In This Issue

• Opener: Finance’s AI Revolution: How to Get AI Ready
• What’s in Your Tech Stack? With Sara Smith, CFO, ALPS Corporation
• Product & Company News: OpenEnvoy, HighRadius, AuditBoard and More
• People News: Versapay, Cube Software, UiPath and More
• FATEdex: Our Exclusive Public Company Tracker
• Upcoming Events/Subscribe & Share

Editor’s Note—Tech is hard. We get it. To help, StrategicCFO360 and The CFO Leadership Council are launching a new effort—starting with this free newsletter—to help finance pros make more confident technology choices and help software providers understand and more successfully serve their needs.

On October 28-30 we’ll also hold our inaugural Finance and Accounting Tech Expo at the Javits Convention Center in New York City. Join us!

We could use your help, too: If you have feedback, ideas, product or people or company news to share with the community, you can email me at vince@cfolc.com — Vince Ryan, editor

 
Finance’s AI Revolution: How to Get Ready

Glenn Hopper, CFO at Eventus Advisory Group, is a longtime CFO and author of Deep Finance, Corporate Information in the Information Age. He is also a regular contributor to our company’s publications. Hopper has spent decades helping companies large and small wrangle with the promise and peril of technology. We asked him for thoughts on navigating the avalanche of software offerings out there, and how to prepare for the AI world that’s almost here—but just not quite. His top tip? “Go back to start with the problem in mind, not what you think will solve it.” Some takeaways from our conversation:

Preparing right for AI. “It's early in terms of viable, scalable, trusted systems that are available today. However, the development of this generative AI is moving so quickly that there's some groundwork you must lay before you can use it. So, by knowing what these processes are and identifying them—think about it—that becomes what you train generative AI on instead of the cumbersome process of setting up RPA. Every day I'm seeing proof of concept for how this would work. We have to address things like hallucination and LLMs’ inability to do math, and that's being addressed. But very quickly we're seeing solutions for this. So even if there's not something this month that is off the shelf that will solve your problem, you need to go ahead and be ready for it because this technology is moving so quickly that it could be here next month or the month after or the next 12 months. Now's the time to prepare, if not time to deploy.”

Don’t let the software drive. He’s old school about doing requirements, and says it pays to be holistic with examining workflows way beyond finance and accounting to the sales funnel, the CRM. “Identify where bottlenecks are, where data is siloed, how data is moving or not moving through the system, where your gaps in information are and where you're relying on manual processes. Once you identify all this, then you can say, ‘Well, these are the requirements that I have. Now let me find software that meets the requirements.’”

Do an audit. “For me, part of my first hundred days as CFO is we're going to document everything, we're going to build out SOPs, and in that we're going to identify all the points that I just talked about—bottlenecks, speed bumps, data silos and all that. So, you do it once and then hopefully you're in a continuous improvement mode where you're constantly making your systems better. I would say an annual audit and re-refresh of those SOPs and processes [are helpful] because you may identify new bottlenecks that you didn't see before, new requirements that you didn't have before, or there may be new technology that you know of that's out there that could automate something.”

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What’s In Your Tech Stack?

We asked Sara Smith, CFO, ALPS Corporation, Missoula, Montana, a provider of malpractice insurance for more than 23,000 lawyers across the U.S., to share what she’s running in her shop.

The core is NetSuite as our ERP. Bill.com, Divvy, is our credit card solution. We use Stampli for our AP, we use HubSpot for our CRM, Power BI for data, and then we have a proprietary policy admin system because we're in insurance and that connects to NetSuite—those two systems can talk to each other through an API.

Everything we're looking at must have some API component. If the systems don't talk to each other, it's hard for us to streamline and automate. I'm in the beginning of implementation with a premium finance software system that will API—perhaps into NetSuite—but definitely into our proprietary admin system.

Also, for payroll we use Paylocity, which does not talk to anyone—and that was intentional because the cost of getting that system to talk to the other system was just insane. So, we just decided it's easier to do a copy/paste.

What's your joy and what's your headache?

We love Stampli. God, that thing's been working great. We appreciate their ability to connect so effortlessly. It just makes that process quick. We are struggling with other systems that are more insurance dominated because they don't have APIs, and it's hard to come up with a workaround. You go back to that export-import sort of stage, which is better than double, double data entry, but it still feels backwards.

If you could wave a magic wand, what would you make software companies do for you?

A seamless way [to do] integration without the use of a developer. That would be really helpful.

What’s your best piece of tech advice for others in your job?

The greatest advice I got two years after we implemented NetSuite. I went to the NetSuite conference, and I talked to an IT guy there and he's like, “You should never customize. The system is built in a way that makes it efficient and streamlined, so when you try to tailor it to try to fit your crazy business needs, you're going to screw it all up, right? You should change the way you're doing things so that they're more streamlined and easier to work with.” I have kept that in the back of my head and that has made things much easier. Less customization. Use the system the way it was designed.

Have news to share? Drop me a line at vince@cfolc.com — Vince Ryan, editor

OpenEnvoy unveiled a new deep learning model for its accounts payable platform. Trained on finance data from media, manufacturing and logistics, the model applies G/L account coding at the invoice level without requiring a purchase order.

Amsterdam-based unicorn DataSnipper introduced two new modules: a data extraction tool for automatically pulling data from unstructured documents and a collaboration tool for real-time, online workpaper sharing between audit and finance.

Vena Solutions announced the beta version of Vena Copilot, an AI planning assistant for FP&A teams based on the large language models of Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service.

AuditBoard announced three enhancements to its audit and enterprise risk cloud suite. They include an AI tool for quicker documentation of controls and risks, out-of-the-box analytics use cases for Sarbanes-Oxley and streamlined workpaper annotation.

HighRadius launched a GenAI-powered accounts payable suite that automates invoice processing, gives suppliers more visibility into payment status, and guides supplier and payer through dispute resolution.

Insightsoftware announced the launch of PowerON Budget Planner, a tool for Microsoft Power BI users. PowerON consolidates the entire budgeting process into a centralized hub and invites collaboration from a broader audience.

Prophix unveiled an all-in-one financial performance platform, Prophix One, for the midmarket CFO. It combines financial planning, close & consolidation, accounting & compliance, budgeting and reporting.

Have news to share? Drop me a line at vince@cfolc.com — Vince Ryan, editor

Versapay appointed Gaby Kozakov as chief technology officer to bring innovation and scale to the company’s accounts receivable products. He has more than 25 years of experience in tech R&D.

Cube Software hired Suresh Bala, former head of strategy for Workday’s Adaptive Planning suite, as its first chief product & technology officer. His expertise includes machine learning, data proliferation and advanced cloud technologies.

UiPath named Sebastian Schrötel as senior vice president of product management, leading strategy for UiPath Autopilot and other products. The former SAP executive reports to chief product officer Graham Sheldon.

Tres Thompson joined HighRadius as its new CFO. Hailing from the healthcare software space, he previously led finance at Velsera and Symplr.

Jeremy Ung joined BlackLine as the company’s chief technology officer reporting to CEO Therese Tucker. Ung has 20 years of experience in software engineering, most recently at Apptio and Amazon Web Services.

Former NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson and former Sage executive vice president Nancy Harris joined the board of cloud ERP provider Acumatica.

Plan to join us at the Finance and Accounting Technology Expo, the country’s largest annual trade show for buyers and vendors of corporate finance and accounting software. This year’s event will take place on October 28-30, 2024, at the Javits Convention Center in New York City. This is a great opportunity to network with industry peers, learn from experts, and discover new products and services. You can register online at strategicCFO360.com/fate/ and get a limited-time, free registration if you use the code czh510.

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