Improve time management through PEX’s automated workflows

At PEX, we talk to finance and accounting teams every day and the message is clear: instead of having accounting workflow automation in place, finance teams are still using manual financial workflows that are a massive time drain. Here are just a few anecdotes from our customers:

• “Trying to get receipts for all our transactions was a total nightmare“
• “We were constantly chasing down budget codes“
• “The team leader has this stack of invoices he’s now got to reconcile” 

If these scenarios sound familiar, you’re not alone. Manual efforts rob CFOs and their teams of hours (or even days) they could have used on identifying spend patterns, strategic planning or playing an advisory role in the organization. 

In the meantime, organizations are demanding that CFOs perform more strategic work. According to Microsoft’s 2023 Future of Finance Trends report, nearly 80% of responding finance leaders believe they must play a part in driving innovation and enabling change in their organization.

So how do CFOs move beyond manual work? Automation is the key. Automated workflows can flip the switch on the workload, directing it to a machine instead of a human. Finance teams can reclaim their time and focus on making an impact.

However, not all automations are created equal. Accounting influencer Jason Staats shares his view in a recent LinkedIn post. “I’m a big time automation nerd, but the best tech stacks today still require manual processes,” Jason says. “Don’t reject an otherwise excellent solution just because it requires manual data syncing.”

PEX automates manual work and saves tons of time

With PEX’s expense management platform, CFOs and their teams can shift the manual workload to automated processes that run behind the scenes – improving time management, increasing productivity, and giving finance staff peace of mind. Here’s how:

Employees can text, email or upload receipts directly to PEX’s expense management platform. AI scans receipts and matches them to the appropriate transaction in the system, reducing manual input and chase-down efforts.

The PEX platform matches data from card transactions to employee receipts using AI. It looks at the amount on the card transaction and connects it to the line item on the receipt submitted by the employee. No more squinting at PDF receipts or worrying about whether you read them wrong.

Users can automatically apply GL codes to transaction records by programming in the GL codes up front. Users tell the system once which GL codes go with which types of transactions. This process eliminates the dreaded download from the accounting tool to manually enter GL codes.

With PEX, users can create automated workflows for expense approval based on department, purchase type, tag, or other combination. They can set the number of levels of approval, who needs to do the approving, and any auto-approve purchases. The system sends approval requests to the appropriate manager as employees submit expenses. 

The dashboard gives users an instant overview of outstanding tasks to ensure that nothing slips through the cracks. Users can configure notifications to see each cardholder’s missing items, project budgets relative to funding and more. 

PEX customers experience big gains in time management

Using the accounting workflow automations in the PEX platform, 25% of our customers report a time saving of 10 or more hours per month (PEX customer survey, 2023) and can gain an additional 9.85% in value through increased productivity savings. That’s equal to over $35K in annual labor costs. 

Given a sample scenario where a company has 25 employee spenders and roughly 3,789 transactions per year, that works out to 657 hours saved annually. That’s almost ⅓ of an FTE!

Individually, PEX customers have achieved the following time savings:

• Family in Christ Community Church reduced their reconciliation time from 5 hours to 20 minutes per month by automating receipt capture, GL code tagging, and auto-syncing to their ERP
• First Baptist Church of Argyle saved 5 hours per month on receipt chasing and manual expense processing
• Wheelhouse Group saved 4 hours per month on reconciliation work through PEX’s integration with their accounting partner, GreenSlate
• Compass to Care saved over 10 hours per month using card funding and automated spend controls

Save time and increase efficiency with PEX

PEX’s automated workflows can help CFOs and their teams reduce manual work and increase time savings, making space for finance to have strategic impact on the organization. We’d love to show you how the PEX platform can support your organization’s goals. Contact us today for a demo tailored to your unique financial requirements.