How AI can help finance teams

When it comes to analyzing and forecasting financial performance, businesses rely heavily on financial planning and analysis (FP&A) teams. However, with the overwhelming amount of data available today, these teams often struggle to keep up. This is where artificial intelligence (AI) comes into play. In this article, we will explore how AI can help finance teams and will impact FP&A.

Importance of FP&A will only increase with AI

FP&A, or Financial Planning and Analysis, is a crucial function that enables businesses to make informed decisions based on financial data. The primary objective of FP&A is to provide accurate financial forecasts, budgets, and analysis to help management make informed decisions that drive growth and profitability.

FP&A teams play a critical role in the success of any business. They are responsible for analyzing financial statements, identifying trends, and making recommendations to management on how to improve financial performance. The accuracy of these forecasts can make or break a business, which is why FP&A is such a critical function. With AI, this accuracy and the speed of forecasts will increase.

With the amount of data available today, it’s more important than ever for FP&A teams to have the right tools and technologies at their disposal to make sense of all this data. Indeed, a recent Gartner Survey found that CFOs and finance teams are very willing to increase their spending on such tools in the next years.

More data available to FP&A teams than ever before

The rise of big data has led to an explosion of data available to FP&A teams. This data comes from various sources, including transactional data, price data, Marketing, CRMs, social media, and customer feedback. While this data can be valuable, it can also be overwhelming. This is where AI comes in.

With AI, FP&A teams can quickly sift through massive amounts of data to identify trends and patterns that would be impossible for a human to spot. This leads to more accurate forecasts and better-informed decisions. Furthermore, AI can also help FP&A teams to identify potential risks and opportunities that may have otherwise gone unnoticed. For example, AI algorithms can analyze customer feedback to identify potential issues with a product or service, allowing the FP&A team to proactively address these issues before they become major problems. Another benefit of AI is that it can help FP&A teams to automate many of their routine tasks, such as data entry and report generation. This frees up time for the team to focus on more strategic activities, such as analyzing data and making recommendations to senior management.

However, it is important to note that AI is not a silver bullet. While it can certainly help FP&A teams to be more efficient and effective, it is not a substitute for human expertise. FP&A teams still need to have a deep understanding of their business and industry in order to make informed decisions. Nonetheless, a lot of the technical skills in analysis and modelling, which typically were the key characteristics of a good FP&A analyst, will soon be fully replaced by AI.

Working with data made easy through generative AI

AI can help finance teams to make sense of the data in a way that human analysts find time-consuming. This is where generative AI in particular hasa big role to play. Generative AI is a subset of artificial intelligence that uses machine learning algorithms to generate new data that is similar to the training data. This technology can help automate tasks such as data cleansing, report generation, and even creating accurate forecasts. With generative AI, FP&A professionals can easily predict future trends and make informed decisions to drive business growth.

One of the biggest advantages of using generative AI is that it can handle large amounts of data with ease and quickly autogenerating insights or even entire reports out of it. It can quickly analyze and process vast amounts of data, providing insights that would take humans several hours or even days to uncover.

Generative AI can also help finance teams to identify patterns and trends that might be missed by human analysts. This is because the algorithms can analyze data from multiple sources and identify correlations that might not be immediately apparent. All this can be done through a simple chat interface, making these data insights accesible not only to well-trained FP&A analysts, but also to management and the C-Suite.

Overall, generative AI is an incredibly powerful tool for finance professionals. Of course, determining exactly how AI can tell finance teams ot the smallest level of detail is hard to say, but especially when it comes ot quickly gaining insights out of vast amounts of data, creating reports or scenarios, it is fair to say that AI will be a true gamechange.

Continuous monitoring of data through AI

One of the most significant benefits of AI is its ability to continuously monitor data. For example, AI-powered algorithms can detect anomalies in financial data in real-time, identifying potential issues before they become significant problems. This proactive approach can save businesses time and money and help them stay ahead of the competition.

For example, an AI could be monitoring your marketing data and immediataly alarm the finance team, when there is an unusual downward trend which will have an impact on the financial results later in the funnel. The same would be true for developments in the sales pipeline, or price changes of certain raw materials. The challenge here is to have access to this data in real time, which for some data sources is possible already today, but for others it is more difficult.

AI-Driven Financial Planning: A Revolution in the Making?

Arguably the biggest impact of AI will be in planning. The use of AI in FP&A in fnancial planning is not just an incremental improvement – it represents a fundamental shift in the way businesses approach financial planning. With AI at their disposal, businesses can make more accurate and informed decisions based on data-driven insights. This can lead to competitive advantages and increased profits.

Traditional financial planning methods often rely on manual data entry and analysis, which can be time-consuming and prone to errors. With AI, businesses can automate these processes and analyze vast amounts of data in real-time, allowing for more agile decision-making.
Another advantage of AI-driven financial planning is the ability to identify patterns and trends in data that may not be immediately apparent to human analysts. AI algorithms can analyze data from multiple sources and identify correlations and patterns that may not be visible to the human eye. Rather than tedius bottom-up planning, where analysts and managers manually identify the most important drivers and dependencies, this will be done automatically by the AI, in a fully data-driven way. This can lead to more accurate forecasting and better decision-making.

AI-driven financial planning also has the potential to improve risk management. By analyzing historical data and identifying potential risks, businesses can take proactive measures to mitigate those risks before they become a problem. This can help prevent financial losses and protect the business from reputational damage.

Finally, AI-driven financial planning can help businesses stay ahead of the competition. By analyzing market trends and consumer behavior, businesses can identify opportunities for growth and innovation. This can lead to the development of new products and services, as well as more effective marketing strategies.

In conclusion, AI-driven financial planning represents a major shift in the way businesses approach financial planning. By leveraging the power of AI, businesses can make more informed decisions, improve risk management, and stay ahead of the competition. As AI technology continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how it continues to transform the world of finance.

Clean data and appropriate tooling is necessary

While AI has vast potential, it’s important to remember that it’s only as good as the data it’s working with. To get the most out of AI, businesses need to ensure their data is clean and well-organized. This means that data should be free from errors, inconsistencies, and duplicates. It should also be properly labeled and categorized for easy analysis. Clean data is essential for accurate predictions and insights.
Having clean data is not enough, businesses also need the appropriate tools and technologies to extract maximum value from the data. There are many AI tools and technologies available in the market, but not all are created equal. Businesses need to carefully evaluate and choose the tools that are best suited for their specific needs. These tools should be easy to use, scalable, and provide real-time insights. Pectus Finance is one such tool which uses AI to automate repetitive tasks and increase forecast accuracy.

In conclusion, the use of AI in FP&A represents a major opportunity for businesses to improve their financial planning and gain a competitive edge. However, to unlock these benefits, businesses must ensure they have clean data and the right tools and technologies in place. They must also be willing to invest in training their employees to effectively use these tools and technologies. With the right approach, AI can revolutionize FP&A and help businesses achieve their financial goals.