Corporate leaders are always looking for ways to make processes more efficient across every aspect of their business. This holds especially true amid an uncertain economic climate. Shared services managers are especially interested in efficiency improvement and process discovery: centralization and removing workflow silos is key.
As you take a look at your finance operations, areas where efficiency can be improved may be difficult to pinpoint. For example, new innovations are continuously introduced to the finance industry. It’s oftentimes a delicate balance of finding where to introduce these new innovations while considering how everyone within the organization is affected.
Data analytics and process efficiency
More efficient data analysis can be achieved in several ways, but the main point is that you want to streamline your current process, targeting inefficiencies. So, let’s look at a hypothetical. Your organization has a lot of financial expense data that comes in through several different sources, including accounts payable and invoices, corporate cards (P-cards, etc), out-of-pocket expenses and the reimbursements that come with them, travel expenses, ghost cards and ghost accounts, and much more.
Somebody needs to collect all this data, and make sure that the data isn’t siloed between departments (e.g., between Accounts Payable for invoices and procurement for corporate card transactions, for example). If that isn’t being done currently, that’s a source of inefficiencies that can be targeted. Duplicate payments are one of the most common instances of wasteful spending that plagues organizations: according to the American Productivity and Quality Center, duplicate payments make up an average of 1.5% of an organization’s annual spend.
Once that data is collected, it needs to be cleaned, analyzed, and shared with stakeholders and decision-makers in a way that is easy to understand. That’s a lot to ask of corporate finance departments, as going through individual transactions one-by-one is not really what they are paid to be doing on a daily basis. There are certainly more efficient ways to go about that process.
Process efficiency implementation
Many organizations are seriously considering introducing automation and AI into their financial operations for process efficiency. According to a 2024 report by Amazon Business, 98% of respondents said that they were “planning investments in analytics and insights tools, automation, and AI for their procurement operations in the next few years”. 80% said within two years, and 45% said within one year. Additionally, almost half of respondents stated that they were already using AI-driven optimization of purchasing decisions (47%).
We do recommend being cautious. Overzealous adoption of so-called innovations can lead to issues, such as relying on OCR (optical character recognition) technology that can be easily tricked by poor-quality scans, unusual fonts, or a conspicuously placed finger covering pertinent information on a receipt.
Process efficiency often leads to a centralized data source
Consider implementing a centralized data source for your finance team to effectively remove inefficiencies such as duplicate payments and fraud risk. By consolidating data into a single, unified system, you can eliminate siloed workflows that often lead to inconsistencies and errors. A centralized data source acts as a remedy for these silos, ensuring that all team members have access to accurate and up-to-date information. But… who’s going to centralize it?
Card Integrity is the centralized solution
Card Integrity offers comprehensive solutions for managing corporate expenses through both our Expense Monitoring, Invoice Review, and Receipt Validation services. Our Expense Monitoring service provides thorough, monthly reviews of 100% of your expense data, identifying non-compliant spend, off-contract spending, and other high-risk behaviors. The data is cleansed, organized, and presented in an easy-to-understand, visual manner by our dedicated forensic experts. This service ensures that your finance and procurement teams have actionable insights to maintain compliance and optimize spending.
Through Card Integrity, you have a centralized data source for your organization’s financial transactions. And what’s more, there are real people behind it. We act as an extension of your team, and while we make use of automation, with Card Integrity, automation is just a tool. We don’t sell you an app or make your IT team integrate software. We’re real people, and we help Fortune 100 companies with global spend protect their expenses and make their financial processes more efficient.
Additionally, our Invoice Review service identifies and reports duplicate payments across accounts payable invoices and commercial card transactions, safeguarding your organization against duplicate payments. No more siloed workflows! And with Receipt Validation, you can rest easy knowing all of your organization’s receipt submissions are reviewed and validated by a forensic expert.
Card Integrity’s services manage both travel and procurement expenses, ensuring that all transactions are monitored and compliant with company policies. By leveraging our advanced tools and dedicated forensic analysts, we help streamline your expense management processes.
Learn more about Card Integrity at Shared Services & Outsourcing Week!
Card Integrity is thrilled to attend Shared Services & Outsourcing Week, SSON’s premiere shared services event from March 24-27, 2025. If you have any questions for us or wish to meet us at the show, get in contact with us through the form below!
Learn how Card Integrity can fortify your finance operations
Card Integrity is THE process efficiency to introduce to your company’s finance operations. Check out our free Expense Monitoring Blueprint below for more information. It’s a great starting point if you’re looking to get started on improving your expense monitoring program.
