But backstage, the performance is still running.

What many CFOs are presented with is confidence theater: a polished view of progress that suggests finality without proving that the work behind the scenes is finished. In finance, that gap matters. Because when visibility replaces execution proof, financial statements can look settled while the general ledger is still changing.

Dashboards create confidence, not certainty

Dashboards are designed to present progress, not verify completion. They summarize workflow steps, timelines and metrics that imply the financial close process has reached its final scene. For accounting and finance teams under pressure, this presentation is reassuring. For executives, it signals stability.

The problem is that dashboards rarely confirm whether financial transactions have actually landed in the accounting system. Progress indicators show that tasks were reviewed or approved, not that journal entries were posted and reflected in the trial balance, balance sheet, income statement or cash flow statement.

This is where risk creeps in. Leadership believes results are stable, while accruals, reclassifications and other adjustments are still being created post-close. The finance and accounting teams may still be reconciling accounts, updating templates in spreadsheets or correcting discrepancies across subledgers.

An example was when a CFO of a SaaS organization presented “100% closed” results to lenders and the board. The dashboards showed a clean close period. Days later, late intercompany reclassifications moved revenue between business units. Fixed assets depreciation was corrected. Variances emerged between prior period assumptions and actuals. Financial reporting still needed to be revised.

The numbers changed because execution never stopped, and that meant what leadership saw wasn’t a close. It was a preview. Without execution confirmation, visibility becomes performance, and decision-making confidence disappears.

“Done” does not mean posted

Most close management systems define “done” as task completion. A reviewer signs off. A close checklist item turns green. But none of that guarantees ledger impact.

Journal creation, approval and posting remain decoupled from close status in many automation tools. A journal can be approved yet still sit outside the general ledger. Accounts payable adjustments, receivable corrections or bank statement accruals may exist only in Excel files or email threads. Until posting occurs, account balances are provisional.

This matters because material activity stays invisible until it becomes a problem. The accounting process looks complete even as manual processes continue behind the curtain. Data entry errors, unresolved discrepancies and missing financial data surface late, usually after executives believe the close period is locked.

With the CFO of the SaaS organization, additional journal entries hit the ERP five days after the apparent month-end close process. Revenue recognition was updated. Liabilities tied to credit cards and bank accounts shifted. The accounting records had diverged from what leadership had already reviewed, which forced explanations and revisions that undermined trust in reported results. Because if journals weren’t posted, the close simply wasn’t defensible.

False confidence becomes an audit and credibility risk

Clean dashboards can hide operational instability. They smooth over bottlenecks, time-consuming reconciliations and unresolved issues that sit outside the reporting process.

Auditors don’t review dashboards. They follow execution. Late adjustments appear during audit walkthroughs, not executive reviews. Auditors trace financial transactions through subledgers, trial balance movements and period-end postings. That is where post-close activity is exposed.

The downstream effects are predictable with audit delays, process bottlenecks, extended year-end close cycles and, in some cases, revenue restatements. Accounting and finance teams are pulled into firefighting mode because they’re answering why variances exist and why accounting records changed after reporting.

In the CFO example for the SaaS organization, revenue had to be reexplained once the journal entries finally aligned with the general ledger. Forecasting assumptions were questioned. Strategic decisions made earlier had to be revisited. What looked efficient became a credibility issue. What leadership saw as a fast, efficient close turned out to be a delay waiting to surface. What felt like efficiency in real time became exposure under audit.

Real close control requires execution-level proof

True close control is not about workflow progress. It’s about verified journal execution.

Execution-level proof means knowing that journals are created, validated and posted based on business logic and data readiness instead of human memory. This is where orchestration changes the model.

Orchestration ties automation, ERP data, subledgers and financial transactions into one coordinated flow. When prerequisites are met, journals post automatically. When data changes, adjustments are recalculated. Visibility reflects what is actually in the ledger, not what is assumed to be finished.

Finance Automation by Redwood applies this orchestration approach across the financial close process, from journal entries and account reconciliation to intercompany activity, accruals, provisions and reclassifications. Dashboards show only posted, final results. The accounting system becomes the source of truth, not a presentation layer.

In the CFO of the SaaS organization example, leadership would never have seen provisional numbers with a record-to-report (R2R) orchestration platform like Finance Automation. Dashboards would have only included posted balances from the general ledger. Financial position, metrics and financial health would align with reality. Informed decision-making would be grounded in execution instead of performance optics. With Finance Automation’s orchestration, the CFO would not have relied solely on task progress. They would have relied on proof. And that’s the shift: real close control comes from knowing what’s finished, not what’s still in progress.

End the performance. Lead with proof.

CFOs should question dashboards that cannot confirm ledger reality. Task completion does not equal financial completion. A close checklist does not guarantee that period-end numbers are final.

Traditional automation software and tools focus on tracking work. Finance Automation focuses on executing it. By orchestrating journals, reconciliations and postings directly within the ERP, Finance Automation delivers verified, final execution that supports confident financial reporting.

The theater ends when the numbers stop moving.

Take the automation maturity assessment to see what’s really happening backstage in your close and whether your financial close process is built on performance or proof.

Most transactional reconciliation tools rely on dashboards and checklists to show progress across the financial close. Once data matching flags items as “matched,” the system often marks the task complete. From the surface, the close process appears controlled. Dashboards turn green. Workflows advance. The reconciliation looks finished.

But checklists are driven by task completion, not data movement or financial accuracy, and a “complete” status in the reconciliation tool doesn’t mean the data has been updated or validated. It only means someone flagged a match. In the financial close process, completion should mean corrected account balances in the general ledger instead of a visual signal in a reconciliation solution. This distinction matters during the month-end close, when manual processes and unresolved discrepancies can quietly accumulate.

That gap misleads CFOs into thinking issues are resolved when they are not. One healthcare controller learned this the hard way. Their team believed reconciliations were complete across bank reconciliation, sub-ledger activity and accruals. The dashboards showed no open items. Yet during an audit, $2.6 million in accrual-related journal entry corrections were still sitting in email threads, never posted to ERP systems. The financial statements looked clean on paper, but the underlying financial records told a different story.

Finance Automation by Redwood prevents this false confidence by tying reconciliation status to execution. The platform does not allow the close process to advance until required journals are created, approved and posted inside SAP to align transactional reconciliation with real financial outcomes.

“Matched” doesn’t mean corrected

In transactional reconciliation, data matching is detection, not correction. Auto-match logic highlights discrepancies between bank statements, bank feeds, bank transactions, credit cards and bank accounts, but it doesn’t fix them. Many reconciliation tools stop once discrepancies are identified, which forces finance teams to resolve issues elsewhere.

That “elsewhere” is typically spreadsheets or Excel templates used to calculate correction journals. These manual processes introduce human error, increase manual effort and slow the account reconciliation process, especially in high-volume environments handling large volumes of transactions across multi-currency entities. This time-consuming workaround introduces risks that include:

• Added burden on finance and accounting teams already stretched thin
• Late-cycle changes that disrupt the month-end close
• Lower reliability in financial reporting and audit trails
• More exposure to error-prone, manual processes

Validation functionality inside transaction-level reconciliation tools rarely touches the actual SAP posting layer. As a result, the system cannot reconcile accounts end to end. In the healthcare example, unmatched accruals required correction journals before depreciation could run. Because those journals were not posted, downstream close management tasks stalled, consolidation was delayed and financial reporting timelines slipped. The reconciliation tool checked the box, but the close process broke.

Finance Automation closes this gap by linking transaction matching directly to journal execution. When reconciliation logic is satisfied, the platform can automatically create, route and post journals based on configured rules and approvals to eliminate spreadsheet dependency.

Resolution depends on actual journal execution

A reconciliation is only complete when correcting entries are posted to the general ledger. Visual confirmation without execution is meaningless. Yet many reconciliation tools cannot natively see whether journals tied to reconciliation items are even in flight, let alone posted.

Auditors know this weakness well. During the healthcare audit, the team was asked to prove when corrections posted, with timestamps, audit trails and supporting documentation. Without proof of posting, the team couldn’t explain how those corrections affected the broader financial data or when adjustments were reflected in reporting. The reconciliation system showed completion. The ERP showed nothing. Internal controls existed on paper but not in execution.

Finance Automation enforces reconciliation completeness by embedding the entire discrepancy resolution process into ERP-native execution. It tracks discrepancy detection, journal creation, approval workflows, posting and reversal where needed. As a result, teams get audit-ready financial records with full traceability that reduce risk management exposure and support accurate decision-making.

Why most tools create journal gaps instead of closing them

Most tools separate anomaly detection from journal processing. That architectural split forces accounting processes to span multiple systems and modules, which creates manual work outside the platform. Corrections are calculated in Excel, routed through email and posted manually through ERP interfaces or APIs that break audit trails and slow down downstream SAP jobs. Even when teams try to fill the gaps manually, the process remains error-prone because they’re relying on disconnected handoffs between people and systems.

This fragmentation impacts cash flow visibility, forecasting accuracy and consolidation timing. When account balances are corrected late, pricing assumptions shift and financial management becomes reactive. The reconciliation solution reports completion, but the financial close continues behind the scenes.

Finance Automation addresses this structurally. Built as a cloud-based orchestration layer, it unifies reconciliation, journal entry and close management in a single platform. It integrates directly with data sources, bank feeds and ERP systems and removes the journal entry automation gaps that reconciliation tools leave behind by streamlining the entire close process.

Use reconciliation to trigger real action

Finance Automation transforms transactional reconciliation from passive review into active resolution. Where traditional account reconciliation software promotes visibility and certification as its key features, Finance Automation embeds execution directly into the ERP layer so reconciliation actually results in posted journal entries. Finance Automation is the leading record-to-report (R2R) orchestration platform and is designed to execute the financial close rather than monitor it.

When reconciliation logic confirms discrepancies, Finance Automation automatically generates correcting journal entries, applies approval workflows, validates posting rules and posts directly to SAP. The reconciliation process becomes a trigger for real action instead of a reporting exercise. Account reconciliation tools no longer stop at visibility. They drive execution.

In the healthcare controller’s case, this would have changed the outcome entirely. The $2.6 million in accruals would have been posted in real time, depreciation would have run on schedule and audit questions would have been answered with system-backed evidence. Finance and accounting teams would have spent less time chasing emails and more time closing with confidence.

By orchestrating close management, automated reconciliation and journal execution across ERP systems, Finance Automation reduces manual processes, improves scalability for enterprise organizations and delivers real-time insights through a user-friendly platform.

If your dashboards look clean but your journals live in email, your reconciliation is not done, and your journal entry close is not really automated. Test your journal automation maturity and see how your reconciliation breaks down into manual journals.

Your finance and accounting SaaS tools were supposed to make finance more efficient. Instead, they’ve created complexity, disconnected workflows and competing systems that are time-consuming and don’t talk to each other. You may have adopted reconciliation, journal entry and intercompany software, but none of them address the full scope of end-to-end automation. Instead, they create the need for additional automation tools and more manual effort.

It’s time to rethink the patchwork. Learn how a platform-first strategy solution like Finance Automation by Redwood offers something different: true automation that executes your accounting and finance functions, not just tracks them.

The trap of fixing problems one tool at a time

You likely didn’t set out to build a fragmented tech stack. But when you look at your finance automation tools today, do you see a streamlined process or a collection of isolated fixes?

This happens when teams search for a solution for a problem, not a solution to the problem. You need to automate account reconciliations, so you buy a tool. Then you add another tool or module for journal entries and additional automation tools for the unaddressed manual effort. It’s logical in the moment — but over time, it creates silos.

Instead of simplifying your financial close, this approach leads to disconnected systems, inconsistent validation and more complicated audits that require constant oversight.

According to the 2025 SSON R2R automation playbook, 76% of finance leaders say automation is critical to transformation, yet only 33% have strong executive support to scale it. The results? Projects stall. ROI suffers. And finance ends up stuck in a loop of disconnected tools that never quite deliver.

It’s a familiar pattern where good intentions lead to a pile of shelfware, disconnected workflows and a finance tech stack that resembles more of a SaaS graveyard than a unified strategy.

The SaaS graveyard: When financial point tools create more problems than they solve

Most SaaS tools promise to eliminate manual work. In reality, many just shift the burden elsewhere and require you to manage handoffs between them. You might use one system for reconciliations, another to validate journals and a third to execute SAP closing tasks. But without orchestration, you’re the one bridging the gaps.

SSON’s research highlights the disconnect: 81% of finance leaders believe journal entries are highly automatable, yet just 54% have made progress. Even more telling is that only 13% are satisfied with the ROI of their financial automation solutions.

So, what’s missing? Many of these tools were built for compliance, not execution. They track approvals or store documentation but don’t handle the actual work. They weren’t designed for seamless integration or built to automate end-to-end processes across the close. That’s what sets Finance Automation apart. The platform executes tasks inside your SAP systems and minimizes your reliance on separate systems to enable faster, more accurate decision-making and capacity release to support your business needs.

When tools don’t talk to each other, finance loses visibility

Each tool introduces a new data model, interface and set of permissions. You might reconcile account balances in one system, prepare reports in another and track their status in a standalone checklist. Meanwhile, your SAP contains the truth, but your dashboards aren’t in sync.

Disconnected tools create data silos and force your accounting and finance teams to align information manually across systems. This delays reporting, increases risk and undermines confidence in your numbers.

Finance Automation eliminates this fragmentation by embedding execution and validation inside your accounting and finance systems to provide a consistent, audit-ready view of every close task and its current status.

The longer you try to squeeze more value out of disconnected tools, the deeper your organization sinks into its own SaaS graveyard.

The costs you didn’t budget for

Task-level point solutions may seem cost-effective, but their hidden costs add up fast:

• Building and maintaining custom integrations
• Continuous onboarding and training across platforms
• Delays in processing time and misaligned dependencies
• Duplicate effort from manual data entry and rework
• Inconsistent data and risk exposure across disconnected systems

SSON’s 2025 data confirms it. 88% of organizations report moderate or lower satisfaction with their automation ROI. Fragmented tools are a major reason why. However, Finance Automation avoids this spiral by offering a scalable automation model — no per-user fees and no per-task charges — just unified, coordinated execution across your accounting and financial processes.

What a platform-first strategy really looks like

A true automation platform doesn’t just plug gaps. It optimizes how you run finance. Finance Automation unifies fragmented business processes across your people, processes and technology, encompassing the entire record-to-report (R2R) process, into one connected solution.

Here’s what that looks like in real time:

• Configurable controls to support multi-entity, multi-region finance teams
• Coordinated, rules-based workflows that link one step to the next
• Live views that show current status, bottlenecks and ownership
• Native SAP execution
• One shared data model for financial operations, tasks and compliance records

Instead of managing work, Finance Automation completes it. Instead of tracking outcomes, it delivers them.

Move from tactical fixes to strategic execution

Some accounting and finance teams confuse adoption with impact. If your automation is still dependent on people to push it forward by having them launch jobs, confirm steps and update dashboards, you’re still running the process manually. You’ve just added more interfaces.

Finance Automation takes a different approach. It removes manual intervention by design. The platform handles execution in SAP, tracks validation and results automatically and empowers your team to focus on what matters: analysis, strategy and making faster, smarter strategic decisions.

Instead of plugging gaps with more tools, Finance Automation helps you orchestrate your tech stack across people and processes to streamline your R2R operations with consistency and clarity.

Ready to push beyond the SaaS graveyard?

If your tech stack is full of disconnected financial and accounting software and your results still depend on manual processes, it’s time for a new approach. Finance Automation’s platform-first strategy gives you the execution power and scalability that task-level point tools can’t.

Instead of reacting to inefficiencies, you can start removing them. Instead of working around delays, you can eliminate them. And instead of managing a graveyard of SaaS, you can finally build the foundation for modern, connected finance.

Curious what your tech stack is really costing you? Explore the ROI of an end-to-end finance automation platform built to scale.

Digital point or close management tools have replaced spreadsheets for many accounting professionals and finance teams, but the work beneath those tools is still largely manual. Critical close tasks, from SAP job execution to journal entry posting, still depend on you to run the process, confirm it’s done and update its status afterward, which is time-consuming.

Tracking is helpful, but it doesn’t equal progress. A faster, more scalable close requires intelligent automation that executes the work — not just organizes it.

That’s exactly what Finance Automation by Redwood is built to deliver. As the only financial close management software designed to orchestrate a full, touchless record-to-report (R2R) process, Finance Automation connects directly with ERP systems like SAP to automate execution, streamline dependencies and surface exceptions in real time. Explore the different ways your close management process is still manual and how Redwood Software built a tool to help you reach full automation in your financial processes, whether it’s by helping you catch discrepancies ahead of time, update account balances and balance sheets or manage other financial data.

Manual work still runs the process

Most checklist tools only centralize task management. They don’t launch SAP close jobs, start reconciliation processes or automate end-to-end journal entries. Those tasks still happen offline or inside disconnected accounting software and rely on you to return to the checklist you created in an Excel template to mark them as complete.

If your tasks go unconfirmed, successor tasks are delayed. This slows the close cycle, forces follow-ups and leaves your team with an incomplete view of progress. During high-stakes accounting periods like your entity’s close, this lack of insight leads to bottlenecks, delays in financial reporting processes and costly rework.

Finance Automation automates this handoff. Tasks are closed by the system once work is executed, not by someone trying to remember to check a box. That means your close checklist reflects truth, not approximation.

Where most tools fall short

Digital checklists and shared dashboards offer visibility, but not execution. The underlying manual effort remains and requires finance and accounting teams to manually launch close activities, manage data entry and update task statuses, usually in tools that aren’t connected to your ERP.

Without system-driven updates, your metrics, KPIs and dashboards are lagging indicators instead of real-time performance signals. That leaves CFOs, controllers and global stakeholders guessing about the true close status and unable to confidently have fast, informed decision-making.

Finance Automation integrates with SAP to automate the close at its core by removing these dependencies entirely and allowing your teams to operate in real time with full control and traceability.

What intelligent close management looks like

Modern close execution doesn’t require more checklists; it requires fewer manual steps. Finance Automation executes close activities directly within your SAP environment, then updates the task status automatically.

This includes:

• Automatically escalating exceptions and delays across workflows
• Creating, validating, approving and posting journal entries, including accruals, provisions and reclassifications
• Initiating and tracking account reconciliation workflows based on a top-down, risk-based approach
• Managing intercompany eliminations and automatically posting transactions in the core ERP with the correct trading partners
• Running SAP close programs (e.g., depreciation, currency revaluation and allocations)

This task automation is captured with a complete audit trail that gives you the controls you need without slowing down execution. Finance Automation doesn’t just track work — it performs it.

Built to scale with complexity

Global finance operations rely on consistent, reliable execution across regions, systems and teams. Finance Automation was built specifically to support the orchestration of close activity across multiple entities and ERPs, while maintaining compliance and control.

The platform automatically adjusts task calendars, handles multi-entity dependencies and routes exceptions based on business logic. Whether your team is centralizing its financial close processes or managing decentralized business units, Finance Automation ensures that your close remains consistent, scalable and auditable. You’ll also gain:

• A reduction in manual tasks and repetitive manual processes
• Enterprise-ready support, including AI-powered exception detection and 99.95% uptime
• ERP-native execution across SAP ECC and S/4HANA
• Streamlined workflows that eliminate unnecessary coordination
• Support for dynamic tasks across business units, sub-ledgers and general ledgers

Why finance teams choose Redwood

Unlike checklist tools that depend on you to move the process forward, Finance Automation automates the actions behind the scenes. It enables finance teams to:

• Complete close tasks with fewer handoffs and greater speed
• Ensure system-driven validation of critical milestones
• Improve financial performance by accelerating close and reporting cycles
• Optimize timelines across regions, departments and systems
• Provide confidence to executives and auditors with a full, traceable audit trail

And with transparent, scalable pricing — with no per-user or per-task fees — this close management solution grows with your business needs, not against them.

Stop tracking. Start automating.

If your close checklist still depends on manual inputs, disconnected tools or human coordination, it’s not built to scale.

Finance Automation transforms your checklist into an execution layer. SAP tasks run when ready. Journal entries are prepared and posted automatically. Reconciliations are initiated and completed based on actual source data. And your team members focus on analysis versus manual work.With this solution, your month-end close process becomes faster, more consistent and confidently audit-ready every time. Your modern finance organization needs more than visibility. It needs results. Schedule a demo to see how Finance Automation can help your team close smarter, reduce risk and lead with real-time performance instead of after-the-fact reporting.

It doesn’t have to be this way though. Finance Automation by Redwood eliminates manual journal entries entirely. It integrates with your ERP systems, orchestrates every step in the journal entry process and removes human intervention from data sourcing, transformation, validation and posting.

For example, Forvia is a global automotive supplier operating in more than 40 countries, and this organization uses the platform to automate over 80% of its monthly journal entries. In turn, Forvia reduces risk, saves time and accelerates its financial close. But that level of control and consistency is only possible when automation starts at the source, not after the work is already done.

The root issue: Manual work is still baked into journal entries

Some financial close or point solutions focus on the end result, like validating journal entries, routing for approval and posting to the ERP, but overlook the labor-intensive steps that come before it. Accounting and finance teams still run reports, collect feedback and shape financial data in spreadsheets, even when using journal entry automation software. That’s not automation. It’s reformatting manual labor.

Manual work repackaged in spreadsheets

Even with modern tools, manual journal entries persist. Finance and accounting teams use prefilled templates to enter data. They send approval requests through email. They track accruals, allocations and intercompany transactions in separate spreadsheets. Each task happens outside the main system. This slows down the financial reporting and accounting processes and makes it harder to catch mistakes. The workflow lacks speed, accuracy and real-time oversight. 

Finance Automation eliminates these handoffs. It sources data directly from ERP, procurement and other systems, applies rules automatically and generates audit-ready journal entries without copy-and-paste work or manual review.

Where automation falls short

Take the open purchase order (PO) accrual process, for example. Most financial close or point solutions automate the final three steps:

• Review and group
• Create journal entries
• Post journal entries

But the first four steps — the ones that are the most time-consuming — remain manual:

• Run the open PO report
• Group by requester
• Email each requester
• Capture feedback

These tasks demand manual data entry, offline collaboration and ad hoc spreadsheets. That’s where human error, bottlenecks and discrepancies build up, and it’s also where Finance Automation applies full orchestration, not just automation.

Why fragmented tools don’t solve the problem

Those financial close and point solutions tend to automate in silos by focusing on a few repetitive tasks but missing the full picture. This creates more work, not less.

Manual data entry: A hidden time drain

Even with accounting software, teams copy data from multiple systems into templates. Each adjustment introduces risk and adds hours to the close.

Siloed tools: Islands of automation

Bolt-on or partial solutions don’t connect across systems. Teams must step in and do the work by hand. They reconcile large volumes of financial records one by one. They also handle approval steps across disconnected systems. This makes the process slow and disorganized. Each manual task increases the chance of a delay or mistake.

Limited control: No end-to-end visibility

Teams can’t see the entire workflow from start to finish. They also can’t track postings as they happen, nor can they confirm that policies are followed. Real-time dashboards are not possible without a full system connection. There’s no system-wide view of exceptions, delays or statuses.

The better approach: True automation from start to finish

Finance Automation is an end-to-end finance automation solution built for the full record-to-report (R2R) cycle. It removes manual steps entirely and connects people, data and systems into one orchestrated flow.

What gets automated:

• Data extraction from ERP, procurement and CRM systems
• Calculations and transformation of raw inputs into structured journal entries
• Validation and approvals through system-managed workflows instead of emails
• Posting of journal entries in real time to the general ledger
• Archiving and audit trails for compliance and transparency

Whether it’s recurring automatic journal entries, intercompany adjustments or high-volume allocations, every journal entry follows a repeatable, controlled process with no offline handoffs or shadow systems.

What finance and account teams gain in return

By eliminating the burden of manual intervention, teams can redirect their time toward financial planning, forecasting and insight-driven decision-making.

With Finance Automation, your organization can save valuable time by:

• Automating journal entries across entities, business units and functions
• Cutting days off the financial close
• Increasing speed and consistency with real-time processing and visibility
• Reducing risk with built-in internal controls and validation
• Replacing email loops with system-driven approval workflows

True automation doesn’t start with a spreadsheet

If your team is still relying on manual processes, like journal entry creation and approval routing, you’re not truly automating. You’re just working harder to do the same work.

Finance Automation transforms that model. It streamlines and optimizes the entire process, enforces consistency and removes the unseen burden behind the scenes.

Download the journal entries buyer’s guide to evaluate what true automation looks like. When you’re ready to leave the manual tasks behind, schedule a demo to see how Finance Automation works from start to finish.

The real problem? Manual work hasn’t disappeared; it’s just been reshuffled into bottlenecks that delay more strategic work.

In many cases, automation efforts have only shifted time-consuming accounting and finance tasks from one format to another. A spreadsheet becomes a shared dashboard. An email approval becomes a routed task. But your finance team is still stuck chasing numbers, rekeying data and resolving issues after the fact — all of which hinder decision making.

The result is a constant state of motion without momentum and no cost savings to show for it.

The human duct tape holding it all together

Across many finance departments, people have quietly become the connectors between systems that don’t integrate, business processes that don’t scale and tools that don’t talk to each other. This work is often hidden, but it’s everywhere.

Manual transfers still dominate

It’s common for financial data to be passed manually between accounting systems, cloud-based tools and spreadsheets. Reformatting templates, copying journal entries, extracting expense reports and uploading to ERP and other core systems are all daily habits. But they aren’t strategic; they’re fragile and expose gaps in finance processes.

Instead of enabling financial automation, these patterns create process gaps that rely on individuals to hold things together.

Email is the approval workflow

Approvals for purchase orders, reimbursements or journal corrections often live in inboxes. There’s no standardized tracking, no built-in audit trail and no ability to scale. Delays compound, and time-sensitive tasks get buried in threads with no visibility into who owes what to whom, which is an inefficiency that hurts accountability.

Errors hide in plain sight

Manual data entry, repetitive tasks and disconnected handoffs make room for mistakes. Small discrepancies lead to larger rework — sometimes noticed too late to avoid compliance issues or reporting misstatements. Even one error in invoice processing or forecasting can distort financial results.

Finance teams often absorb these mistakes silently and patch over them to keep things moving. But the impact is real: lost time, lost trust and missed opportunities.

What real automation looks like

True finance automation software doesn’t just wrap manual processes in nicer interfaces. It eliminates the work entirely. When you’re ready to truly automate your financial operations, evaluate your team’s foundation, platform, metrics and methods.

Fix the foundation

Automation done right starts by removing handoffs instead of just digitizing them. That means getting rid of emails, templates, offline trackers and error-prone spreadsheets, not layering new tools on top of them.

Unify the platform

Use a unified finance automation platform, like Finance Automation by Redwood, that streamlines your processes for you. It’s designed to replace the manual duct tape with a single, unified solution. It connects the entire finance lifecycle, such as journal entries, validations, invoice approvals, reconciliations and financial close, into one streamlined system while improving visibility.

Instead of moving data manually between tools, Finance Automation integrates directly with ERPs, CRMs and other business systems via APIs. It accesses data in real time, automates the transformation steps that normally happen in spreadsheets and initiates downstream accounting and financial processes automatically, so no bots or workarounds are required.

That means your team won’t need to cleanse Excel files just to make them automation-ready. There’ll be no back-and-forth with IT to get a new workflow running — just intelligent automation that’s purpose-built for accounting and finance functions.

Automate the middle, not just the edges

Many finance automation solutions focus on what happens at the beginning or end of a process. One example of this is automating invoice intake or reporting disclosures. But the real time is spent in the middle by formatting files, validating values, routing approvals and chasing down exceptions.

Finance Automation addresses these middle steps, where your accounting and finance teams lose the most time, require the most manual effort and introduce the most risk. It doesn’t just trigger actions; it transforms how your work flows.

Intelligent controls without the complexity

Finance Automation includes built-in internal controls, audit trails and SLA tracking with a user-friendly interface that doesn’t require coding. Artificial intelligence and machine learning can detect anomalies, recommend corrections and reduce reliance on tribal knowledge by combining AI with automation technology to increase efficiency.

This allows your finance department to scale without scaling headcount. It’s automation that adjusts to real business needs, not the other way around.

Movement isn’t the same as momentum

Procuring new finance automation tools is easy. Getting real ROI from them is harder.

If spreadsheets still drive month-end close, if manual tasks still dominate onboarding or procurement or if human error is still part of your team’s weekly routine, the illusion of progress has taken hold.

Real automation delivers more than dashboards. It delivers control, speed and clarity. It enables informed decisions and measurable performance improvements. Most of all, it frees up your team to focus on value instead of firefighting.

Where to begin

The first step is to look honestly at your current accounting and finance processes. Ask whether these tools help you optimize outcomes or simply keep things moving.

• Are manual approvals still clogging email inboxes?
• Is data copied between systems by hand?
• Do dashboards reflect real-time updates or just snapshots?
• Are audit trails automated or assembled post-close?

If the answers point to hidden manual work, it’s time to question whether your existing tools are still running on human duct tape.

Don’t just add more finance tools. Remove the unnecessary work.

The goal isn’t to digitize more steps. It’s to eliminate the ones that shouldn’t exist at all.

Finance Automation is a solution that’s built to do exactly that. It replaces fragmented, repetitive and error-prone financial tasks with fully automated systems that handle end-to-end processes — from journal entry to reconciliation to intercompany.

With seamless integration, real-time dashboards and scalable infrastructure, it’s designed to keep accounting and finance operations running without the duct tape.

Evaluate your current financial tools to see if they’re truly helping you progress or just keeping you and your team busy. Then, book a demo to see how you can create a fully automated finance close.

But even now, spreadsheets continue to dominate processes for way too many finance teams. They’re used for accruals, revenue recognition, allocations, reconciliations and other critical functions. And all of this is happening in spreadsheets, outside the systems that are actually built to handle this data. We expect our reports to align with standards like Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) or International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), yet we’re relying on manual tools that were never designed for this level of complexity.

We all want to uphold principles like reliability and consistency. But the truth is, spreadsheets quietly chip away at both. And they’re so familiar, it’s easy not to notice until something breaks.

Let’s explore the less obvious ways spreadsheets can undermine accounting integrity and what finance automation can do to help.

The silent killer of accounting integrity

At first glance, spreadsheets feel harmless. They’re fast, flexible and the tool most professionals first learned to use. But that same flexibility is exactly what makes them hard to control.

• No version control: Anyone can tweak a cell, save a new copy or email the wrong file. There could be six versions of the same schedule floating around.
• No audit trail: Adjustments happen, but unless someone manually annotates a journal entry or leaves a note — a step that is often skipped, there’s no method for tracing what changed.
• No guarantee of accuracy: Formulas break, references get outdated, links go bad. And if no one catches it, the numbers roll forward.

Now imagine that across dozens of schedules, teams and entities. You’ve essentially built a shadow system outside your ERP — a significant audit exposure. Worse, leadership ends up relying on those numbers. Decisions are made based on the financial information in those files.

One bad cell: Unknowingly compromising reliability

The principle of reliability says our numbers should be verifiable and backed by objective evidence. But in spreadsheet world, “evidence” is often a file path and a line item copied from somewhere else. That’s not a system of record; it’s just a folder on someone’s desktop.

You could have a perfectly valid entry, but if you can’t trace how you got there — or explain why it changed — it’s not really reliable. And in many cases, even the person who made the update would have to dig to remember what they did.

Automation changes that. It builds logic into the process. You’re pulling live values from your ERP, not referencing a hard-coded number from three weeks ago. Documentation lives in the system, not in someone’s email. If something changes, you know who changed it, when and why. That’s what makes information reliable. And that’s what auditors (and leadership) expect.

Consistency is a team sport

Consistency is one of those principles that sounds simple: treat the same financial transactions the same way, every time. Yet, in practice, it gets messy.

Every finance team I’ve worked with has some version of this: one person does it their way, another has their own spreadsheet and over time, the logic starts to drift. Revenue deferrals, expense accruals and intercompany recharges all start off aligned, then slowly diverge based on who’s doing the prep work. That’s not anyone’s fault; it’s just what happens when we rely on tools that don’t enforce consistency.

Automation fixes this by turning those “ways of working” into actual, repeatable processes. You define the logic once, and the system applies it every time across accounting periods, teams and regions. Everyone starts with the same playbook.

Adhering to the consistency principle doesn’t just make audits easier. It makes your reporting more useful. It gives your team confidence in the numbers. And it makes analysis possible because you’re comparing apples to apples.

Invisible knowledge: A liability

Then, there’s the hero problem. Every finance team has one: that person who knows how everything works — the macros, the tabs, the quirks. This individual is often indispensable, holding the entire manual process together. But when they go on vacation, leave the company or just get reassigned, that knowledge goes with them.

This represents a huge risk, even though it isn’t often discussed. If your month-end close depends on one person’s memory of how the spreadsheet works, that’s not a process but a dependency.

Automation helps you get that knowledge out of someone’s head and into a shared system. It turns invisible logic into visible steps. It builds documentation into the workflow. That way, new team members can ramp faster, and no one’s irreplaceable because the process doesn’t live in a file; it lives in the system.

This is how a scalable team is built.

A stronger foundation for modern finance

Accounting concepts haven’t changed much, but everything around them has. We’re moving faster, dealing with more data, experimenting with new accounting methods and being asked to add value beyond the basics, but we still have to get the basics right.

For many organizations, spreadsheets have effectively become the primary system for managing financial processes, operating as a kind of shadow ERP. Even with dedicated enterprise software in place, the most critical accounting work often falls back on a collection of manual, disconnected files. While valuable for quick analysis, spreadsheets cannot provide the integrity and control required to be the backbone of your financial position. The work traditionally performed in these files must be migrated to a centralized system built for scale and auditability.

Finance automation can reduce spreadsheet risk and help your team uphold the accounting principles that matter most — from the matching principle to GAAP compliance. Request a demo of Finance Automation by Redwood today.

But assumptions can be costly.

If you’ve implemented automation tools, shifted away from paper or added templates and trackers, it’s easy to believe your R2R process is modernized. In reality, many organizations are still relying on fragmented workflows, disconnected systems and outdated practices masked as progress. The result? Unnecessary manual effort, slower closes, limited visibility and rising risk exposure.

Use this article and Redwood Software’s R2R automation maturity assessment to gauge whether your R2R automation strategy is keeping pace. You’ll see what to measure, how to interpret your automation maturity and how to shift from tactical improvements to scalable, strategic transformation. Benchmark both your operational and strategic maturity in a way that reflects the real complexity of the financial close.

R2R automation maturity: Perception vs. reality

91% of finance leaders say R2R automation is essential, but only 58% have automated even one key process. That gap isn’t just operational — it’s perceptual. Too often, spreadsheets, offline uploads and ad hoc workflows are labeled “automated” when they’re really just digitized versions of manual processes.

Many accounting teams rely on email approvals, ungoverned trackers and data pulled from various sources to patch together close checklists. These stopgaps introduce risk and prevent true visibility across general ledger activity, journal entries, intercompany transactions and consolidation efforts.

What emerges is a tangle of disconnected fixes that ultimately stall transformation. You may have automation tools in place, but if you’re still chasing down exceptions, tracking tasks in Excel or manually validating financial data, you’re not yet operating at a mature level.

The teams that get it right report 69.3% fewer hours spent on manual tasks, and not just because of automation but also because of orchestration. Just as importantly, they gain 69.2% better visibility and collaboration and enable faster, more confident financial management decision-making.

The maturity assessment was built to make these blind spots visible and measurable, so finance leaders can identify and address them before they create larger issues across accounting periods.

How to truly measure your R2R automation

Redwood’s R2R automation maturity assessment uses two critical axes:

• Operational maturity: This evaluates how deeply you’ve automated core accounting processes, from accounts payable and journal entries to reconciliation and month-end closing. It looks at whether your processes are automated end-to-end or only at the surface level.
• Strategic maturity: This area assesses whether you have the culture, governance and controls needed to scale and sustain R2R automation. It includes exception handling, adoption, an orchestration mindset and continuous improvement.

These axes are scored independently, then combined to place your organization into one of five maturity bands: Manual, Siloed, Managed, Controlled or Autonomous.

Reaching the Autonomous stage doesn’t just mean having tools. It means using process automation to run a fully orchestrated close process, with real-time dashboards, SLA tracking, predictive insights and embedded controls. It’s the difference between automating a few journal entries and transforming how you manage financial transactions across every entity and subsidiary.

Where finance teams stall — and what it costs

Many finance functions plateau in the Managed or Controlled stages. They’ve invested in tools but remain overwhelmed by competing priorities, change resistance, limited IT support or skills gaps. Transformation becomes a task to juggle instead of a discipline to own.

You’ll recognize the signs, including:

• Manual data collection across sub-ledgers, receivables and intercompany entries
• Offline task trackers and fragmented accounting systems
• Reactive responses to discrepancies and late-breaking issues
• Rework caused by missed validations and inconsistent approvals

These issues create ripple effects, like reporting delays, control breakdowns, missed regulatory requirements and burnout and turnover. And perhaps most damaging: a gradual erosion of confidence in the integrity of your financial information internally and with external stakeholders.

The R2R automation maturity assessment helps finance leaders like yourself map these symptoms to maturity levels, so you can prioritize root causes over surface fixes.

The value of an R2R automation maturity assessment

This isn’t a generic checklist or opinion poll. It’s a structured scoring model that reflects the real-world complexity of the R2R process. Specifically, it helps you:

• Benchmark six operational R2R processes
• Score five strategic enablers of scalable automation
• Evaluate your automation posture using a combined scoring model
• Identify maturity-specific key steps to advance transformation

You’ll also evaluate your automation fabric readiness, which is your organization’s ability to support seamless, end-to-end process automation across a diverse and evolving tech stack. It includes ERP and other core systems, orchestration capability, exception resolution, visibility and roadmap alignment. This matters whether you’re navigating a procure-to-pay cycle, an order-to-cash flow or full general ledger consolidation across multiple entities.

The full assessment download includes scoring tables and detailed improvement playbooks, and the result is actionable. It’s not just “Where are we?” but it’s also “What do we do next?”

How R2R automation pays off

The outcomes of mature R2R automation are clear:

• Operational payoffs: 69.3% hours saved across account reconciliation, journal entry and accrual workflows
• Strategic payoffs: 69.2% gains in cross-functional collaboration, faster management reports, improved financial performance and agility
• Predictable closes: Real-time dashboards, SLA tracking, exception queues and embedded audit controls
• Resilience by design: Native SAP integration, automated validation rules and exception handling that reduce human error
• Informed decisions: Accurate financial data entry delivered faster and with more transparency into consolidation timelines and data lineage

These capabilities empower CFOs to cut days off the close, reduce rework and reassign capacity toward forecasting, strategic planning and scenario modeling.

Finance teams that have reached the Autonomous stage can track key metrics, such as the percentage of manual journals, time spent on reconciliations and the number of post-close adjustments and drive them toward zero. They don’t just close faster; they optimize for consistency, control and insight.

Get your true R2R automation score

If you’re serious about strengthening your organization’s financial health and driving better outcomes, you need to know where your maturity stands, not where you assume it is.

Involve your finance operations leaders, IT and automation stakeholders in the following steps:

• Download the R2R automation maturity assessment
• Review each level of automation maturity
• Evaluate each area based on your current state
• Calculate your scores and determine your automation posture
• Prioritize your next actions

Every quarter your organization spends stalled in Managed or Controlled maturity leaves efficiency, visibility and credibility on the table. Automation isn’t the destination; it’s the lever that lets you transform your business processes, sharpen your financial reporting and elevate your accounting team’s impact across the enterprise. 

To see where your organization’s R2R automation really stands and what it will take to move forward, download the full assessment and schedule a demo to achieve an orchestrated close.

It’s tempting to point fingers at external auditors. But let’s not let internal accounting teams off the hook too easily. Audit firms assess the financial information you produce. The root cause of many audit failures isn’t fraud or negligence; it’s a combination of outdated processes, inconsistent procedures and systems that leave too much to chance. Two common culprits are a lack of objectivity and consistency. 

These and other accounting principles should be built into your operations, but too often, they remain abstract — something your team relegates to a dusty handbook. Let’s look at how operational gaps undermine objectivity and consistency and how automation can reinforce them when they matter most.

Safeguarding professional judgment with structure

The PCAOB’s 2024 inspection report called out more than procedural issues. It highlighted a relatively widespread breakdown in professional judgment underpinning the audit process. Flawed evaluations, weak skepticism and insufficient support for critical assumptions, in particular.

These aren’t arising because internal auditors and accounting teams lack skill. In many cases, it’s because they’re forced to work with manual inputs, delayed data and undocumented workarounds that make objective judgment nearly impossible. When you’re reconciling accounts in Excel and building forecasts on stale numbers, subjectivity creeps in. Again, this isn’t out of carelessness, but because there’s not a reliable structure to keep judgment grounded.

When your data is clean and your process is repeatable, your conclusions are clearer. That’s how objectivity holds.

The danger of doing things differently every time

Another principle worth revisiting in the audit conversation: consistency. Discrepancies and audit failures often trace back to inconsistent accounting practices:

• Recognizing revenue one way in Q1 and another way in Q4
• Applying different thresholds across business units
• Updating assumptions without documenting why

Inconsistent processes make it harder to detect fraud, forecast and audit. One of the biggest contributors? Tribal knowledge — when the “how” behind a task lives in someone’s head instead of in your systems. If one person handles intercompany eliminations a certain way and someone else does it differently, you get completely inconsistent (and unpredictable) outcomes.

Breaking the spreadsheet dependency

If 39% of audits are still failing, that’s not just an auditor problem. It’s a signal that objectivity and consistency aren’t being reinforced at the transactional level.

As regulators become more aggressive and public trust continues to erode, companies can’t afford to treat accounting principles like mission statements. There’s too much risk in relying on tools that weren’t built for control or consistency. Spreadsheets are flexible, but flexibility without structure is a liability. 

Accounting principles must be enforceable through technology and process design.

If your tools and processes haven’t evolved to match the accounting standards you’re still expected to uphold, your audits will be at risk of failure. But going for just any shiny new tool won’t help. Automation will keep you true to the principles the profession is built upon, if you understand why new tech fails in finance and how to break that pattern.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about why the month-end close in so many organizations feels like a series of disconnected tasks, performed by teams working in silos with limited visibility into the bigger picture. Different individuals or teams own specific accounts or processes, diligently working on their piece of the puzzle. Yet, the connections between these pieces — the understanding of how one person’s output directly impacts the next stage and the final financial statements — often feel flimsy.

The problem with traditional close timelines

This situation is often exacerbated by a phenomenon known as Parkinson’s Law, the idea that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. If we allocate a set number of days or hours per month for the close, the work tends to stretch out to occupy that entire timeframe. This happens both consciously and unconsciously. Tasks that we could complete more efficiently can become drawn out and the initial urgency can dissipate, leading to a last-minute scramble. 

It reminds me of a poorly orchestrated assembly line. Imagine a car factory where each worker focuses solely on their individual task, like installing a door or tightening a bolt, without any real-time feedback on the quality of their work or how it affects the subsequent steps. Compound this with the fact that each worker feels they have “all day” to complete their seemingly small task.

Then, picture the pressure intensifying. Leadership demands the finished product by a specific time, no excuses. The focus narrows to speed, potentially overshadowing the crucial element of quality. The car rolls off the line “on time,” a superficial victory. But when quality control steps in, the reality hits: misaligned parts, missing components — a fundamentally flawed product requiring significant and costly rework.

Sound familiar? When those month-end financials are delivered on schedule but later reveal discrepancies, incomplete documentation and overlooked details? That frantic, siloed approach, often fueled by the creeping influence of Parkinson’s Law, leads to precisely this outcome. We allow the work to expand to fill the available time and end up creating more work, and potentially more significant issues, down the line. 

Assembly line reimagined: What automation makes possible

What if we could transform this disjointed process into a seamless, interconnected “accounting assembly line?” This is where automation comes into play, offering a direct antidote to the inefficiencies brought about by Parkinson’s Law.

Consider the impact of robotics and sophisticated systems in a modern car factory. These technologies not only accelerate production but also dramatically improve accuracy and consistency. Imagine automated systems flagging inconsistencies early in the process, preventing downstream errors. An automated accounting assembly could perform complex tasks with unwavering precision, unaffected by the human tendency to let work fill the available time. 

Automation offers the same potential for our month-end close, directly combating Parkinson’s Law by:

• Imposing efficiency by design: Automation tools don’t succumb to the temptation to stretch out tasks. They execute processes in a standardized, efficient manner, completing them in their actual required time, regardless of the broader timeframe allocated for the close.
• Shrinking task timelines and fostering focus: Automating repetitive and manual processes drastically reduces the time needed for these core closing activities. This inherently shortens the close timeline because it prevents work from expanding unnecessarily and forces a more focused approach. 
• Promoting timeliness and accountability: Automated workflows with reminders and escalation protocols inject a sense of urgency and ensure tasks are completed on schedule, directly counteracting the procrastination that Parkinson’s Law often encourages.
• Enhancing accuracy from the start: Automation minimizes human error, leading to cleaner data and fewer discrepancies. There’s no longer a need for extensive investigations and rework at the tail end of the close. It essentially prevents the rework “penalty” of a rushed, Parkinson’s Law-influenced process. 
• Fostering integration and visibility: Automation can connect disparate systems and provide a holistic view of the closing process. It breaks down silos and demonstrates how each task contributes to the final outcome.

By understanding the subtle yet powerful influence of Parkinson’s Law on traditional close processes, we can better appreciate why simply allocating more time, adding more bodies, offshoring labor or purchasing siloed automation tools isn’t the solution. Embracing strategic automation isn’t just about closing faster; it’s about reclaiming our time, enhancing accuracy and creating a more streamlined and less stressful month-end close by actively preventing work from expanding to fill the available void. 

It’s about building that high-quality “car” efficiently the first time, rather than constantly fixing a rushed and flawed product, then replicating the process to continue to produce that same quality of vehicle.

Why do finance automation adoption numbers lag behind a belief in its importance? See the latest industry stats in “The R2R automation playbook.”

Look for the signs

Think critically about where Parkinson’s Law might be subtly impacting your current close. It doesn’t exactly announce itself.

Ask yourself and your team:

• Are we still relying on Excel spreadsheets for close task management?
• Do we wait until the last 48 hours to reconcile bank statements or finalize accruals?
• Are our ERP systems feeding real-time data into our close checklist, or are we still relying on someone to tick a box when a task is complete?
• Are we discovering discrepancies too late and forcing rework that derails forecasting and decision-making?

If the answer to any of these is yes, it’s time to analyze how you might be unintentionally allowing Parkinson’s Law to creep in and shape your workflows.

Win back time and drive a predictable, quality close

Speed alone isn’t the goal. What moves the needle is a close process that doesn’t crumble under pressure.

Automation can empower your team to own a predictable, auditable and resilient close process. When every financial transaction, journal entry and general ledger update flows through a standardized, automated system and quality control is built right into the process, they’ll spend less time chasing manual steps and more time refining strategy. 

You’re not removing people from the process; you’re allowing them to work smarter. Not only will automation eliminate the delays and stress that so often plague the month-end effort, but it will also help you with the practical stuff: identifying cash flow issues before they hit the balance sheet, validating metrics, ensuring data consistency and more. Automation is your lever against the inevitable.

Not sure where to start? Learn about the agile approach to finance automation.

You can get out of this state of shock and start making strides when you realize you don’t need to overhaul your entire accounting function overnight.

I recommend a more pragmatic approach: Begin with a narrow focus, apply agile methods and build momentum through small, structured wins. Agile, originally a software development methodology, works exceptionally well in finance when adapted thoughtfully. Applied to accounting, it can give you a structured way to modernize processes without sacrificing efficient daily operations.

When you get it right, the transformation can feel like magic — not because it’s effortless but because of how dramatically it simplifies the work.

Step 1: Define your project and assemble your team

Agile begins with a clear purpose. What part of your accounting cycle is ripe for change? It might be:

• Reducing manual effort in preparing recurring journal entries
• Standardizing reconciliations for high-risk balance sheet accounts
• Improving visibility and control over intercompany eliminations

Once you’ve selected your initial focus, identify a small, cross-functional team. That might include one or two accountants who manage the process today, a member of your IT or automation team and a team lead or controller to serve as the product owner.

Your goal is to scope out a project small enough to deliver real progress in a few weeks, rather than trying to automate everything.

Step 2: Choose your sprint cadence

Agile teams work in time-boxed cycles called sprints. In software, sprints typically last two weeks. This same rough sprint cadence also works well for finance. In my experience, two staggered sprints per month allow you to maintain momentum without interfering with the month-end or quarterly close cycle.

The key is to make the sprint regular and predictable. Every two weeks, your team should:

• Review what was completed
• Set clear, achievable goals for the next sprint
• Prioritize the next set of tasks
• Assign ownership based on capacity

This rhythm helps you maintain forward progress even amid daily demands and the ebbs and flows of a typical fiscal year.

Step 3: Start with process selection and discovery

Your first sprint should focus on understanding the process you want to improve. Let’s say you choose to automate a journal entry for prepaid expenses. This first step isn’t writing scripts. You need to understand how the process works today (pain points included), what systems and data are involved, what artifacts exist and what volume and complexity you’re dealing with. 

Say you’re working on a recurring entry to allocate depreciation. You need to uncover: how the entry is generated today, what triggers it and when in the accounting period, which accounts it impacts, what documentation and validations exist and who reviews or adjusts it before it’s posted to the general ledger. You might also need to gather artifacts like Excel templates, email approval flows or ERP screenshots. These are your starting points for making sure your automation reflects a real workflow rather than an ideal one.

Don’t underestimate the importance of the discovery phase in making sure your automation efforts are grounded in reality.

Step 4: Break down tasks and build your backlog

Once you’ve scoped your process and gathered what you need, it’s time to translate your findings into tasks. Some examples:

• Map the current workflow in a flowchart and make sure you cover any places where the process could fail or have to start over
• Identify fields and logic needed for journal entry automation, so you know the required data and calculations
• Review automation platform capabilities (e.g., templates or connectors)
• Write acceptance criteria for a successful automation — this is how you’ll prove your new automation is working
• Prepare test data or validate entry logic, and be sure to include several examples of the different kinds of data you might see to cover the most probable cases 

Tasks that can’t be finished in this sprint go into your backlog. You can reprioritize that backlog after each sprint based on what you’ve learned or what’s most urgent.

Some tasks may expose gaps in how the process works today, and that’s a good thing. Agile sprints are built for learning, not perfection.

Step 5: Communicate, adjust and demo progress

A key agile principle is transparency. Short, regular check-ins — say, 15 minutes twice a week — keep everyone aligned and aware of blockers. No need for slides or long updates. A quick “What’s done, what’s next and what’s in the way?” is usually enough. 

At the end of the sprint, reconvene for a demo. Even if you didn’t automate the entire process, showing a prototype or workflow map can energize your team and stakeholders. Use what you learn to shape the next sprint.

Where to start? Go for high pain, low complexity

If you’re not sure where to begin, I often recommend focusing on account reconciliations. They’re a consistent source of friction and effort, especially for temporary account balances or frequently adjusted liabilities. But many can be standardized or automated with relatively little effort.

For example, bank reconciliations follow a predictable pattern. Accrual accounts only need simple threshold logic. And intercompany receivables/payables might just require timing alignment.

Journal entries are another good candidate, particularly if they’re recurring and related to depreciation, allocations or amortizations. Their fixed logic and regular intervals make them perfect for early wins.

The record-to-report (R2R) cycle contains many interconnected subprocesses that are ideal for incremental automation. Applying agile to this domain brings visibility and momentum to your transformation efforts while minimizing risk and burnout.

Agile is how finance gets things done

Finance doesn’t often borrow from the world of software development, but it should. The pressure is real today to modernize, optimize and transform while still closing the books on time — no small feat.  Agile gives your accounting team a way to improve processes iteratively, without waiting for perfect conditions or massive budgets. They get a repeatable structure and still have space for experimentation. Once they see how agile can turn a painful process into a streamlined one, you’ll have the buy-in you need to scale your automation strategy across your finance organization.

You won’t need a wand, just the right structure, people and mindset. Those create the real magic.

We had gone live. Our systems were talking to each other. Teams weren’t buried in spreadsheets anymore. It felt like reaching the summit. But after the celebration faded, a quiet realization crept in: This wasn’t the finish line. It was the starting gate.

Once the systems are humming and close cycles are faster, the real question becomes: Now what?

You don’t invest in digital transformation just to do the same tasks faster. You do it to elevate the role of finance from task execution to strategic partner. Here’s how to make that shift — and realize the full return on your investment.

The dawn of a new finance function

Once automation is implemented, the most visible benefits come quickly: faster close cycles, streamlined reconciliations and a noticeable drop in manual errors. These are all crucial, well-earned wins, but they’re only the beginning.

With rote tasks off their plates, your Finance team finally has the time and mental space to think, analyze and engage. This is the moment to pivot from transaction management to strategic contribution. It starts with redefining what “value” looks like in the modern finance function.

No longer burdened by data wrangling and rework, your team can step into a more collaborative role. They can become internal consultants shaping the decisions that key numbers inform.

Imagine what’s possible when finance professionals are empowered to:

• Break down the financial impact of complex concepts like tax strategies, depreciation and regulatory credits instead of simply recording the results. They can help operational leaders understand the “why” behind bottom-line changes and where there’s room to optimize.
• Offer suggestions to reduce expenses, not just track them. Through detailed cost analysis, benchmarking and comparative reviews, they can identify areas of savings that directly support business health and profitability.
• Analyze the revenue effect of pricing changes before they roll out. Finance can help model what a small price adjustment means for revenue, customer churn and margins.
• Help business leaders understand customer-level profitability. Teams can then prioritize sustainable, high-margin growth.
• Equip product managers with unit economics insights. These help enormously with budgeting, product redesign and rationalization.

This is the kind of work that elevates the finance organization, but it won’t happen unless you have a structure, sponsorship and a plan after your new tech is in place.

Start with strategic pairing

Assigning Finance team members to support various departments takes more than a quick shuffle of names. Random assignments won’t work; you have to match business units and Finance team members intentionally. 

Some staff have natural communication skills. Others are more analytical. Align those competencies with the business strategy of each department. Got a Product team that’s working on a margin turnaround? Pair them with an FP&A professional who has deep data analytics skills. Is your supply chain under cost pressure? Assign someone who’s skilled in performance review and standardization.

Support from CFOs and senior leaders is critical here. When business partners see this shift as part of the broader operating model, they’re more likely to lean in and collaborate.

Set the stage with clear communication

Any transformation requires clarity. That’s especially true for cross-functional initiatives like this.

To your Finance team, communicate that this is about more than just expanding their scope. They’re going to have greater influence, stronger business relationships and more impact on the company’s direction.

To your operational teams, emphasize how this new model brings faster answers and better insights. This isn’t “extra finance.” It’s the embedded, ongoing expertise that helps them hit their goals.

Make data more accessible — and more useful

Even with automation, the path to insight isn’t automatic. The challenge is empowering your team to deliver information that supports real-time decision-making.

Here’s how to make that happen:

1. Train them to segment reports and move beyond surface-level metrics. Break down results by customer segment, region, channel or product line.
2. Focus on action, not just observation. What changed? Why? What can the business do about it? Delivering answers is far more valuable than just showing numbers.
3. Use visual tools to communicate. Dashboards, graphs and interactive visualizations simplify complex data and make it more digestible for non-financial stakeholders.

If your team doesn’t yet have access to customer data, campaign performance or supply chain inputs, now’s the time to open those doors. These insights are often what unlock the biggest contributions to business performance.

Provide a partnership playbook

Most finance operations are built around structured periods like close, review and report. Business partnering requires more dynamic interaction. To succeed, your team needs a roadmap. Give them tools and templates to launch effectively.

• Recommend an initial cadence (monthly check-ins work well) and flexible timing based on the partner’s role and current goals.
• Share templates for meeting agendas, forecast review and KPI updates.
• Offer reporting frameworks that include commentary, risk assessments and recommendations. 

Help your team transition from reporting outputs to driving business outcomes.

Coach by showing up

This is where leadership matters. If you want your team to shift their identity, they need to see you model that shift. Join early conversations and observe how your team interacts. Offer feedback in a supportive, mentoring tone. Are they asking the right questions? Are they tying insights back to what the business cares about?

Your involvement sends a clear message: This isn’t just a side experiment but part of your larger finance strategy and how the function will deliver business value in the future.

The transformation journey doesn’t end at go-live. It begins there.

By empowering your Finance team to move closer to the business, you turn process improvement into a strategic advantage and go from cost center to value driver.

If you’ve invested in digital technologies, automation and an updated finance operating model, now is the time to double down on how those tools get used and who gets to use them.

Want to see how others are doing it? Explore how real finance organizations are turning efficiency into influence: Read the case studies.

You see the demo, hear the pitch and suddenly, you’re envisioning a transformed team — month-end cut in half, reconciliations humming in the background, errors all but eliminated. It’s a compelling vision, and you buy in. The vendor assures you it’s plug-and-play. And then?

Reality hits.

Spreadsheets aren’t syncing. The data looks off. Your team is drowning in error messages and Slack pings. That “easy” integration turns into a six-month side project. And now you’re explaining why the month-end close is taking longer than before.

I’ve seen this scenario too many times to count. It plays out across Finance and Accounting departments in every industry, from traditional banking to fintech startups. We invest in shiny new tech, hoping it will solve deep-rooted problems, but it often just adds another layer of complexity.

It’s frustrating. We’re supposed to be the most efficient, most precise part of the organization. And yet here we are, still manually wrangling data at 10 PM on day five of the close.

What’s really going on?

We’re drowning in systems

The first problem is systemic, literally.

Finance departments are sitting on a mountain of systems: ERP, EPM, CRM, tax engines, payment apps, compliance tools and spreadsheets galore. These weren’t designed to work together; they were purchased in different eras for different reasons, often by different leaders. Yet, we expect them to play nicely when we bring in a modern automation tool.

It’s like trying to build a smart home with ‘90s wiring. Nothing connects the way it should.

And what do most organizations do when their tech stack fails to deliver? They buy more tech. We throw technologies at the problem instead of stepping back and asking: What’s the actual process we’re trying to fix?

The tools aren’t the issue. It’s the lack of orchestration. Without a unified way to connect and automate processes across systems, you’re just layering new complexity on top of old complexity. 

Change management is a people problem

Then, there’s the human side. Let’s be honest: accountants and finance folks aren’t the most adventurous bunch when it comes to change.

I don’t say that to be critical — I say it because I’ve lived it. Finance runs on control, precision and reliability. The idea of upending a process that “works” (even if it’s slow and manual) can feel risky or even reckless.

When someone comes in with a new system and says, “Trust me, this will change everything,” our first instinct is skepticism. Rightly so. We’ve all been burned before. But you can’t automate what you don’t understand, and you can’t expect people to embrace change if you haven’t helped them see the point.

Too often, we focus on the features — APIs, dashboards, machine learning — when what people want to know is: How is this going to make my job better?

If you’re a finance leader trying to drive change, this is your job. Translate tech into outcomes. Don’t tell your controller about artificial intelligence; tell her she won’t have to double-check 4,000 intercompany entries next month. Don’t explain event-based triggers; show your team how the system will flag issues before the auditors do.

Change sticks when it solves real problems in a way that feels personal. That’s the only kind of buy-in that matters.

Big projects fail, but small wins build momentum

Here’s another hard truth: The “big bang” implementation model is dead.

I’ve been part of those projects. The 18-month roadmap, the all-hands kickoff with 47 stakeholders, the integration timeline that looks more like a fantasy novel than a project plan.

They rarely work. Not because people aren’t smart or hardworking but because the scope is too massive and the tech is too rigid. Most of the time, you end up disappointed.

Incremental change and agile thinking are the only things that drive real outcomes, build confidence and give you clarity about the next steps.

Start with one process or pain point. Automate something ugly but contained — maybe a manual journal upload or a tedious bank reconciliation process. Let the team see the value in weeks, not months. Then expand.

You don’t need a fully transformed department tomorrow. You need a repeatable way to move forward without losing momentum or breaking what’s already working.

Automation as the enabler

I don’t believe in automation for the sake of automation, but I do believe in automation as the enabler of the bigger things: clarity, consistency, control. Not just faster closes but smarter ones.  Not just fewer errors but better insights.

The best automation platforms remove the drudge work that wastes people’s time. They connect the dots between systems that were never meant to talk to each other. And they give leaders the visibility and confidence they need to make better decisions without waiting until day eight of the close to find out what went wrong.

The vision isn’t all robots and magic. It’s a finance function that finally works the way it should.

Stop buying tools and start building capabilities

If you take one thing from our exploration of the finance transformation struggle, let it be this: Technology will not fix broken processes or siloed teams.

You have to fix those things first, or at least see them clearly, before the tech can do its job. That’s what real finance transformation looks like. Plugging in a new system isn’t the same thing as building the kind of team, mindset and roadmap that can adapt and improve one process at a time.

This is about more than just one team or project. It’s about how we evolve as a profession.Don’t let your organization become another cautionary tale. Be the example. Explore the potential impact of Finance Automation by Redwood.

A clear indication of the challenges finance leaders face, this finding highlights considerable barriers to the full adoption of R2R automation. Given the importance of automating R2R in the accounting cycle, it’s essential to overcome these challenges and deliver operational efficiency and better financial close management. 

During my career in finance, I was fortunate to work with some of the leading ERPs, accounting software and finance systems. As I moved from day-to-day finance work to finance transformation strategy, I evaluated and implemented some of the best R2R automation tools and platforms. Through the lens of my experience, I will unpack the findings of this research, outlining the real issues highlighted by finance leaders and how to overcome them to achieve meaningful, scalable finance transformation. 

With this knowledge, you can choose not to be among the 33% of finance leaders who are aware of the opportunity for R2R automation but have not implemented it.

What is preventing the widespread adoption of R2R automation?

Before discussing how to transform your R2R operations, it’s worth considering what could be holding your team back from committing to automation. The research found that finance leaders called out six barriers preventing the expansion of R2R automation in their organizations.

• Lack of integration with legacy systems: Automation tools that lack integration rely on data being duplicated and stored outside your ERP system, which creates additional work for Finance to refresh and reconcile multiple sets of data. That’s a considerable burden during the monthly close, when account balances and financial data frequently change in the general ledger due to adjustments, corrections, accruals, provisions and reclassifications.
• Limited knowledge about automation potential: A lack of knowledge about the capabilities of automation tools and how they apply to finance tasks prevents further progress. Without knowledge of the “art of the possible,” finance leaders struggle to identify finance tasks they can automate. For tasks they recognize as candidates for automation, a lack of knowledge of the capabilities of the automation tools prevents a clear understanding of how to deliver automation.
• Technical complexity: Complex automation tools require technical experts to configure and operate the technology, which moves the definition and control of automating processes away from finance users. Reliance on technical experts to make simple changes to automation rules and add new automated process steps inevitably prevents progress toward a fully automated finance operation.  
• High implementation costs: Many see the cost of implementing automation tools as a reason for not achieving more with them. High implementation costs can result from a technically complex automation tool that requires expensive technical expertise to deliver and maintain automation. They can also indicate expensive software license costs or the scale of the infrastructure required to run the solution.
• Making the business case: A business case that delivers R2R automation using technically complex automation solutions with high implementation costs, coupled with a lack of understanding or strategic vision of the automation journey, will lead to a fragile business case. A weak business case with an inadequate ROI compromises further investment to deploy the automation more broadly.
• Resistance from staff: Most of us don’t like surprises or change, and if automating R2R accounting processes meets resistance among finance teams, they often choose to continue using current time-consuming methods and ways of working, typically with spreadsheets, ensuring the organization cannot realize the targeted benefits of automation. Thus, error-prone manual financial activities and processes will prevail.

The barriers preventing wide-scale adoption of R2R automation mirror those that often arise in other technology-led business transformation initiatives. However, in the case of R2R automation, the issues are exacerbated because the technologies typically deployed are point solutions that focus on automating one thing, such as reconciliations, intercompany or journal entries. Point solutions dictate a tactical style of implementation that does not consider the big picture — the opposite of a strategic approach that’s more likely to succeed in delivering the targeted benefits and organization-wide adoption.

Only 13% of finance leaders are “very satisfied” with the ROI of their automation.

88% of organizations are “moderately satisfied,” or worse, with their R2R automation ROI.

Source: The R2R automation playbook

The ingredients of an effective R2R automation strategy

The most meaningful change required to move past the barriers holding R2R automation back is to elevate the focus away from niche areas and point solutions to a broader and more strategic outlook. Automating journal entries or reconciliations can yield some business benefits, but this approach creates an island of automation surrounded by the same manual working methods.

Here are the steps you need to take to ensure wider adoption of R2R automation in your organization.

Step 1: Take stock of where you are on your automation journey

Before embarking on any journey, it’s essential to understand your starting point.  Conducting a detailed assessment of your current automated and manual processes will enable you to develop a strategy and plan for automation that goes beyond a single-task focus, an approach that point automation solutions tend to promote because of their adoption.

This assessment will provide valuable insight and input into the subsequent steps toward an integrated approach to automating your R2R processes.

Step 2: Build a compelling business case

Any technology-led finance transformation investment must be backed by a strong business case and meaningful ROI. You should undertake due diligence to understand what is achievable with an integrated and modern R2R automation solution and validate the benefits and opportunities for your organization. During this investigation, you will gain valuable knowledge from software providers and other organizations that have embarked on similar journeys, plugging some gaps in your “art-of-the-possible” thinking process.

Understanding the CFO’s priorities and aligning the business case for automation with them will help secure the required funding. It will also ensure the executive sponsorship and leadership needed for effective organizational change are in place once the project commences.

Step 3: Choose an R2R automation platform that integrates with your ERP and other systems

Selecting an automation platform that integrates with your ERP and other systems enables you to expand the benefits of automation beyond niche areas of finance activities. Integrated R2R automation platforms combine the best capabilities of the many automation point solutions available in the market, like journal entries, month-end close checklist, intercompany and reconciliations, with an end-to-end approach to control and monitor your processes. Automating these “first-mile” finance activities in a single integrated platform ensures that the financial close becomes a non-event, too.

Choosing an integrated R2R automation solution eliminates the interoperability issues between disparate point solutions while simplifying the implementation, maintenance and upgrade of the automation software — because it is a single platform from one vendor.

Discover how a global manufacturing services company achieved four major benefits by automating and digitizing manual tasks across its R2R and month-end close process.

Step 4: Develop and execute a comprehensive automation strategy to digitally transform finance

Delivering the ROI you need is essential, and a more strategic approach to R2R automation allows you to redefine how your finance function operates. Operational efficiency through automation is the foundation for many other benefits beyond cost savings. It’s also about the speed and agility with which processes execute, the scalability to accommodate an increasing workload without needing to employ more staff and the reduced risk and stronger compliance the automated R2R process brings.

Beyond operational efficiency, you will create a continuous improvement approach and culture if you deliver R2R automation with the right automation platform and a strategic approach aligned with your CFO’s priorities.

Learn more about the gap between automation perception and reality in finance and how your peers in finance are transforming their financial close performance. Read the full report here.

These early finance systems, although based on manual tasks, enabled multiple finance team members to work concurrently on recording financial transactions. They were undoubtedly more efficient in capturing transactions through computer-based input screens than handwritten records.

As technology advanced, integrated ledgers enabled capturing a single transaction that updated sub-ledgers in real time, reducing the manual effort required to record financial transactions. There was a further evolution when ERP systems like SAP arrived, which automatically recorded the financial impact of transactions from business activities as they occurred.  

Did ERP cause finance to lose control of the general ledger?

Despite the ERP revolution’s positive impact on efficiency in record-to-report (R2R) processes, many finance teams discovered that their colleagues in sales, procurement and other departments were making errors when recording their activities. These errors, such as incorrect prices or units of measure, had a significant financial impact and created a need to correct and adjust recorded activities daily. Internal controls became even more important in maintaining the integrity of financial data.

Ironically, after the widespread adoption of ERP systems, the workload for finance teams increased, and they spent a large amount of their time on activities like:

• Maintaining the integrity of the financial records through an account reconciliation process
• Validating key metrics such as sales, gross margin and stock levels to highlight potential errors
• Operating internal control procedures to identify data and process issues
• Adjusting for errors, accruals, provisions and financial reclassifications
• Recording day-to-day transactions, including intercompany accounting records
• The month-end financial close, including preparing financial statements
• Ad-hoc financial reporting

Why ERP systems created a need for R2R automation

In response to the additional work required within the accounting team and the need to increase efficiency, software vendors developed hundreds of ERP add-ons to tackle the automation of specific pain points. Solutions ranged from spreadsheet integration for recording journal entries and standalone reconciliation tools to scripting technologies that captured a user’s keystrokes. 

However, none of these automation solutions focused on the need to streamline R2R workflows or end-to-end process automation, nor how to improve and speed up the financial close process, which was still the single most significant and resource-hungry responsibility of the finance team. It’s reasonable to question whether these automation solutions delivered on their promise of greater efficiency and control.

To understand the gap between automation perception and reality in finance, Redwood Software commissioned independent R2R research with SSON Research & Analytics. The findings, which I’ll summarize below, were enlightening.

How important is R2R automation?

This signals a pressing need for organizations to prioritize and invest in automation solutions, which directly contrasts the slow pace of adoption that’s likely hindering growth and competitiveness for far too many organizations.

Why such low levels of R2R automation adoption?

Respondents noted that the barriers preventing their wider adoption and expansion of R2R automation include a lack of integration with legacy systems, the complexity of the automation tools used, limited knowledge of what’s achievable and a lack of senior sponsorship for the automation strategy.

Some of the key questions this raises are:

• Does automation need to be part of a broader finance transformation initiative to deliver success? By focusing on the automation aspects alone, the wider end-to-end process transformation opportunity and benefits will be missed.
• How does the particular automation technology impact the level of automation achievable? Automation tools with limited functionality inevitably limit the level of digital transformation you can reach.
• How do you develop a compelling business case for R2R process automation? A clear approach and strategy to deliver R2R automation should include a clear and deliverable business case. This is crucial to enable R2R to expand quickly in the future.
• Is integration between automation tools and legacy systems critical to deliver meaningful R2R automation? Without fluid integration, R2R automation tools cannot easily and reliably access your ERP system’s functionality and financial data to deliver robust automated financial processes. 
• Would stronger leadership alone have resulted in higher automation adoption levels? R2R automation delivers positive change within the finance function. To overcome natural human resistance to change, finance leaders need to bring the team on the automation journey with them to ensure they adopt new ways of working and positively view changes to their roles.

What questions does this research surface for you? Read the full report to explore more.

The gap between reality and opportunity

In five core areas of R2R, the low level of automation many organizations realize highlights how little has been achieved around automation in finance so far, despite single-focus niche automation tools in areas such as account reconciliations, month-end close management and journal entry processing.   

The barriers preventing more wide-scale adoption of R2R automation mirror those found in many technology-led business transformation initiatives. However, in the case of R2R automation, the issues are exacerbated because many of the technologies are point solutions that focus on automating one thing, such as reconciliations, intercompany or journal entries. This dictates a style of implementation that does not consider the big picture. 

What other factors contribute to the gap between automation suitability and the level of automation organizations have achieved?

Additional manual effort

Point solutions for automating specific areas of R2R can, in theory, be deployed quickly and cost-effectively due to their focused scale and scope. Problems arise when these solutions are surrounded by adjacent manual processes that require complex hand-offs, handovers and workarounds between finance staff and the technology. 

For example, journal entry automation tools require manual input of financial transaction data into spreadsheets and forms, which the automation tool uploads to the ERP general ledger as journal entries. Should these journals be subsequently rejected due to validation errors, account blocking rules or security controls, finance staff will be notified and have to investigate and resubmit the journal within the automation tool. This requires much more manual effort than if they had input the journal entry directly to the general ledger in the first place.

Lack of scalability

Automation tools can also have inherent transaction and volume processing limits that prevent them from being more widely implemented. When discovered during implementation, such limitations reduce the achievable automation level and damage the business case ROI, jeopardizing further investment in automation.

Imperfect or unavailable integration

When organizations implement multiple automation tools from different vendors, it becomes almost impossible to interconnect them to create end-to-end automated processes. A reconciliation tool from vendor A cannot readily talk to a journal entry tool from vendor B. When the reconciliation tool identifies an adjustment for posting to the general ledger, the journal entry tool cannot automate this transaction, so manual intervention is required.

Multi-vendor approaches limit process transparency, resulting in delays and latency, with tasks in manual work queues awaiting processing.

Limited automation capabilities

Several so-called automation tools simply replicate manual tasks. An example of this is the month-end close checklist. Spreadsheets have often been the mainstay of the closing checklist, with finance teams manually marking tasks off as they complete them to summarize the outstanding month-end close activities. Some close management tools mirror the role of the spreadsheet in the month-end close, providing minimal automation benefits to finance.

The way forward

An integrated R2R automation platform solves many of the issues and challenges highlighted above, taking the best capabilities of the many automation point solutions available in the market, like journal entries, month-end close checklist, intercompany and reconciliations, and combining them with an end-to-end approach to control and monitor your processes.To learn more about the gap between automation perception and reality in finance, see more fascinating stats about the state of R2R automation among organizations like yours and find out how to step into the new era of finance automation, get your free copy of the full report.

That’s because technology isn’t the answer — at least, not without an organization-backed transformation strategy and an intentional change management strategy. Finance automation projects don’t fail because of bad software. They fail because leaders don’t take full ownership of process transformation and change management before introducing new tools.

The solution isn’t more technology; it’s the right technology implemented with discipline and as part of a larger automation fabric. Without an intentional approach to change management and transformation, an automation investment becomes just another expensive, underutilized tool collecting digital dust.

Fragmented tools, half-baked automation and the fear of change

Too many finance transformations start with the right intentions but fail to deliver meaningful change. Why? Because they get stuck in a pattern of isolated fixes rather than holistic process improvement.

Here’s what typically happens:

1. Every department picks its own solution. Procurement, AP, AR, R2R and Treasury each introduce their own tech, creating more silos instead of fewer.
2. There’s a lot of talk, but no action. Leadership discusses a unified strategy, yet execution and communication lags behind as departments focus on optimizing their own tasks.
3. Everyone discovers automation ≠ optimization. Automating a bad process doesn’t make it a good one. If upstream processes remain broken, automation fails to reach its full potential.
4. The talent drain may continue. Skilled finance professionals want to work on meaningful, strategic projects. If automation simply removes repetitive tasks without improving overall workflows, they fail to leave for organizations where they can make a real impact and impact strategic initiatives.
5. Fear of change prevents full adoption. Many employees resist new technology because they see it as a threat rather than an opportunity. The lack of top-down communications exacerbates this problem. People need a good “why” to fully adopt the change.

Without a unified vision for automation, your finance team could find itself entangled in a web of disconnected systems, frustrated employees and a transformation effort that stalls without delivering.

Effective change management starts with vision

Most change management models, like ADKAR, focus on the mechanics of change: awareness, training, reinforcement. But they fail to answer the most important question: Why?

Your team isn’t resisting automation because they don’t understand it. They’re resisting it because they don’t see how it makes their work lives better or easier. That’s why your finance automation strategy must begin with a compelling vision that aligns with your desired business outcomes.

Before implementing new finance automation tools, map every step of your existing processes. Look beyond individual tasks and examine end-to-end processes, from business transactions to accounting transactions to disclosures. 

Ask yourself:

• Where do bottlenecks occur?
• Why do bottlenecks occur?
• Where does manual intervention slow things down?
• Where do teams lose visibility into data?

Remember, this isn’t just an IT initiative: Transformation starts with people and leadership, not software.

Align on leadership outcomes

Your leadership team must be on the same page about what automation is meant to accomplish. Otherwise, employees will see it as an isolated IT initiative rather than a much bigger transformation. You must articulate a clear vision for how automation will transform finance into an agile, responsive function and align with strategic initiatives.

Make it known that automation isn’t replacing finance professionals. Instead, it should elevate them to focus on strategic, value-added work, which will upskill them and keep them relevant in an evolving industry. The right automation strategy will give your top talent a chance to focus on financial insights, risk management and forecasting, for example.

Investing in automation is essentially investing in leadership development — a wise choice that ultimately makes all finance roles more attractive and a competitive advantage in a decreasing accounting talent pool.

Cut the tech fat

Most finance leaders don’t think of themselves as technology hoarders, but take a hard look at your finance stack. How many tools are your teams juggling just to close the books? How many spreadsheets, integrations and workarounds still exist despite past automation investments? 

The instinct to layer technology on top of broken processes is one of the biggest mistakes in a finance transformation. Instead of simplifying workflows, it creates more complexity, data silos and room for error. Siloed automation creates inefficiencies because you have to waste time toggling between multiple applications that don’t talk to each other, manually consolidating reports and troubleshooting data mismatches. 

According to Gartner, 72% of CFOs identified metrics, analytics and reporting as their top focus for 2025. If this is at the top of your list, too, you’ll need to first consolidate, because focusing on analytics with too many number sources is like trying to measure performance with a broken dashboard. The numbers might be there, but they don’t tell the full story.

A single source of truth should be the goal. A core platform gives every finance function one reliable, accessible data set.

Make it stick

Automation will change how your team works, thinks and interacts with data. But if each individual doesn’t trust the technology, they won’t adopt it. To drive lasting change, you have to go the route of incremental progress rather than sudden overhauls. Share quick wins and reward adoption.

How to accomplish a phased rollout

• Start with small, visible wins: Early automation success should be impossible to ignore, whether it’s eliminating a frustrating manual process like journal preparation, speeding up reconciliations or reducing reporting errors. These wins build momentum and create internal champions that help with future automation adoption.
• Implement automation entity by entity: Instead of rolling out a massive overhaul, focus on one entity, region or department at a time. A staggered rollout allows for continuous learning and refinement before you expand across the organization.
• Keep employees engaged: The worst way to introduce automation is to make it feel like a top-down decision imposed by leadership. Instead, communicate automation’s purpose clearly, involving your employees in the process and highlighting the personal benefits they’ll experience.
• Measure success and refine: Every rollout should be measured against KPIs, such as time saved, errors reduced or non-compliance rates improved. But hitting benchmarks is just one goal; you have to evolve your approach as your business needs change.

Real, lasting change is possible! Learn from these seven companies that used Finance Automation by Redwood to get there.

Lead the change — Don’t just approve the tech

Your role isn’t to buy more software; it’s to fix broken finance processes. The most successful finance leaders actively shape how their organizations use new technology. If you’re simply signing off on it, you’re letting IT and software vendors dictate your strategy.

That’s not leadership. That’s delegation disguised as strategy.

Ask bigger questions

Own the transformation

Don’t get caught in the cycle of buying more software to fix fragmented processes. Instead, align automation with your broader business strategy, ensure full adoption and lead the change with a clear, phased approach. That’s how you turn automation investments into real business transformation. 

The right approach is to:

1. Build a strategy before implementing technology.
2. Eliminate redundant tools before adding new ones.
3. Take full ownership rather than deferring to IT.

Finance automation can help you build a foundation for long-term efficiency and resilience. Your Finance team will be proactive and indispensable. Are you leading the change or just watching it happen? 

Learn more about how to transform your team’s experience with automation in our guide, “Master the touchless close.”

The introduction of spreadsheets, modern general ledgers and ERP systems was supposed to transform the month-end close, and it did to some extent, but these new technologies introduced problems. In some cases, they created more work, data duplication and a whole new set of technologies to maintain, update and manage. 

In the case of reclassifications, there continued to be a complete reliance on time-consuming manual processes for identifying and posting reclassification adjustment journals to the general ledger, opening the door to the possibility of errors with the dire consequences of financial misstatements.

Despite the finance team trying to design better ways of working with the latest finance software, financial reclassifications continued to be stressful, time-consuming and almost entirely manual. If only finance automation software existed when I worked in finance.

Here, I will focus on the challenges of manual reclassification processes, explore why automating reclassifications is now essential and highlight how organizations can use automation technology to reduce month-end closing cycles and lower processing costs while ensuring financial accuracy and efficiency.

Common challenges in manual reclassification processes

If your month-end financial process of reclassifying balance sheet and income statement items in preparing your financial reports relies on manual review, analysis and adjustment — even by your most highly skilled finance team members — several risks and issues still frequently occur, including:

• Auditability and data security: Financial statement adjustments such as reclassifications require appropriate audit trails and data security controls to enable the integrity of the business’s accounting records to be maintained and validated through internal and external audits. However, due to time pressures at month-end, shortcuts taken to save time often result in inadequate supporting documentation being created and stored to enable future interrogation by internal and external auditors. Taking shortcuts at month-end can cost hours of additional effort during audits to create any missing supporting documentation required by the auditors.
  
• Inconsistent application of accounting rules: When human judgment is applied to any financial adjustment, the outcome is only as good as the skills and experience of the person making that judgment. Ensuring accounting rules are applied consistently is a problem in organizations where different staff members undertake the reclassification and other activities each month-end, which can result in errors and missing adjustments.
• More time preparing equals less time analyzing: Manually reclassifying financial statement items is labor-intensive and, at times, tedious for the highly qualified finance team members dedicated to this important task. Time spent on reclassifications would be better spent on higher-value and more rewarding activities such as financial analysis and interpretation.
  
• Misclassification leads to misstatements: Given the typically manual nature of reclassifications, human error is inevitable and raises the risk of financial misstatements. In the case of major misstatements, the specter of having to restate financial reports and filings can lead to financial penalties and serious reputational damage for your organization and its CFO.
  
• Prolongs the month-end close: Finance teams that manually review transactions to identify and process reclassification adjustments can take one or two working days to complete the task, considerably extending the month-end close cycle because the work takes place at the end of the close. The inevitable last-minute adjustment further prolongs close cycles, increasing the pressure on finance teams to meet ever tighter reporting deadlines.
  
• Scalability issues: In a growing organization, manually managing reclassifications requires more resources and time to make the necessary adjustments and complete the month-end close. With an increase in transaction volumes and a growing number of legal entities requiring reclassifications to close the books and complex intercompany relationships, there is a clear need for an automated reclassification process. A lack of scalability to manage reclassifications can easily add an additional working day to the month-end close cycle.

The case for automated reclassifications

Given the significant challenges of manually managing reclassifications, what benefits and opportunities does automation offer?

Cost savings

Adjusting financial statements for reclassifications is so crucial that your most senior finance team members would typically be engaged in both identifying and creating the adjustments needed in the general ledger. By eliminating this manual effort to manage your reclassifications, you can achieve significant cost savings and redeploy your senior team members to high-value activities, including financial review, analysis and interpretation. 

Elimination of financial misstatements

Using pre-defined rules applied consistently during each month-end close, automated processes eliminate human error and the possibility of overlooking required adjustments. Automated reclassifications also prevent financial misstatements and the subsequent damage, reputationally and otherwise, that inevitably occurs.

Enhanced global scalability

Automation can readily accommodate the growth in the volume of reclassification adjustments required at month-end caused by factors such as business expansion or regulation and changes in accounting standards. The automation technology can identify and adjust for reclassifications in minutes, while manual reclassifications add hours of time and effort to the month-end close. Late accounting adjustments, which typically occur toward the end of the close cycle, are particularly time-consuming. Automated reclassifications can be processed multiple times during the month-end close to accommodate late changes to the general ledger account balances without any significant human intervention or extension to closing timelines.

Faster close cycles

By automating financial reclassifications, you eliminate the need for manual adjustments and reduce the time and labor required to finalize financial statement preparation. Automation also reduces the impact of last-minute postings and corrections to the general ledger, allowing finance teams to accelerate the financial close. Fewer manual interventions mean your finance team can focus on analyzing and interpreting financial information rather than spending hours on transaction processing and adjustments, which means they can close the books earlier. 

Increased accuracy and internal controls

General ledger transaction and financial statement analysis requires configurable financial rules and criteria, with automation achieving a consistency and completeness that cannot be matched by human effort alone. Pre-defined reclassification rules and criteria identify and record the necessary adjustments with minimal human effort, other than any Four Eyes checks and approvals required by your internal control procedures. The precision and accuracy of automated reclassifications boost internal controls and minimize the possibility of costly misstatements.

Improved audit readiness

Reclassification adjustments need appropriate supporting documentation to enable verification by auditors. Automated reclassifications ensure proper audit trails and capture supporting documentation for each reclassification adjustment made to your general ledger. 

How Redwood’s solution automates and transforms your financial reclassifications

Finance Automation by Redwood integrates seamlessly with ERP systems like SAP, ensuring accurate and efficient reclassifications by using your core financial records to identify and process the reclassifications required to adjust your financial statements. 

Key features include:

• Configurable rules and workflows: Allow finance teams to set customized reclassification rules aligned with organizational policies and accounting standards. These automated rules are applied consistently during each month-end close across multiple legal entities and geographies.
• End-to-end automation: Eliminates the need for spreadsheets, manual data collection, data duplication, data validation and manual data entry, ensuring data accuracy, speed, consistency and efficiency. The automated process identifies the necessary reclassifications and generates and posts the required journal entries without the need for human intervention — other than any reviews and approvals you define within the end-to-end automated process.
• Real-time monitoring and alerts: Provides visibility of the ongoing reclassification process, ensuring timely adjustments, approvals and reliable financial information. A comprehensive dashboard provides real-time visualization of the entire month-end close, including the processing of reclassification adjustments.
• Data security: Automated reclassification only collects, interprets and processes the auditable and validated data within your general ledger based on pre-defined access rules and security controls. Additional reviews and approvals can be incorporated into your automated process to provide the required internal controls necessary to satisfy financial and information security policies.

Learn more about automating finance processes, including reclassifications, with this comprehensive guide.

Automate your reclassifications with Finance Automation by Redwood

Manually reclassifying line items in your financial statements is a laborious and error-prone process that is difficult to scale as transaction volumes increase. By automating reclassifications, you improve accuracy and compliance in an efficient and cost-effective manner, allowing your finance teams to focus on value-added activities at the most critical stage of the month-end close. 

With Finance Automation by Redwood, your organization can streamline financial close processes, eliminate repetitive tasks, reduce errors and ensure regulatory compliance on your journey to a fully automated touchless close as a key component of your automation fabric.

Sign up for a demo of Finance Automation by Redwood here.

In my relentless pursuit, I overlooked countless crucial trends in the financials. The insights were there, waiting to be found, but I was too deep in the proverbial weeds to see them.

If you’re an accountant, this story probably sounds familiar. Many of us take pride in our ability to control every aspect of financial reporting, not letting up until we’re sure no single decimal is misplaced. But what if that focus is holding us back?

It’s time to reconsider what control really means — and how automation technology can gift us with more control over our daily work, careers and contributions rather than less.

An inevitable evolution

Completely automated accounting isn’t a far-off fantasy; it’s already happening. As far back as 2018, McKinsey reported that a vast majority of accounting tasks could be fully automated. Fast-forward to today, and the technology has only advanced. Automation is more effective and accessible, so that majority has no doubt ballooned to include nearly all tasks.

Think about how many personal processes in our lives have evolved thanks to automation. We don’t manually balance checkbooks anymore — we use apps that categorize spending and flag budget anomalies instantly. We don’t print out maps before a road trip — we rely on GPS systems that continuously adapt to traffic conditions.

You’re probably not afraid of these advancements, and even quite enjoy the convenience they bring to your life. However, if you’re honest with yourself when it comes to your work, are you still clinging to manual processes?

Control over numbers ≠ control over your career

For lots of people, and especially accountants, allowing automation in can feel like surrendering control. There’s a deep-seated belief that if we’re not personally verifying every transaction, every formula, every reconciliation, something will go wrong. We equate control with effort: If we aren’t actively engage in the manual work, are we really doing our jobs?

The irony is that manual work doesn’t necessarily lead to accuracy or control. It often leads to fatigue, errors and missed opportunities for strategic contributions.

Objections: The counterintuitive norm 

Automation resistance isn’t just about workflow changes; it’s psychological. Let’s break down some common fears you might relate to.

1. “A machine can’t replace human judgment.” This is true, but it doesn’t mean we can’t make use of machines. Automation is great at handling rules-based, repetitive tasks, and paired with machine learning and AI, it’s getting even better at decision-making. Because of these strengths, it can be your sidekick, helping you bring out your own superpowers.
2. “I’ve built my career on my technical skills.” This is a valid concern. But automation doesn’t make your expertise obsolete. It actually makes it more valuable. Instead of spending time on mundane tasks, you can do the higher-level problem-solving that will bring you closer to the heart of business decisions and future plans.
3. “Automation feels too rigid — accounting requires nuance.” Yes, accounting involves interpretation, but most of what slows us down is process, not nuance. Automation takes care of the mechanics so you’re available for analysis.

Reframing control: What you gain

Let’s talk about real control. Right now, you could think control means painstakingly checking every cell and spending hours verifying reports. That’s not control, though. It’s busy work.

True control isn’t about obsessing over every number. It’s about having full confidence in your financials without needing to micromanage them. What if you could shift your focus to understanding trends before they become issues?

With automation, you evolve from a data-entry machine to a strategic thinker. Imagine having greater confidence in your reports, knowing there are few (or no) errors. That’s being in control because there’s no need to worry.

The real risk isn’t automation taking control away from you; it’s that if you don’t embrace automation, you’ll be stuck in manual work while others move forward.

READ NEXT: I was a CFO — and accounting’s tech problem is worse than you think

User education: You need to understand automation to trust it

Trust is a big factor in overcoming automation resistance. If you don’t understand how a system works, it’s natural to be skeptical about its potential. The same way you audit financials, your leadership team should “audit” automation tools, understanding how they process data and help you achieve accuracy and compliance.

Rolling out automation without proper user education often leads to low adoption rates and makes you feel like you’re losing control instead of gaining efficiency. But when teams understand the logic behind automation (how it works, why it works and where human oversight fits in), it becomes far easier to trust.

Here’s what you can do to ensure you’re not just adapting to automation but fully leveraging it.

• Ask how the technology works. Learn the logic behind the automation process. What data does it use? What rules does it follow? How will it support accuracy?
• Get involved in implementation. If automation is being introduced in your department, participate in testing, give feedback and understand how it integrates with existing processes.
• Educate your team. If you’re a leader, don’t just tell people to “trust the system” and instead advocate for thorough user training.
• Validate and verify. Automation isn’t about blind trust; it’s about confidence. Regularly review automated reports to confirm they’re correct and reassure yourself of their reliability.

Becoming the strategic accountant

Clinging to manual processes won’t make you more valuable. It’ll just keep you buried in tasks that technology can do better.

The best accountants aren’t the ones who can process the most transactions in a day. They’re those who can interpret numbers in a way that drives business success.

Think about the CFOs, controllers and accounting leaders you admire. Are they manually entering data and reconciling spreadsheets? Or are they influencing financial strategy, risk management and major decisions?

Automation gives you the space to think, analyze and add value. You’re probably a pro at identifying patterns, uncovering risk and providing strategic recommendations. But how often have you had the opportunity to do any or all of those?

This is the future of accounting: 

• More strategy → less data entry
• More insights → less grunt work
• More value → less burnout

The best place to start: Record-to-report automation

It’s clear automation isn’t a threat to accountants. But knowing that isn’t enough. The real challenge is figuring out where to start.

Not all accounting processes are equally suited for automation. Some still require significant human judgment, while other are ripe for automation. The record-to-report (R2R) process is the perfect candidate, as it’s notorious for inefficiencies, bottlenecks and manual interventions.

Automating R2R reduces errors in financial closing and reporting, improves data accuracy for compliance and audits and frees up time for more strategic financial planning. It’s a low-risk, high-reward automation investment that can serve as a gateway to broader automation initiatives, including the establishment of a true automation fabric — the technological framework toward which enterprises are moving. Learn more about the benefits of accounting automation.

Do you want to be a data-entry drone or the accountant who makes history by stepping out of spreadsheet land and shaping the future of your company? The choice is yours.

We’ll take a look at the challenges associated with manual accruals and provisions, the economic benefits of automation and how your business can use modern technology to transform financial management.

Common challenges in accruals and provisions

If your team is still relying on spreadsheets and manual calculations for accruals and provisions for items such as prepaid expenses, you could be exacerbating the impact of several detrimental factors:

• Human error: Manual journal entry and estimation introduce a significant risk, potentially leading to inaccurate financial statements that can erode investor confidence and regulatory trust. Even a small error in accrual calculations can result in material misstatements of your financial position, triggering compliance concerns, audit issues and the need for financial restatements.
  
  Manual processes are prone to inconsistencies and key differences across departments and can create discrepancies in financial reporting. These errors delay the financial close process and require more resources to investigate and correct, further straining your finance team’s workload and increasing operational costs.
• Time-consuming processes: Reconciling accruals and provisions is often cumbersome and requires extensive data gathering, validation and cross-referencing across multiple departments and systems. Your Finance team must manually track and verify transactions, extract data from multiple sources, post manual journal entries and align them with accounting standards and current liabilities in financial reporting, all of which significantly delay the financial close process. 
  
  You’ll likely extend closing cycles and risk last-minute adjustments and errors, making it difficult for your organization to operate with agility. Reliance on manual effort results in burnout and reduced efficiency.
• Compliance risks: Regulatory standards such as IFRS and GAAP impose strict requirements on future liability recognition, documentation and reporting, making compliance a critical challenge if your processes are manual. Keeping complete and accurate records across multiple entities and jurisdictions is complex and increases the risk of non-compliance and the associated costly penalties, audits and reputational damage. 
  
  Staying compliant with evolving regulatory frameworks and prudent financial management requires continuous monitoring and updates, which can be difficult to manage without an automated system.
• Lack of real-time insights: Traditional methods of managing accruals and provisions often rely on periodic reconciliations, which create a lag in financial reporting. It’s common to struggle to obtain up-to-date visibility into financial performance, which could result in cash flow mismanagement and delayed decision-making, which may cause impairment due to unrecognized past events or present obligations. 
  
  Without real-time insights, leadership can’t respond quickly to financial fluctuations or unexpected liabilities. This lack of timely data forces them to be reactive rather than proactive, increasing business risks and reducing strategic effectiveness.
• Scalability issues: As your business grows and expands across multiple geographies, the complexity of managing accruals and provisions increases exponentially. You must account for varying regulatory requirements, currency fluctuations, tax structures and local accounting standards, all of which make manual processes unsustainable. Having to manually adjust accruals for each entity increases the risk of errors and inconsistencies.
  
  Furthermore, it can hinder financial transparency, making it difficult to maintain a unified view of financial positioning across global operations. Administrative burden also scales with growth, so you need additional headcount and resources to manage financial reconciliations efficiently.

How automation transforms accruals and provisions

Manually managing accruals and provisions is both labor-intensive and time-consuming, and the potential for errors and omissions challenges the integrity and trustworthiness of your financial reporting. 

Automation eliminates manual effort and risks by consistently and accurately calculating and recording accruals and provisions. This ensures compliance with accounting standards while improving efficiency and reducing the likelihood of errors. 

Transforming accruals and provision processing means automating data collection, assessment and processing, so it’s easier to calculate the adjustments required. At the same time, posting journals to your ERP system’s general ledger with the necessary controls, approvals and audit trails ensures you meet compliance accounting standards and generate accurate income statements and trustworthy balance sheets.  

Automated data collection and processing

Automating accruals and provisions eliminates reliance on manual spreadsheets by integrating with financial systems to collect and process data in real time. This ensures accuracy and reduces the risk of errors while also allowing for seamless data reconciliation.

Integration with ERP systems

Automation tools seamlessly integrate with ERPs such as SAP, allowing you to calculate and record accruals and provisions as financial transactions within the general ledger in compliance with accounting standards and generally accepted accounting principles. This minimizes discrepancies and keeps your financial reports consistent across all business units within each reporting period and across fiscal years.

Predictive analytics for accrual forecasting

Advanced automation platforms use predictive analytics to assess historical data so you can forecast accruals more accurately and proactively manage your financial obligations. By using artificial intelligence and machine learning, you can anticipate trends and adjust your financial strategies accordingly.

Workflow automation and approval processes

Automation platforms provide structured workflows for managing accruals and provisions, ensuring that approvals are obtained efficiently and per company policies. This reduces bottlenecks and improves overall financial governance.

Governance and compliance in an automated system

Financial governance and compliance are critical aspects of managing accruals and provisions. Automation ensures that every transaction is logged and can be easily traced for audit purposes, providing transparency and accountability through comprehensive audit trails, which are created automatically.

In terms of regulatory compliance, automated workflows enforce accounting standards and internal policies, reducing the risk of non-compliance and penalties while consistent rule application prevents discrepancies in accrual calculations and provisioning. Thus, your reports remain accurate across all business units and geographies.

Role-based access controls ensure that only authorized personnel can adjust financial records or view specific financial data in accordance with their authority levels and responsibilities, maintaining compliance with company policies, regulatory requirements and data security standards.

Real-world use cases of accrual and provision automation

Here’s what successful automation of accruals and provisions looks like in various industries and use cases. 

• Financial services provider: Automating calculations and financial accounting postings for key future expense accruals such as salaries, bonuses, vacation and health insurance and other employee benefits enhances financial consistency, streamlines reporting and mitigates compliance risks. Read the story of how Allianz reduced manual effort by 70%.
• Manufacturing firm: By automating provisions for warranty liabilities and product recalls, manufacturing firms have been able to enhance forecasting accuracy and reduce unexpected financial impacts caused by underestimating current and future liabilities on the balance sheet, in accordance with IAS 37 provisions.
• Retail and e-commerce business: Automating accruals for accounts payable vendor payments and inventory-related expenses has enabled retailers to keep tighter control over cash flow and supplier relationships.

Learn more about automating accruals, provisions and reclassifications with this comprehensive guide.

Key considerations when implementing automation

Automation has the power to revolutionize financial processes in the short term, but successful implementation requires careful consideration and planning. Critical factors to address include:

Choosing the right solution

Selecting the right automation solution is essential for a smooth and effective transition. Businesses should prioritize solutions that offer seamless integration with existing systems, such as ERP platforms, to prevent disruption. The chosen solution must adapt and scale to meet growing organizational needs, and compliance features should be robust to help you adhere to regulatory requirements and industry standards.

Change management and employee training

Automation is not just a technological change; it also impacts workflows, roles and responsibilities. Employees must be well-prepared to adapt to these changes. Investing in comprehensive training programs to equip finance teams with the knowledge and skills needed to fully leverage automation tools is vital. Clear communication of benefits and ongoing support will reduce resistance and build confidence among your team.

Continuous monitoring and optimization

Regular reviews are crucial to ensure automated systems align with your organization’s evolving needs and regulatory requirements. Monitoring performance metrics will help you identify areas for improvement, whether it’s enhancing system functionality or refining workflows. Proactively updating and optimizing the system will maximize its long-term value and effectiveness.

Additional considerations

• Cost-benefit analysis: Evaluate the upfront investment against long-term savings to ensure the solution delivers the desired business benefits.
• Data security: Ensure the automation platform has robust security controls to protect sensitive financial information and help eliminate fraud.
• Vendor support: Choose a platform backed by a reliable vendor with comprehensive support for optimization, technical assistance and continuous improvement and updates.

By addressing these considerations, you can pave the way for a successful automation journey that drives efficiency, accuracy and compliance across your financial operations.

Transform your approach to accruals and provisions with Finance Automation by Redwood

Manual accrual and provision management are no longer sustainable. Automation offers a robust solution that enhances accuracy, compliance and efficiency. Using Finance Automation by Redwood, you can streamline financial operations, reduce risks and gain a competitive edge in financial reporting.

Now is the time to transition from outdated processes to an intelligent, automated approach to accrual accounting and provision management. Finance leaders who embrace automation will be well-positioned to build an automation fabric driving long-term success and operational excellence in their organizations.

See automated accruals and provision in action. Sign up for a demo of Finance Automation by Redwood here.

The modern-day C-suite demands faster close cycles, real-time data and airtight compliance. Regulators want transparency. Employees expect meaningful, high-value work. And there’s something that can offer all of these: automation.

Finance automation technologies fundamentally shift efficiency, accuracy and strategic decision-making. Those taking automation seriously instead of merely digitizing old processes are the ones pulling ahead.

Let’s take a look at how seven companies in various industries took key steps in building their automation fabrics using Finance Automation by Redwood and what you can take away from their experiences.

Allianz: Precision in policy and claims processing

Allianz, a global leader in insurance, faced a familiar industry challenge: complex policy management and slow claims processing. Manual processes were affecting their response time, frustrating customers and creating compliance risks.

By automating policy issuance, renewals and claims workflows, Allianz transformed its back-office efficiency. Claims processing times dropped, data accuracy improved and customer satisfaction soared.

Lessons learned

In insurance, speed and accuracy determine profitability. Slow claims processing is inefficient, of course, but more significantly, it erodes customer trust. Allianz’s success proves that automation is no longer a competitive advantage but a necessity. If you’re still relying on manual management of key financial processes, you’re inviting inefficiencies that could directly impact your customer retention.

Read the full story for more insights.

Arla: A smarter approach to financial closing

Arla Foods, an international dairy cooperative, struggled with fragmented financial processes that dragged out period-end closing. 

Automating 73% of its reconciliations cut the close process by four days. At the same time, the team enabled monthly reconciliation and settlement of energy taxes, which made their finances more predictable and significantly improved cash flow.

The Head of Finance Program Office noted Finance Automation’s user-friendliness and “solid SAP integration” as standout factors in their success.

Lessons learned

Finance teams fuel your business agility. If they’re forced to spend excess time on manual close processes, they’ll inadvertently get in the way of decision-making. It’s an unnecessary financial risk you’re taking at the end of every period. Arla’s transformation demonstrates how freeing it can be to apply the power of automation.

Read the full story and get inspired to review your team’s manual efforts.

Energy Transfer: Thousands of hours of untapped productivity

As a Fortune 500 energy company that engages in frequent M&A, Energy Transfer is understandably concerned about efficiency. Bank reconciliations and compliance processes had become overwhelming, and the company’s Accounting team was spending 80% of its time “wrestling with data” and just 20% analyzing and using that data.

Automation delivered an incredible 45,000-hour annual recovery by streamlining journal entries and reconciliations. Energy Transfer also improved capital project settlements and SAP user access provisioning for more secure and smooth operations.

Lessons learned

What could your finance team do with 45,000 reclaimed hours? With this transformation, Energy Transfer proved that automation is an enabler. Manual reconciliation is a waste of high-value talent.

Read the full story to see the additional soft savings the company attained.

Forvia: Strengthening controls

Forvia, a global automotive parts supplier, needed stronger financial controls, lower costs and greater efficiency. It had one Shared Services team handling record-to-report (R2R) and three other mission-critical business processes and needed to simplify its 20-step journal entry process to take some burden off this team.

By automating 80% of journal entries, Forvia eliminated silos across regions and countries and developed a straightforward audit trail.

Its Global Finance Transformation Director called Redwood Software’s solution “a robust, high-performance, secure, stable and scalable platform for end-to-end process automation.”

Lessons learned

In industries with razor-thin margins, finance leaders can be intimidated by the prospect of automation and the major changes it brings. But Forvia’s story underscores that automation in these instances can make processes truly bulletproof — in other words, it’s worth overcoming the worry rather than staying stagnant. 

Read the full story to learn why Forvia sees Finance Automation as its “ERP’s best friend.”

Genentech: Enabling lifesaving innovation

A leader in biotechnology, Genentech faced an uphill battle in managing research data and regulatory submissions. After experiencing frustrations with other popular tools, the team realized Redwood offered a more unified, end-to-end approach.

Genentech cut close times by 50%. Automation helped the company collect and analyze clinical trial data more efficiently. Plus, it streamlined regulatory approvals and improved collaboration across R&D teams, getting lifesaving treatments to market faster.

Lessons learned

For companies at the forefront of innovation, automation is a catalyst for accelerating R&D. Automating data-intensive tasks can help you focus (or refocus) on your company’s mission.

Read the full story to see why this investment also improved employee retention.

Jabil: Manufacturing efficiency via automated R2R

Jabil is a global manufacturing giant that faced the consequences of a lack of standardization and R2R process consistency. Across its nine global sites, the company spent 240,000 hours per year on the close process alone.

Jabil created a dedicated Finance Digital Transformation team to remedy this problem. With automation, they reduced reporting errors and improved real-time financial insights. Their finance function now operates at the speed of the business.

Lessons learned

Every manual touchpoint in financial processes is a potential error waiting to happen. Jabil’s move to automation highlights a critical reality: Finance teams should focus on analysis and not fixing preventable mistakes.

Read the full story and learn how to follow suit by automating your record-to-report processes.

Siemens: Scaling across global operations

Siemens Global Business Services (GBS), which operates in many industries, launched a massive internal digital transformation program called SHERPA X. Making financial processes more efficient and reducing the risk inherent in service provider dependencies was a priority.

The company implemented Finance Automation for journal entry management, close orchestration, fixed asset management and intercompany transactions. In 2024, they created an in-house Center of Excellence (CoE) and rolled out the account reconciliation module, which became part of their corporate standard. It reduced manual R2R tasks from 1,000 to just 30. With 70 entities approved and planning to go live in 2025, Siemens is building automation into the foundation of its finance strategy.

Lessons learned

Siemens’ approach highlights the fact that automation is never a one-off project. They’re demonstrating how to scale automation across complex, global finance operations while delivering massive efficiency gains. What does that say about your company’s ability to do the same?

Watch the webinar to hear the story straight from the CFO at Siemens.

Write your transformation story 

These companies didn’t just automate a few tasks. They rewrote how their finance functions operate. And they’re not alone. The shift to finance automation is happening across every industry, and if you wait, you’ll have to scramble to catch up.

What’s stopping you from joining them today? If it’s fear of change, disruption or making the wrong choice, know that doing nothing is the biggest risk of all.

Explore what could be possible if you’re willing: Read our free guide to achieving the touchless close.

That’s the world without accountants, and it’s what we’re barreling toward at this moment.

In my early days in accounting, we didn’t have automation to save us from stacks of paper files, hours of manual reconciliations and the dread of month-end close. But we did have people — skilled teams ready to tackle the workload together.

That workforce we once took for granted is disappearing. And all signs point to the fact that it’s not going to come back.

This isn’t a cyclical talent shortage that will self-correct in a few years. Fewer qualified professionals are entering the field at the same time that aging leaders are exiting en masse. That means you can’t hire your way out of this problem.

There simply aren’t enough candidates, and competition for top talent is fierce. Some are offering increasingly high salaries to attract scarce talent, but it’s a bidding war most companies can’t afford. Training new hires takes months if not years, and when they leave for a less stressful role, you’re back at square one. Meanwhile, those who stick around are overloaded, exhausted and preparing for their exits.

You’re probably already feeling the effects: More burnout and turnover, higher labor costs and longer close cycles.

The modern workload factor

Losing our skilled workforce would be bad enough, but we’re simultaneously facing multiplying demands. Not only is there more work per person, but the business environment accountants must adapt to is evolving faster than any of us can comprehend.

Expanding regulatory requirements

More jurisdictions, nearly infinite complexity. Global tax standards like OECD’s Pillar 2 are forcing companies to overhaul their accounting structures. SOX and PCAOB audits now demand greater transparency and more detailed documentation. And those are only a few examples.

Data: Empowering and limiting

Finance has gone real-time. Stakeholders want on-demand insights, not last quarter’s numbers. Subscription volumes, e-commerce and global operations have all contributed to higher and higher transaction volumes.

Digital transformation downsides

I’ve seen firsthand how well-intentioned digital transformations backfire when they aren’t executed with accounting in mind. Companies adopt new procurement systems and AI-driven expense-tracking tools and migrate to cloud-based invoicing without integrating them properly. Instead of simplifying workflows, they make it harder for accountants to chase down data. What should be an efficiency boost is instead an administrative burden. Because businesses are adopting new tools at such a wild pace, the problem is only getting worse.

Stuck in the mud of accounting education

I’ll be honest: Universities are preparing accounting graduates for a world that no longer exists. They learn how to do paper-based journal entries and tax prep exercises that have little relevance in today’s digital environment. They’re also often entering the workforce with zero experience in automation or AI — both must-haves. There’s such a wide gap between academic priorities and industry needs, and it’s a problem for both employers and job seekers.

This just fuels the perception that accounting is a boring, number-crunching job, and — let’s be real — there was a time when it was. Modern accounting, though, is data-driven, strategic and essential to business growth. It can be a fulfilling, lucrative career for smart, ambitious people. We’re failing them and our businesses by not addressing the educational rift.

Automation: A competitive advantage in the accounting talent war

If you can’t hire more accountants, you need to make the ones you have more efficient. Staying buried under transactional tasks such as manually processing invoices, categorizing expenses and keying in journal entries is not a scalable choice. Automating repetitive tasks is no longer optional if you want to stay competitive.

Without automation, something like accounts payable and receivable (AP/AR) can be unnecessarily complex and time-consuming. Invoices can pile up in inboxes, payments and approvals stall and you end up with cash flow disruptions and strained vendor relationships. Automating AP/AR can handle the processes from start to finish with minimal human intervention.

That, in itself, is an incredibly enticing outcome. But there’s an even greater one: Automating a few workflows creates a compounding efficiency effect. You set a precedent for hands-off data tracking, approval notifications and report formatting that enables you to build out more seamless handoffs between systems and teams. Those month-end close cycles that once took weeks can be reduced to days — or hours!

Companies that have embraced accounting automation are seeing measurable gains. Read the story of how biotechnology company Genentech reduced close times by over 50%.

AI and automation won’t take your job — but they will change it

The best technology is the kind that eliminates the work no one wants to do. Both automation and AI fit the bill. Technology-enabled accountants become business advisors, proactively identifying budget issues and revenue opportunities or helping your teams understand financial impacts.

A shift is already underway: Transactional work is decreasing, and accountants are becoming more integral to financial decision-making. The distinction between finance and accounting roles is blurring, and neglecting this trend by avoiding new technologies will leave your business under the proverbial rock.

To win the talent war, you have to join the fight! 

The future of accounting is digital, automated and strategic. Those who recognize this shift and invest in the modernization of both tech and people will lead the profession into its next stage of evolution. Those who resist? They’ll watch their few talented accountants leave for workplaces with better tools and fewer headaches. 

I’ve worked in this profession long enough to see that change is inevitable, but how we respond to it is up to us. Not jumping on the automation train is a risk that I, for one, am not willing to take on behalf of myself, my employer or my team.

Redwood Software is here to guide your foray into accounting automation — and your development of an automation fabric — with the powerful platform and 24/7 support you should have. Start exploring record-to-report automation.

The victim? Accuracy. The weapon? Our outdated systems. 

They’d struck again, leaving behind a trail of missing data, mismatched numbers and enough manual rework to make a team of accountants weep. As CFO, I’m supposed to be the financial wizard, not buried alive under a mountain of spreadsheets. I swear, I could hear the “Jeopardy!” theme song playing in my head.

Now, I’ve escaped that spreadsheet purgatory, thank goodness. But I hear the same horror stories from our customers every single day. It’s like a support group for survivors of bad accounting software. And it’s clear: Accounting technology is still holding the entire profession hostage. Forget reporting deadlines, regulatory pressures or even the ever-growing data monster. Our industry’s real nemesis? Limited, clunky, soul-crushing software. It’s the digital equivalent of using an abacus while everyone else has a supercomputer.

I wrestled with outdated accounting programs for years, and it’s appalling to me that this is still something accountants are facing in the era of automation and AI. Clunky systems eat away at efficiency and keep you siloed and stuck in mountains of manual work.

There’s a massive opportunity to break free from legacy software and embrace modern solutions that are built to scale with today’s complex businesses. 

How did we get here, and why are some accounting teams still resisting change?

Tools made for a simpler time

If you walk into any typical Accounting department, you’ll find a patchwork of solutions that looks something like this:

• An on-premises ERP with accounts payable/receivable or reporting modules
• Multiple invoice scanning and data capture tools
• One or more billing systems
• A travel and expense management platform
• A set of spreadsheets to fill gaps in each function
• Add-on applications for tasks like asset management or reconciliation

That list doesn’t even scratch the surface in terms of payroll, vendor management, collaboration tools and other key activities.

Along with the sheer volume of platforms, their inability to connect is just not working for the modern enterprise. Many businesses now operate across multiple jurisdictions with different compliance standards. They rely on real-time data to make decisions on spending, hiring and new ventures. Stakeholders demand faster, more precise reporting to guide strategic moves. The core software accounting teams are using was never meant to keep up with these demands. Most legacy accounting systems are disconnected, creating bottlenecks and confusion and requiring manual data preparation, rework and manual reconciliation.

Each delayed financial statement has a ripple effect on the Finance team’s ability to deliver strategic insights and forecasts.

Every manual data entry or copy-paste action is a potential source of errors.

Disconnected systems isolate information and force you to spend far too much time chasing down key data.

The good news: This doesn’t have to be the reality. Automation solutions can address many of these issues head-on, but cultural and technological resistance often stands in the way.

Areas of resistance: Why an upgrade seems difficult

The word “risk” has a special place in an accounting context. Accountants are keenly aware that a single oversight in a ledger can result in hefty penalties, compliance breaches or reputational damage. Risk aversion, while ultimately a smart instinct, creates a culture where introducing new tools or processes is seen as a disruption that could invite more errors, not fewer.

Leadership teams that prioritize budget may also be skeptical. An automation initiative seems like a costly project with an unclear ROI. And there’s often no one fighting them to move forward — most accountants believe spreadsheets are “good enough.”

The comfort of legacy methods and the perceived reliability of spreadsheets can overshadow the cumulative (often hidden) costs of manual work: slow turnaround times, error corrections, overtime pay and burnout, to name a few.

Even if everyone agrees in principle that modernization is necessary, there are still technical challenges. Legacy systems often lack the APIs necessary to integrate with new platforms. Limited extensibility can keep you from ever achieving real-time data sharing.

Then, there’s the misconception that modernization requires customization. While custom solutions can be powerful, they’re not your only option. Leading automation platforms and cloud-based accounting solutions can be implemented without the same level of cost and complexity.

Myths vs. reality: Upgrading your accounting software

I get it: Even if they’re just beliefs that need to change, these are big hurdles to jump when you’re already overloaded with day-to-day tasks. But overcoming them must be a priority, because a technological upgrade is now imperative for companies seeking sustainable growth and resilience.

An industry wake-up call: Automation as the future

The fact is, if you’re attempting a finance transformation without automation, you’re doing it wrong. 

Unfortunately, many CFOs are skipping steps in their modernization strategy. A 2024 Gartner report found that CFOs are prioritizing AI adoption over financial technology selection, strategy and deployment in 2025. The problem? AI isn’t a shortcut — it’s an enhancement. Without automation as a foundation, AI’s impact will be minimal and siloed at best.

This disconnect is creating a fragmented approach to modernization. While some leaders chase AI capabilities, 49% of accounting firms still have no plans to use generative AI at all. Meanwhile, automation adoption remains inconsistent, even though 55% of finance executives aimed for a touchless financial close by 2025.

What I find in engaging with finance leaders who come to Redwood Software for guidance and solutions is that many of them have the best intentions but are struggling to execute on these goals. Setting your sights on automation with a capable and fully adopted platform is the right answer.

What modern finance automation enables

Modern finance automation integrates critical accounting functions like closing the books, processing invoices, reconciling bank statements and generating real-time financial reports into one seamless system.

The core benefits are clear:

• Consistency and accuracy as a result of standardizing repetitive tasks and removing the risk of human errors
• Speed achieved by faster data flows, approvals, reconciliations and more
• Scalability derived from processing large volumes of transactions without additional staff or hours
• Strategic insights that come about when accountants are free from manual drudgery

Energy Transfer’s experience using Finance Automation by Redwood is a great example: By applying the power of automation, the Fortune 500 energy company reduced the amount of time spent on bank reconciliations by 88% and streamlined capital project settlements and SAP user access provisioning.

Don’t miss out on the automation and AI movement

Even if you see the need for a tech upgrade, it’s possible you’re feeling overwhelmed by all of this. The first step doesn’t need to be a complete overhaul of your accounting and finance infrastructure. In fact, that wouldn’t be a wise endeavor.

Start small, perhaps with the tasks that contribute to a high-impact process such as record-to-report. Proving ROI on a focused project can help you gain buy-in and dispel the myth that new software is too disruptive or expensive. 

Ineffective, outdated accounting software is a liability. It’s time to automate, adapt and thrive, or get left in the dust. Redwood is here to help build an organization-wide automation fabric: Read more about how to achieve fully automated accounting.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in the public or private sector, in a large or small organization; you likely anticipate months of headaches when the new year rolls around. And the accounting software available today doesn’t offer much of a remedy.

As a former accountant and CFO, I know firsthand how frustrating manual processes can be. No matter how much you want to be efficient, you simply can’t be when you’re using antiquated, slow tools.

Luckily, these days, you have a choice: You can modernize your accounting processes with automation to improve the accuracy and speed of the critical reporting your tax team needs. Let’s talk about why the time to consider a transformation is now.

1. The industry is struggling with a shortage of skilled professionals

The accounting profession is at a crossroads, with 42% of firms unable to take on new clients due to staffing limitations. Teams are stretched thin, and during tax season, there’s no room for error. 

Automated systems can lighten the load. They take over time-consuming, repetitive tasks and alleviate the pressure of relentless manual data entry, reconciliations and report generation that characterize the dreaded tax period. You can free up time to offer other services, like strategic financial planning and client advising, even during this historically busy season. 

The team at Jabil, a global manufacturing services company, saves 95,000–120,000 hours per year by automating their month-end close process using Finance Automation by Redwood. These savings trickle down to the tax team, making the entire organization more efficient and innovative.

Imagine how much more revenue — and impact — you could generate during this time when your competitors are knee-deep in paperwork that your team no longer has to worry about. 

2. Rework drives up costs — especially when it involves tax filing

In manual accounting workflows, one error — e.g., on a financial statement — can create a ripple effect that causes incorrect tax filing. Submitting tax returns already consumes massive resources, and having to rework them is beyond costly. 

Your team will spend extra time identifying and correcting errors. You could incur fines or penalties for late or inaccurate tax filings. Worst case? Errors could trigger audits. In 2024, the IRS announced plans to triple its audit rate for large corporations, expecting to audit 22.6% by 2026.

Accurate, consistent data will protect you in the event of an audit, but as much as we’d love to believe people can provide that, they can’t. To err is human, after all. While we can forgive each other on a personal level for making mistakes, the reality in accounting is that small mistakes can snowball into expensive and stressful problems.

Rather than putting pressure on your employees to achieve a standard of perfection that only machines can reach, why not allow the machines to step in and help?

3. Manual processes limit scalability

During tax season, you might have to hire temporary staff or pay significant overtime to meet deadlines. These stopgaps don’t address the root issue: an inability to scale to fluctuating demand.

Lack of scalability can be compounded by the fact that accountants take 49.8% more sick days in March than in any other month of the year. You may hire seasonal employees only to have the long hours get the best of them.

Automated accounting systems can effortlessly process high volumes of transactions, even during peak periods. You no longer need to rely on seasonal workers who are vulnerable to mental and physical burnout. Built-in scalability saves money and gives your permanent staff the time and freedom to think about ways to improve your services and offer even more value to clients.

With automation, you’ll also get visibility into your financial operations at scale. The right finance automation tool will allow you to step back and see how you’re using resources. This impacts hiring and other major decisions year-round.

More risks you don’t need to take

While the above are core considerations, there’s a good chance you also struggle with a few other frustrations around tax time:

• Delayed financial reporting: When your tax team has had to wait for Accounting to close the books or correct errors, they’re more likely to rush and end up making mistakes.
• Siloed teams: If tax and accounting departments use disconnected systems, there’s a huge risk of duplicating efforts or not communicating about critical components of tax preparation.
• Unknown tax liability: Especially if you operate across multiple jurisdictions, tracking liability is a monumental task that’s complicated by not having a centralized system.

Your automation platform should speed up reporting, integrate accounting and tax processes and drive seamless data flow so you don’t have to worry about compounding problems during an already tense time.

Automate now to ease next year’s tax burden

Tax planning shouldn’t feel like a last-minute sprint, but it will if you continue relying on antiquated software solutions. Starting the process of automating today will gift everyone on your team a major sense of relief come tax time next year.

Thinking like a leader means seeing this as an opportunity rather than just another challenge. Automation can be a strategy for long-term success. Slogging through inefficiencies for another year and dreading those months leading up to a tax deadline is not a strategy at all — it’s barely surviving.

The earlier you start automating your accounting, the sooner your tax team will notice the benefits. And I suspect you’ll see them in every corner of your financial operation, too.

Set up efficient accounting processes to ready your business for everything tax season brings and save your team from burnout. Leave the spreadsheets and accounting tools behind — take the first step in developing your automation fabric by choosing record-to-report automation.

1. Data collection and recording

The foundation of the R2R process lies in the meticulous compiling and recording of financial transactions by the finance & accounting teams. This involves capturing data from various sources such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll and other financial activities. Each transaction is recorded in the general ledger, forming the basis of financial statements.

Accurate financial records are crucial for maintaining transparency and ensuring that all financial activities are tracked. Effective use of ERP systems can further streamline the data collection process, allowing for seamless integration of financial data across various departments.

2. Journal entries and validation

Once data is collected, it must be accurately recorded through journal entries. This step ensures that all financial transactions are correctly categorized and validated against supporting documents. The validation process is critical to prevent discrepancies and mitigate the risk of errors, ensuring the integrity of financial data.

Validation also involves checking intercompany transactions to ensure that internal trades and transfers are accurately recorded and balanced. This step is essential for maintaining the accuracy of consolidated financial statements.

3. Reconciliation

Reconciliation is a crucial step where recorded transactions are matched against external records, such as bank statements and vendor invoices, to ensure accuracy. This process helps identify and rectify any discrepancies, providing a clear and accurate financial picture.

Account reconciliation is a fundamental part of this step, ensuring that all accounts are balanced and that any variances are investigated and resolved promptly. Effective reconciliation practices contribute to smoother financial closing cycles and more reliable financial reporting.

4. Consolidation of financial data

The consolidation phase involves aggregating data from sub-ledgers and various sources into a central repository. This step is vital for creating a unified view of the organization’s financial health, facilitating the preparation of comprehensive financial statements such as balance sheets, income statements and cash flow statements.

During consolidation, it’s important to compile all relevant financial records and ensure that intercompany transactions are correctly accounted for. This comprehensive approach ensures that the consolidated financial statements reflect the true financial position of the organization.

5. Financial reporting and analysis

After consolidation, the data is used to generate detailed financial reports. These reports are essential for internal stakeholders, such as management and the accounting team, as well as external stakeholders like auditors and regulatory bodies. Financial analysis during this phase helps in assessing the organization’s performance, profitability and financial health.

6. Close process

The close process marks the culmination of the R2R cycle. This involves finalizing the books for an accounting period, ensuring all transactions are accounted for and adjustments are made as necessary. Efficient closing is critical for timely financial reporting and maintaining compliance with accounting standards such as GAAP.

A streamlined closing cycle, facilitated by robust accounting processes and ERP systems, helps in meeting regulatory compliance and ensuring that financial statements are prepared promptly and accurately.

7. Strategic decision-making

The ultimate goal of the R2R process is to provide valuable insights that drive strategic decision-making. Accurate financial reports enable organizations to make informed decisions, plan strategically, manage risks and optimize financial performance. This data-driven approach enhances overall business agility and competitiveness.

The role of automation in R2R

Incorporating automation into the R2R process can significantly enhance efficiency and accuracy. Automation tools streamline data entry and workflows, reduce human error and the over-reliance on tools like Excel and enable real-time financial reporting. By automating repetitive tasks, finance and accounting teams can focus on higher-value activities such as financial analysis and strategic planning.

Automation also supports the integration of data across various systems and platforms, enhancing the efficiency of data collection, validation and reconciliation processes.

Conclusion

The record-to-report process is a critical component of financial management, ensuring accurate and timely financial reporting. By understanding and optimizing each step, from data collection to strategic decision-making, organizations can enhance their financial operations, comply with regulatory requirements and drive business success.

To see how Redwood’s finance automation solutions can streamline your R2R process and improve financial reporting accuracy, sign up for a demo today!