ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · Finance transformation
Harbour Freight plc's finance team spends most of each month manually keying supplier invoice data into the ledger and matching it to purchase orders. The CFO wants to free staff for business partnering and analysis. Which finance transformation step best fits this aim?
Robotic process automation is the best fit because invoice capture and matching are repetitive, rule-based activities. Automating them frees finance staff time for analysis and business partnering, which is the CFO's goal, whereas extra manual checks or outsourcing forecasting would not remove the transactional burden.
- AIntroduce robotic process automation to handle the rule-based invoice capture and matchingCorrect
- BOutsource the budgeting and forecasting process to an external consultancy
- CReplace the board's risk committee with a technology committee
- DIncrease the number of manual review stages to reduce posting errors
Explanation
Invoice keying and matching are high-volume, rule-based tasks, the classic use for robotic process automation. This releases capacity for value-adding analysis and partnering. Adding manual review stages would increase effort and move the function away from the aim.
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