Last year was challenging for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and things aren’t shaping up to be much better this year. While the United States has avoided a recession, economic uncertainty, shifting market conditions, and difficulties accessing financing have seriously strained SMBs. Nearly half of them now cite inflation as a top operating obstacle.
As economic pressures continue to strain SMBs, finance leaders rely more on innovation and technologies like AI and finance process automation to cut costs and become more efficient.
Filled with interest, we embarked on a journey to discover exactly how small and medium enterprises are making the most of this novel wave of technology and how you can apply these same strategies to your business.
How SMBs Are Taking Charge
While generative AI tools and similar innovations are shaping up to change the business landscape, it’s only sometimes evident for SMBs how to take advantage of this new technology.
Custom-made, prohibitively expensive solutions seem out of reach for businesses of their size. On the other hand, tools like Chat GPT lack the edge and customization necessary to help SMBs fully automate operations.
Software companies like Xledger are filling the gap between both extremes by developing affordable software with built-in finance process automation capabilities. These innovative, customizable, and affordable solutions are helping SMBs operate leaner and be more effective in their approach.
3 Top Ways SMBs Are Taking Back Charge With AI and Finance Automation
Streamlining the Accounts Payable Process
Processing invoices and keeping track of multiple accounts can be time-consuming and drain valuable resources from your accounting team.
Whether it’s receiving and recording an invoice or issuing a payment, automating the accounts payable process with ERP software is one of the most efficient ways SMBs can reduce labor costs and errors through finance process automation.
Streamlining the accounts payable process includes implementing recurring payment schedules, automating invoice approval, and digitizing invoice processing with ERP software.
Streamlining the Accounts Receivable Process
On the other end of the spectrum, there’s also the automation of account receivable processes, which add equal value to SMBs regarding finance process automation.
By adopting ERP systems, SMBs can now significantly cut costs and minimize errors by automating the process of generating, sending, and reconciling invoices and sending automatic payment reminders to their customers.
Automated Core Bookkeeping
The final but also very effective way SMBs are overcoming the financial challenges of the 2023-2024 economy is by automating core bookkeeping tasks.
Through bank integrations and automated workflows, SMBs leverage ERP software to automate routine core bookkeeping tasks such as bank reconciliation, financial reporting, and payroll management.
Finance Process Automation With Xledger
While some SMBs struggle to survive, those with a keen spirit of innovation are getting ready to thrive. Xledger is an ERP system that helps SMBs all over the United States prosper by helping them cut costs and become more efficient through finance process automation.
- Automate Accounts Payable and Receivable
- Automatically Generate Financial Statements, Dashboards, and Reports on a Scheduled Basis
- Automate Expense Management
- Automate Budgeting and Forecasting
- Automate Tax Compliance
- Automate Cash Flow Management
- Automate Payroll Processing
- Ensure Compliance and Facilitate Audits
Our online ERP software is a category leader specializing in automating accounting processes, streamlining financial operations, and connecting all aspects of a business in one place.
If you’re ready to scale out of your simple or outdated accounting software, book a free one-on-one demo with our team of experts. From there, our team will guide you every step of the way.
Curious About What Else ERP Software Can Do For Your Business?
Check out these value-packed resources: