Compliance automation can also help you communicate with clients on an ongoing basis, which is another way to build confidence in the relationship.
4. Manage Your Compliance Expert Role
You’ll have a much easier time keeping up with regulations and staying compliant if you have an automated system that’s built to do it all for you. It’ll ensure that you’re always in compliance, and that you’re always staying in touch with clients.
With the right technology in place, you can be a proactive manager of your business and put yourself in the best position to make sure that everything is running smoothly.
5. Manage Your Risk Management Role
You can make sure to avoid costly red flags during your daily work by integrating automated screening tools into your business processes. This will help catch potential red flags before they even happen and allow you to react appropriately before it’s too late.
These tools will also improve the way that you communicate with customers by making sure to keep them aware of all the relevant details about their investments so they feel confident about what they’re doing.
6. Manage Your Regulatory Role
If the laws around your industry or market are changing, you will need a way to keep up. Automation can help you take all the steps you need to ensure that your company is in compliance with new regulations so that you don’t have any unpleasant surprises down the line.
You can use technology to make sure that your business stays on-top of things and meets all of its obligations across the board so that you end up being a great company — not just one that is doing everything right by accident.
Accounts Payable Automation is a cost-effective investment that pays for itself in 6 to 18 months.
7. Manage Performance Management/Accountability
Performance management is another area where technology can help reduce stress and improve efficiency for business owners. With a system that’s designed to automate much of the work involved in keeping track of performance metrics and reporting, you’ll be able to focus on important areas of your business while letting the technology handle the rest.
8. Manage Budgeting
With budgets and profit forecasts on automatic pilot, you can be sure that you’re always working off a good estimate. This will give you confidence that your business is making enough money each month to keep it running smoothly — which means that you can use resources more wisely toward your bigger priorities in order to make sure that the overall financial picture works out.
9. Manage Planning
With automation in finance, you can be sure that anything you plan will be executed correctly. This helps ensure that all the right information is being gathered and that everything is running smoothly. You can look forward to a future where your business grows more rapidly and more steadily than ever before!
10. Manage Outsourcing
Using technology to manage your business means you can focus on other areas of growth. Whether it’s new products, new markets or new ways of working, automation allows you to use technology to perform repetitive tasks that can be done by machines instead of humans — all while freeing up your time for other things, like developing new ways to work together with your team.
Final Note
The impact of computerised financial advice was overstated by $1.2 trillion in 2016. Various estimates predicted that by 2020, $2.2 trillion will be under asset management.
Businesses of all kinds are investing heavily in automation in finance because of the enormous value it can provide. It’s easy to see why, too — with the right technology, you can get more work done in less time and do it better than ever before. Clients are happier and your employees will love their jobs even more, knowing they have access to the tools they need to succeed.
In order to make sure that automation continues to grow at a rapid pace, though, it’s important that providers continue to innovate and bring new solutions to market. The best way for business owners everywhere to stay on top of all these advancements as they happen is through our weekly newsletter.
Last Updated on October 11, 2023 by Priyanshi Sharma