With the constant development of AI it is inevitable that many routine and repetitive tasks in life will be automated. Streamlining the accounting and finance functions have also become easier for a lot of businesses with an abundance of off the shelf products that offer fantastic solutions.  

With the introduction of cloud accounting, advisors and accountants have had to adapt by knowing which bolt on products and solutions will work for clients. This has become an integral part of being that go to trusted advisor.  

So how can AI and automation be applied in the Corporate Finance space? Here are a few examples;

Document Preparation

A huge chunk of time is usually spent creating presentations and information packs for clients, particularly when they are looking to sell their business. It is a really important part of a sales process that can be streamlined by utilising tools such as Canva, Visme and Beautiful.ai. This paired with Chat GPT and Grammarly allows advisors to focus on identifying the USP’s of a business and less time on presentational elements.  

Forecasting Process

Whilst we all love a good spreadsheet forecast, they can also go very wrong as they become more complex. There are now plenty of forecasting tools that aide the preparation process of financial presentations saving hours of time and reducing risk of errors. Tools such as Castaway, Futrli and Fathom all now have the ability to deal with more complex financial modelling techniques and all link to cloud-based accounting software packages. As always, a deep understanding of accounting and fundsflow outputs are key for any forecast to make sense to stakeholders, but there are great tools out there to streamline the data entry.

Client On boarding Process

There is nothing more frustrating than a slow on boarding process. Tools such as Go Proposal allow clients to engage a lot quicker from the comfort of their phone, meaning work can commence sooner and deadlines met.

The above merely touches on a few areas of how we at Gravitate Corporate Finance utilise software and AI to benefit our clients. We pride ourselves on being innovative and change embracing, particularly if it means we can spend less time on process and assisting them with their wider business needs..

In summary, automation and AI integration is quickly becoming an essential part of a Corporate Finance advisors’ armoury. Is this a good thing for the Corporate Finance Industry? Absolutely. Anything that can speed up process time and reduce data entry will enable macro and micro deadlines to be achieved more consistently. With more readily available AI based platforms providing advisory based solutions (with head scratching results in some cases!), the challenge in the industry is to continue to bang the drum that nothing beats human experience, judgement and ultimately human advice.  

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