Survey: 76% of CFOs Say Finance Teams Still Spend Time and Energy on Manual Tasks

FOREST CITY, Calif. — Tipalti, the world's leading accounts payable automation platform, announced on August 3, 2023, the release of a new report exploring CFO priorities, business expectations, and technology investment strategies during uncertain times.

The report, titledCFOs Heighten Focus on Achieving Efficiencies, is based on a survey of 153 financial executives from various industries conducted by CFO Dive. In addition to revealing the challenges these executives face and their views on organizational growth prospects for 2023, the report also explores how adopting automation can help CFOs adapt to current and future organizational realities.

Tipalti's research shows that 76% of financial executives agree that manual tasks still consume too much time and effort from finance teams. The same proportion (76%) of financial executives also agree that in 2023, CFOs and finance functions are expected to do more with fewer resources or budgets compared to 2022.

CFOs are addressing these challenges through technology. In terms of technology investment strategies, more than two-fifths (44%) of financial executives say they are focusing more on achieving new efficiencies. Additionally, nearly 70% of respondents are undertaking or using digital technology investments to advance finance automation.

Although finance automation may mean different things to different CFOs, in several key areas, financial executives consistently agree that applying digital technology is very important:

• Expense management (67%)
• Tax compliance (66%)
• Automated payments (62%)
• Corporate credit card spend management (61%)
• Purchase order management (58%)

"By automating areas such as expenses and payments, CFOs can reduce the burden on their teams from manual tasks while minimizing error rates—ultimately reducing the time and effort CFOs themselves spend on manual intervention and oversight," said Paul Henderson, Chief Accounting Officer at Tipalti. "CFOs can reallocate that time and effort to more strategic focuses, such as analyzing data and insights and applying them to decisions that drive business value."

Tipalti's research shows that the more CFOs focus on driving business value, the more their organizations benefit. Those financial executives who report that their organizations will exceed expectations in 2023 are more likely to view the CFO role as a business value creator (58%) rather than a finance and accounting manager (42%).

"CFOs are already busy managing priorities such as cash flow and cost reduction, but they are also expected to make decisions and deploy strategies to create value and drive growth for the organization's future," said Sarah Spoja, Chief Financial Officer at Tipalti. "We believe the insights in this report will help more CFOs recognize how finance automation can help them prepare for and adapt to the future."

Read the full report:CFOs Heighten Focus on Achieving Efficiencies

About Tipalti

Tipalti comes from Hebrew, meaning "we handled it." Tipalti is the only company that handles both global partner payments and accounts payable workflows simultaneously, serving high-growth enterprises across the entire finance operations cycle: including managing global suppliers, establishing purchasing controls, streamlining invoice processing and approval, executing global payments, and reconciling accounts payable data across multi-subsidiary finance organizations. Tipalti makes accounts payable strategic through operational, compliance, and financial controls, helping companies scale quickly. Companies can efficiently and securely pay thousands of partners and suppliers in 196 countries within minutes. Thousands of companies, including Amazon Twitch, GoDaddy, Roku, WordPress.com, and ZipRecruiter, use Tipalti to reduce operational workload by 80% and accelerate financial close by 25%, while strengthening financial and spending controls. For more information, visittipalti.com。