Streamlining and Automating Finance and Accounting Processes with Trintech

⇨ Companies need to search for options that fit their needs based on organizational size and deployment strategy, whether that is on-premise or in the cloud.

⇨ AI and automation capabilities should not just be “sprinkled” into existing business processes. Companies should seek to apply a holistic approach to infusing these capabilities into financial operations.

⇨ Rather than migrating outdated processes, companies can evaluate their workflows and migrate only those that can operate efficiently, while finding improvements to outdated processes.

Enhancing the accuracy, control, and transparency of account reconciliation and financial close processes are a critical priority for organizations. They are keen on finding solutions that enable their finance and accounting teams to execute critical processes quickly, reduce errors, enhance planning capabilities, and work on tasks that add value to the business. Most companies are turning to AI and automation to achieve such objectives. However, not every process within the finance and accounting organization is an ideal match for these capabilities. Moreover, even for those tasks and processes that could benefit from AI and automation, identifying the appropriate application on a case-by-case basis is crucial.

Ensuring the Integrity of Your Financial Close Process with Trintech

Aligning these needs with the right capabilities is often difficult, and many organizations struggle to identify the right solution to meet their business needs. To address such issues, Trintech offers tailored solutions for both mid-sized companies and large enterprises across every industry looking to transform their finance and accounting operations and run them more efficiently and accurately. The company empowers 4,200+ organizations with AI and automation to simplify and streamline their reconciliation and financial close processes through their portfolio of financial close solutions such as:

Adra by Trintech: Built for mid-sized organizations, Adra by Trintech is a cloud-based, reconciliation and financial close solution that automates key areas of the financial close process including account reconciliations (Adra Balancer), transaction matching and journal entries (Adra Matcher), financial task workflows and controls (Adra Task Manager), and reporting (Adra Analytics).  Adra seamlessly integrates with many financial systems and ERPs, allowing companies to increase efficiencies, improve accuracy, reduce risk, and close faster with more confidence.

Cadency by Trintech: Built for large enterprises, Cadency by Trintech is the leading end-to-end platform for Record to Report processes including transaction matching (Cadency Match), account reconciliation (Cadency Certification), journal entry (Cadency Journal Entry) and close task management (Cadency Close). The solution integrates with and is certified by leading ERPs and can also import data through Trintech’s Universal Connectors from virtually any data source. Cadency enhances visibility for global leadership, ensures policy adherence, manages risk, and enables a controlled transformation of accounting operations while minimizing change management risks. Cadency is hosted on Dell’s private cloud, designed to deliver superior security compared to public cloud applications. This infrastructure empowers Trintech to provide customers with unparalleled control over applications, databases, and integrations, ensuring a level of control equivalent to an on-premise installation.

“We strive to provide customers with whatever they need wherever they need it. Our solutions cater to a broad spectrum of requirements from high-end complex processes to the not so complex. For many organizations, their business model requires streamlining. Therefore, they will drive towards a solution that makes operational sense for them. If we look at a customer that’s on-premises, we will articulate the benefit of moving the private cloud – better security, performance, etc. as opposed to an on-premises installation, where you can’t expand the footprint easily,” said Sunil Padiyar, Chief Technology Officer at Trintech.

Making Migration Manageable

Though AI and automation capabilities are increasingly popular within the finance and accounting functions at SAP organizations, many companies are reluctant to implement these technologies during the transition to SAP S/4HANA.

According to recent SAPinsider research, 53% of SAP companies said that the complexity of business and operational change was the most significant barrier stopping them from implementing AI and automation technologies within finance and accounting processes, a higher share than any other factor.

Digital transformation can be daunting for companies, and they are often reluctant to take on additional projects in the midst of such a move. However, though it may seem counterintuitive, a digital migration serves as an ideal time to evaluate and overhaul business practices that could use improvement or a refresh.

“As people are moving to SAP S/4HANA, we see that as an opportunity to migrate alongside them because many of the companies that are migrating still have a complex financial ecosystem. They still have ABAP code they wrote in applications, and we want to make sure that they migrate seamlessly. We have engaged in several of these migrations and we are partnering with companies to make it happen because we want the migration to be smooth and successful,” said Padiyar.

Throughout the SAP finance ecosystem, companies are introducing AI into use cases where it makes sense, infusing AI to smart match transactions and risk grade for journal entries. Yet, it is important to ensure that an organization is taking a holistic approach when attempting to include AI within its SAP ecosystem.

Despite the importance of AI, it is just one piece of a larger puzzle of transforming a larger SAP ecosystem to be data-driven. Companies need to implement these advanced capabilities, operationalize them, and then perform data analysis on the back-end to optimize efficiency.

Trintech’s integrative approach encompasses configuration, operation, data analysis using AI Machine Learning, and Robotic Process Automation throughout an entire workflow. This takes significant experience not just in developing technologies but having a deep understanding over the overall SAP landscape. “We have deep experience with SAP because we have been doing this for several decades. We have built connectors and automation scripts inside SAP, outside SAP, and in tasks that lead into SAP. Understanding the system and understanding the linkages between the financial close and the ERP system gives us the ability to look at things like AI, ML, and RPA in a way that makes holistic sense,” said Padiyar.

Leading Organizations Partner with Trintech

Trintech has a proven track record of partnering with some of the world’s largest enterprises on their financial transformation journeys. It has helped companies with extremely complex environments including some with over 100 ERP instances and hundreds of different data sources.

Padiyar highlighted a recent example of how Trintech helped deliver continued value to one of the world’s biggest names in pharmaceuticals. Already using SAP and Trintech to automate their complex, multi-billion-dollar transaction matching process, this pharmaceutical giant was struggling to manage 45,000 journal entries annually by 500 different finance professionals across the organization. Trintech built a new solution for this customer by putting a native application on top of their ServiceNow investment called CadencyDirect. As the only financial close automation app for digital workflows, CadencyDirect connects Finance and Accounting to the wider organization through the ServiceNow Platform. This means areas of the business that are related but not directly part of the financial close process can easily be accessed through triggers and workflows, creating a more secure and holistic approach to the financial close process.

“We are the only financial close solution provider integrated with ServiceNow and we realized we can now bridge the Office of the CFO with all the other departments in the company. That is what excites me — Because the Office of the CFO has traditionally been seen as a silo, but ServiceNow is expanding our reach to new possibilities,” said Padiyar.

What This Means for SAPinsiders

Find solutions that fit your business needs. There are seemingly limitless solutions throughout the SAP landscape. Companies need to search for options that fit their needs based on organizational size and deployment strategy, whether that is on-premise or in the cloud.

Approach AI and automation holistically. AI and automation capabilities should not just be “sprinkled” into existing business processes. Companies should seek to apply a holistic approach to infusing these capabilities into financial operations.

Migration is an opportunity for process improvement. Though many organizations are intimidated by the move to SAP S/4HANA, they should embrace it as a chance to improve processes. Rather than migrating outdated processes, companies can evaluate their workflows and migrate only those that can operate efficiently, while finding improvements to outdated processes.