5 AI Tools to Supercharge Your Back-Office Productivity Today

Oddly enough, the basic formula to improve back-office productivity hasn’t changed since the invention of the adding machine. More mental tasks offloaded to a machine equals more time to focus on critical business challenges.

Computers lifted back-office productivity a thousand notches. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is lifting productivity another thousand or more. And though we’re early in the AI race, the following tools have shown they’re ready to go the distance. Especially for mid market companies.

1. Meeting Schedulers

You check your calendar and propose a time. They check their calendar, and propose an alternative time. And oops, we’ve forgotten to account for different time zones. Meeting schedulers like x.ai not only spare you that burden, they integrate your calendars and email. 

You create a virtual assistant and it reaches out to other participants and can even find gaps in both of your calendars to set up a meeting. Getting the assistant to perform this task is as easy as cc’ing it on an email and asking it to set up a meeting.

2. Advanced Business Intelligence and Analytics

Your data can be one of your company’s most valuable assets. But only if you can find the nuggets that might be buried in countless spreadsheet and database cells. Tools like Saleforce’s Tableau visualize data to reveal trends and share insights.

Another tool, IBM Watson, uses natural language processing and predictive analytics to inform smarter customer-facing chatbots and better back-office decision making.

3. Workflow Automation Tools

If you’re like most of us, you can have 5-10 open apps on your desktop at the same time. Even simple business processes often require several apps. A simple expense report, for instance, may require apps for corporate charge cards, document scanning, and accounting apps—in addition to the expense reporting app. Workflow automation tools, integrate these apps and data flows. 

PEX automates these workflows by combining charge card and expense account apps (with photo receipt capture) on one platform and integrating with leading platforms for accounting, ERP, and expense management platforms. Charges made and approved on our platform automatically populate your backend systems, saving you hours of recording time.

4. Intelligent Corporate Cards

Most middle-market companies cannot do business without empowering employees to spend on their behalf. Many companies provide employees with corporate cards and policies for their use. Intelligent corporate charge cards from companies like PEX let you program your policies into the card’s functionality.

You can create rules to limit merchant categories, transaction times, individual transaction amounts, and more. These rules vary by employee and/or role, and authorized administrators can override the rules for special situations and emergencies. You can also use our API and other development tools to automate rules for specific purchases situations.

5. Zero-Input Expense Management

Everybody hates expense reports. Users hate collecting receipts and the endless hours they spend entering data into arcane software systems. Finance professionals hate the way they come in late, full of mistakes, and pile up on their desks. 

AI systems like PEX help eliminate manual data entry.

With PEX, users snap a picture of their receipts and send them in (via app or text). System AI automatically matches receipts with system-generated transaction records and populates the expense report. Users choose accounting tags from a dropdown and add a (optional) note. Approved, the transaction uploads automatically to your business systems.

How Can PEX Supercharge Your Back-office Productivity and Efficiency?

From intelligent corporate cards to accounts payable automation, PEX is your go-to for more efficient and productive back-office operations. Request a live PEX demo. See how the artificial intelligence in our platform delivers real benefits to your business..