Automating cross-border financial operations - an overlooked necessity

One major obstacle is the conservative nature of finance teams. Accountants and finance managers often stick to traditional methods because the status quo feels safe and familiar. The risk of failure with new systems is daunting. Additionally, finance teams are typically overwhelmed with work, making it hard to find the time to configure new systems. This challenge is compounded by the rapid pace of technological change, which forces finance professionals to decide whether to keep up with the latest advancements or risk falling behind.

Accountants and CFOs have their ways of doing things that "work" even if inefficient, without challenging how much better the process could be. Finance teams are stuck in a cycle, finding it difficult to implement these changes due to time constraints and fear of change.

Another challenge is managing multiple relationships with financial institutions. When operating cross-border, companies will likely have multiple banks to accommodate multiple currency needs and additional systems to manage payables, receivables, and expenses. The disjointed systems create manual work as you need to download statements, consolidate the data, and process payments from different banks and then reconcile. There’s also the issue of fees—firstly because it’s hard to get the best rate and you don’t even know when you will be losing money, and secondly at the reconciliation step, some accounting systems may not reconcile different currencies correctly, creating issues further down the line. Compounded with that is the risk of mistakes—when all that work is done manually, a simple mistake on an invoice can mean that revenue is not calculated correctly.

The advantage of the current situation is that many companies offer free trials or monthly subscriptions, making it possible to try out software for a limited time without much financial risk of committing to a long-term contract and selecting a wrong product.