Well, hey everyone and welcome to ES Speaks, the show where we unpack how today's leaders are using technology to build smarter, more resilient organizations. I'm your host, Corey Nolles, and today we're exploring what it means to lead with global first finance and how companies can build scalable, compliant operations in an increasingly uncertain world. Joining me today is Rob Isra, president of Topalty, where he helps global companies streamline their financial operations and prepare for the future.
Today, [snorts] we'll cover how automation, AI, and integrated platforms are helping finance teams tackle today's biggest challenges from crossber compliance and FX volatility to forecasting, risk management, management, and operational efficiency. Rob, thanks for joining us today. >> Thanks for having me. >> Excellent. Good to have you. [snorts] I guess first let's talk a little bit about you know the current reality new reality I should say of global first finance.
Uh so many teams are under pressure right now to do more with less. What does global first finance really mean in 2025 2026? >> Yeah I mean it really is the nature of business has changed. Finance teams and the business operations teams no longer can just afford to operate within borders. everything is crossborder whether it's workflows whether it's subsidiaries whether it's suppliers um it's not the exception anymore and so the way you have to think about running your business has to be with those processes in mind that support multiple jurisdictions multiple subsidiaries different entities uh suppliers all around the world multiple currencies and they the expectation is now you have to be able to handle all that without friction um the reality is that you Most teams have to accelerate at a rapid scale.
That's an expectation. Um 83% uh have seen workloads increase as business have gone more global as economy has changed. And the expectation is simply agility. uh you have to be able to absorb regatory changes, tax policy changes, changes in the FX markets um and other disruptions that entering new markets uh you know bring to a business and the expectation is the operation team and the finance team has to be able to manage that disruption with minimal operational uh obstacles.
Um and so that that is what global first finance ultimately comes down to. >> It makes a lot of sense. So what's what's driving the shift do you think from viewing finance as a cost center to a strategic growth enabler? >> Yeah, you know change is the new normal now and disruption seems to happen every 3 months or so. >> Um the business really needs finance at this point expects finance to help guide the company, help forecast what the future is, help be able to navigate the company through the the changes.
Um they view the CFO and the office of finance as that partner to the CEO. Um it's really the center of intelligence. They have the information on what the version of truth is for the business and they have to help plan and navigate the business forward, anticipate obstacles, make sure there's enough cash on hand, make sure they have enough funding um and provide that data intelligence. leveraging the knowledge of the business, knowledge of trends, knowledge of external markets, knowledge of investment markets to help kind of help navigate the company through and predict patterns, identify forecasts, have scenario plans.
Um, and there's an expectation for, you know, real-time data, visibility across the business with finance helping navigate the rest of the businesses, helping it navigate the rest of the company, uh, through the different macro changes, um, and through the volatility. Um, and that means that finance can't be muddled down in the operational processes of the business. Um, there's a rising expectation around this for the strategic partnership. 74% of teams say they're being asked to play a strategic role in driving the business.
So, it's now the vast majority of uh of what the the business expects finance to help do. And if you're spending all your time on your operational processes, you can't. Automation is about freeing that bandwidth for finance that they're not consumed by doing manual AP processes, supplier payments, reconciliation, and other time-consuming finance operations. um reducing errors and the such so they can free up their bandwidth, their team's time to actually help on the strategic tasks and activities necessary. >> So how are technology and automation then helping finance leaders balance all of this like growth, compliance and control?
Yeah, I mean it's basically about reducing the manual bottlenecks um that uh that escalate as a company scales that it grows up and matures as they go across border as they have different subsidiaries and entities and just as they uh they have more complexity that's introduced to the business. Um right now the average uh company loses about 72 days for example of work days on AP tasks. Um, and if it's that high in amount of time you're spending, it's an essential uh component of your formula to get to operational uh efficiency.
Uh, 64% of finance folks worry that the lack of AP automation actually limits their company's ability to scale. Um, those are pretty good clear signs um that it's time to invest. um you know taking integrating an AIdriven automation uh solution uh it supports that efficiency that you need while you're growing fast and trying to still bend your curves towards profitability. Um doing that right will improve visibility and controls for your business strengthen auditability and governance your company and ultimately free up your finance talent to focus on strategic initiatives.
Well, on that note, let's talk a little bit about managing risk and and dealing with the complexities that come with working across borders. Um, when thinking of compliance and currency, how do AI and automation help reduce risk in multi-entity, multicurrency environments? Automation creates that consistency across the different entities, across your different borders, across your different suppliers, essentially standardizing controls, uh, reducing exposure, things like human error, um, and fragmented processes you have.
By having that standardization, by having AI look for anomalies across the business, whether it's fraud that's happening or patterns around that, whether it's validating tax information, making sure it's compliant, whether it's protecting against anti-money laundering by checking automatically against sanction screening using machine learning and and pattern recognition, um, or just enforcing policy adherence. It essentially kind of puts those controls in place and also gives you an audit trail so you can see what patterns happen. and if it missed the fraud or if it missed that pattern, at least you can see who did what when across your different divisions around the world.
Um, in a multi-subsidiary environment, you also need to provide your local staff with localized approvals. You're not going to have approvals going around the world most likely. In most uh cases that that'll be cause delays and issues. So, you need localized approval commands by entity and you need that system to recognize that. And yet, at the global side, you need oversight. you need to make sure it's consistent processes using one system with global visibility on the audit trails and the patterns and the such.
So those are examples of where uh AI and automation can really contribute to a a much better uh control environment. >> That makes sense. So what uh what trends are you seeing around FX volatility and forecasting and how are leading finance teams adopting? Yeah, I mean geopolitical shifts and all kinds of things happening in the environment these days da d st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st stabilize your ability to forecast and budget.
Um 34% of teams say economic and government policy changes have added volatility to financial forecasts and that seems like it'll continue uh in the future. Unfortunately, uh leading teams are essentially adopting AI assisted forecast models where they can look at different scenario planning, look at the data in your business and improve responsibly to currency swings and other changes that are happening. Um, you also need to be increasingly on top of your cash flow.
Of course, with all that volatility, including FX, um, you across your different banks or different currencies or different entities, um, you really need to be on top of cash flow and the treasury processes, whether you have a treasury person or as a finance team doing it for you, you've got to have that visibility in place uh, to be able to manage through that those fluctuations as well. So with regulations tightening across regions, what what advice do you have for finance leaders trying to stay compliant but without slowing down their operations? >> Yeah, I mean in this environment you mentioned earlier about you know trying to do more with less.
You're not going to be able to go to uh the CEO um or the finance team itself and make an argument to add more compliance staff um as you grow. um it's going to be a difficult argument with pressures on everyone for uh profitability and you know uh reducing burn. Um so the advice is really build that compliance into your workflows. Um once you build it into your processes and your workflows you can then centralize approvals, centralize the vendor master record, standardize around what audit trails you need, centralize it under one system so it's much more efficient um rather than relying on disconnected solutions. um t teams are definitely struggling to keep pace globally.
Uh 72% say that evolving international tax regulations are are difficult for them to manage uh and increasingly. And by building into your workflows then applying uh centralizing and then applying automation to manage those processes, it makes sure that they stay fast and efficient while reducing the burdens on staff and the need to keep adding more staff to keep up with the changing regulations. So many companies are adopting automation tools in a very peacemeal way.
What does end toend automation look like when it's done right? >> Yeah, it, you know, it's going to be different by business to business on your unique processes in your company. But it starts with looking at what your processes are. Where are you going in the future? Um, what are the most challenging, you know, parts of the process that are holding back your ability to scale and to grow efficiently? what's the pain that's being caused? Um, and then looking at those finance operational processes and mapping out.
I would recommend starting in a more broad context. As you mentioned, a lot of people are are approaching this peace meal because they're only looking at a few of the immediate pain points and then jumping at a solution for that versus if you kind of whiteboard a little bit more and you look at your endto end process. In the context of our conversation today, it might be like looking at your supplier on boarding processes. How do you approve invoices?
How do you approve those invoices? PO matching if you have that process. A procurement or purchase requisition process if you have that. Of course, you have to pay your suppliers. And I wouldn't look at as paying just in your local market, but all your markets whether you have different subsidiaries. How do you pay suppliers around the world? How do you communicate to them about their payment status or if there's an issue or the such? Of course, your reconciliation of payments and that effect on the monthly close processes and other core process you may have that are important and look at as a united unified flow and the interaction dependencies from process to process when you can actually address not only those unique pain points but the interdependencies of the processes that's where you get real kind of unlocks um and and I'd look at it from a global organization perspective not just your domestic organization or your domestic supplier ires um teams often uh still rely on manual tasks across the board, >> but if you apply automation right in a more holistic way, you should be able to really find major savings.
Um right now, finance professionals spend about 11 hours per week on manual AP work alone. Um and and as you look broader, you kind of find even more time that's related to it. Uh when automation is done more holistically, those disjointed workflows are addressed and made much more efficient. You reduce errors, you accelerate approval workflows for sure, improve visibility, uh strengthen controls. Um and then your global operation ultimately has much more consistency and control built uh throughout which helps you scale uh without adding more headcount as you keep growing. any chance you can share like a real world example of a company that used to scale its global operations and what measurable results they achieved. >> Yeah, sure.
Um, so I think one good example is Craig Music Group. Um, they had an incredibly complex finance operation across a multi-subsidiary uh environment. They also had crossber payments um and just tons of manual processes and payment delays uh built throughout the process. They knew they had to address it um and they chose to uh automate their entire AP and payouts operation uh using topalty uh while integrating seamless into ERP. They were using Netswuite um which is a a more typical ERP for your kind of global uh type finance scenarios.
Um the [clears throat] output was pretty impressive. They limit about 36 days of payment related workflows annually. Uh they also manage that across four entities in one centralized system. Um and they now send in that business model. It's important you send out to your talent, your suppliers, uh payments really quickly. And so while that wasn't the driver of the project, another benefit was that they were able to send out the payments 3 days after they received the invoice which has made them much more competitive uh in their marketplace.
So um those are some of the outputs that you know a company can expect. You know uh generally speaking if you apply that more endto-end uh approach to automating your AP and finance oper operations workflow uh we find that companies are typically automating about 80% of the time they're spending prior managing those workflows. Um I talked about monthly close before. Typically the monthly close cycle time accelerates about 25%. uh payment errors usually reduce about 66%.
And you you're able to do this while also moving staff towards more strategic uh initiatives in the business uh reducing fraud and improving your uh your risk controls. Um so there's a lot of benefits beyond the tangible as well. >> That's impressive. Um so how do integration and data visibility play into achieving scalability and resilience? Yeah, I mean a top uh barrier to automation is difficulty integrating with existing systems. Uh 30% of the of the folks in a recent survey cited this as a primary challenge.
So you definitely need to look at your interacting systems uh and your own process and make sure everything's integrated together. Uh with that unified SIS data, teams have stronger forecasting accuracy uh and decision-m throughout volatility which helps you ride through that and make better decisions. >> Um and of course that better visibility supports governance decision-m reduces risks uh improves response time. Um and you know essentially uh with that data unified finance is able to make that that transition towards more of an insights department uh versus a task department.
Um and that is the expectation and direction finance needs to go through. >> So let's let's talk a little bit about the future of finance leadership. How uh how do you see the role of finance leader evolving over the next few years? >> Yeah, I mean it's been a a transition. We've been talking about this for I'd say a decade, but I think with automation really maturing, AI really come into play in the last last few years and just the business volatility which is forcing businesses to change um and increasing complexity, finance leaders time to really step up and be that strategic guide to the business. um while managing risk, while managing processes and finance operations efficiently, working across different functions in the business and being that business partner that the business expects.
Um the responsibilities and the expectations are expanding. Um there's an expectation that they are key contributors to adding resilience to the business, improving client uh compliance readiness, helping with digital transformation. Um many unfortunately though while there's that expectation really coming to head and AI is really along with all this volatility is forcing it many are still uh fighting that manual drag unfortunately um and it's because there's been a lot of procrastination or kind of attacking the problem in a one-off kind of manner um but the sense of urgency is increasing 66% actually saw an increase in manual work last year which is surprising there had been progress you'd seen in various different research over time but that that manual work is increasing I think because business is changing so fast that it's difficult to keep up with it um so it does require a much more proactive stance uh than it than it took in the future and finance layers need to be champions of automation AI at this point um otherwise they just won't be able to keep up with with that >> so I guess that's that's a good place to segue into regulation a little bit what what impact do you expect AI I regulations could have on automation strategy and decision making. >> Yeah, I mean um AI is going to increasingly require uh transparent controls, documentation, governance frameworks.
You know, typically the regatory environment is pretty delayed uh on doing that. Um so it will increase um uh you know on the on the finance side teams already start have started seeing the benefit um 31% of of folks record or surveyed site AI's role in fraud detection risk monitor already and we're in the early days um so there's a benefit from uh the regulation side of you can improve your auditability you can find fraud before it happens um uh and it's better for risk monitor than before we're using different types of analysis, less advanced, less contextual and the such.
Um, and so leaders have to choose those platforms that prioritize explanability, data security, uh, compliance readiness. Um, and AI based governance is definitely going to be not a nice to have, but a central pillar of your finance strategy. At the same time, you have to make sure you're choosing uh a partner that you trust because as the regulations from the external uh governments and oversight bodies increase, uh they're going to want to make sure that you're working with someone who has the right regulation and oversight of their own business they can trust to be financially reliable in the future.
Well, uh, finally, what's one practical step a finance team can take today to prepare for this new era of global first operations? >> Yeah. So, um, you know, I'd start by removing the biggest friction point. Um, there's multiple surveys, you can find them on the web of where the manual processes in finance are, and it's almost always accounts payable as the number one most timeconsuming function uh in finance. Um it currently eats about 11 hours per week of your average finance professional.
Um it's consistently noted like I said in these surveys as the most timeconuming function in finance. By the way the number two most timeconuming function is reconciliation. And guess what a really what really impacts the reconciliation process. Accounts payable is one of the biggest inputs and delayers of a monthly close process. Um, and so, you know, if you tackle accounts payable automation in a more holistic way and do it properly, you will also typically see your monthly close times accelerated by about 25%.
Um, and so, you know, it gives you a bit of a double uh win. So, I think that's the place to typically start and address that uh that part of the process. um build a modernization roadmap um that focused on integration, scalability rather than just uh deploying disjointed point solutions, they're going to break. Um they're going to just push the can down the road u to a different problem set. And so you want to address multiple problems and multiple processes talking to one another.
Um many teams are the good news is while we talked a little earlier about um manual processor actually increasing not decreasing >> uh many teams are at least preparing. So the latest research I've seen says about 64% uh of companies have an AP modernization plan in place and it's in the next 12 months. Typically we've seen this research 24 months. So those kind of items that are causing a sense of urgency for change are do seem to be coming to play at least in the plans.
We'll see about the execution, but at least you you have a plan in place, you know. >> Right. Right. Well, that's big. Rob, thanks so much for joining us today and sharing these insights on how finance leaders could scale with confidence even in an uncertain world. >> Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for uh for having me, Corey, and it was it was a good conversation. >> Excellent. Well, for those watching and listening, you can learn more about Topalty's approach to global first finance and explore case studies at tapalty.com.
We'll have the description right below the video here. I'm Corey Nolles. This has been ES Speaks. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time.
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