Creativity & Creation

AI in Finance and Accounting

By Chaz Narwicz '10 (Principal, Invoice to Cash, Denver, CO)

Both within casual conversations and among corporate workers and executives, AI is a topic that creates both excitement and fear.

Within the corporate landscape, monetary investments in AI automation have significantly increased over the past couple of years. Companies that are encountering massive economic hurdles—such as COVID, supply chain disruptions, inflation, recession, and war—are using AI to do more with less and maintain stability within their organizations.

For the past six years, I have worked at Esker, a company that provides AI-driven software that helps finance and accounting teams at large corporations (most commonly for manufacturing and distribution) to automate monotonous back-office tasks, such as data entry, typically done by people.

One example of where the software is used, is within accounts payable departments. Before automation, accounts payable teams at large companies typically received an email with a PDF attachment of an invoice from a vendor. This invoice data needed to be manually typed, line by line, into an accounting system before the vendor could get paid.

After implementing AI-based software that includes AI subset tools such as deep learning and machine learning, the invoice data can be automatically extracted and input, eliminating the need for data entry. The data extraction becomes more accurate over time as the software sees an increasingly larger data model (machine learning), resulting in less necessary manual or human intervention.

How does this type of AI change lives?

In a few different ways. AI enables workers to get back to higher-leveraged tasks that only humans can do, such as interacting with customers and vendors. Most people do not want to sit at a desk and type in data all day, so why not let a computer do it while you do something more interesting and valuable to the company where you work?

I have worked on many digital transformation projects that include implementing AI software for large enterprises, and most of the time it does not replace people, at least not yet. AI, rather, augments human intelligence to allow people to complete tasks faster and with better accuracy. Eventually, AI will most likely replace the mundane, repetitive tasks that most people do not want to do.

AI has only exacerbated the importance of evolving as a workforce, where the critical skills needed to land and succeed at jobs such as back-office accounting have changed and will continue to do so.

AI will expand and create many new career pathways. Indeed, a February 2024 report from the World Economic Forum estimates that although AI may replace 85 million jobs, the technology also could create 97 million more jobs.

Individual success will depend on how people respond to this shift.