Operations and finance. Chief Financial Officer
AI for the CFO Office
Your team spends half the month proving last month’s numbers.
Reconciliations, chasing, matching and evidence. Finance runs on work that has to be done but adds nothing new. Meanwhile the business wants a forecast it can trust and a partner who can answer questions on the spot. We map the CFO Office the way your team actually works, then put agents where they give that time back.
The short answer
It takes on the volume work in finance. Agents reconcile ledgers and bank lines continuously, chase receivables and apply cash, check every invoice before it’s paid, build forecasts that explain each variance and test controls on the full population.
Your team keeps the judgment, the approvals and the conversations with the business. The close gets shorter, cash comes in sooner and finance gets the time to be the partner the CEO wants.
The mandate
Protect the cash. Report the numbers right and on time. Fund the strategy, and keep the company inside its risk appetite.
What the board measures you on
Days to close
And how many late adjustments
Forecast accuracy
Forecast against actual
Working capital
DSO, DPO and inventory days
Cost of finance
As a share of revenue
Audit findings
And control exceptions
EBIT margin
And return on capital
The canvas of the CFO Office
Most finance AI stops at invoice scanning. The real value sits across the close, cash, the forecast and the controls auditors test.
Canvas 1
What you run
The finance engine, every day.
Record to report and the close
Ledgers, reconciliations, journals and consolidation across entities and currencies.
Order to cash and collections
Credit, invoicing, collections, cash application and disputes.
Procure to pay
Payables, payment runs, early payment discounts and supplier payments, with procurement.
Treasury, cash and FX
Cash positioning, liquidity, funding, hedging and banks.
FP&A
Budgets, rolling forecasts, scenarios and business partnering.
Canvas 2
What you answer for
The things the board, auditors and regulators hold you to.
Internal controls
Segregation of duties, delegation of authority and evidence for auditors.
Tax and statutory reporting
Filings, transfer pricing and statutory accounts in every market.
Capital allocation
Investment cases and the return on every major spend, including AI.
AI in finance
Which decisions agents can make, who approves and how it’s logged.
Where value leaks
Most of them hide in work your team does every month without question. That’s exactly why they keep costing you.
01
Slow close
Manual reconciliations, intercompany breaks and late journals stretch every month end.
Reconciliation agents. Match ledgers, bank lines and intercompany every day and prepare journals for approval.
Days to close
Manual journals
02
Cash stuck in receivables
Disputes, unapplied cash and follow up that depends on who has time.
Collections agents. Rank accounts, chase by email and voice, and resolve disputes with evidence. A cash application agent matches remittances.
DSO
Unapplied cash
03
Payables leakage
Duplicate payments, invoices above contract price and missed early payment discounts.
Payables agents. Read every invoice, match it to the order, receipt and contract, and stop duplicates before payment.
Duplicate payments
Discounts captured
04
Forecasts nobody trusts
Built bottom up in spreadsheets and out of date by the time they’re approved.
Forecast agents. Blend drivers, pipeline and external signals and explain every variance in plain language.
Forecast accuracy
Time to reforecast
05
Control evidence by hand
Controls tested on samples, with evidence chased by email before every audit.
Control testing agents. Check the full population and assemble evidence packs for auditors.
Audit hours
Control exceptions
06
Business partnering lost to reporting
Analysts spend their week building reports instead of advising.
Finance assistant agents. Answer business questions from the ledger and planning data, with the source behind every number.
Report requests self served
Analyst time on analysis
Process lifecycles
We start from the systems you already run. The orange steps are where an agent takes on the work, and every journal and payment still goes to a person for approval.
Record to report
Every day, not just month end
Transactions
Subledgers
Reconcile
Continuously
Agent
Journals
Prepared for approval
Agent
Consolidate
Report
Variances explained
Agent
Typical systems. SAP S/4HANA, Oracle Fusion, Microsoft Dynamics, BlackLine, OneStream
Order to cash
Every invoice
Order
Credit check
Live risk signals
Agent
Invoice
Collect
Ranked and chased
Agent
Apply cash
Remittances matched
Agent
Resolve disputes
With evidence
Agent
Typical systems. ERP, HighRadius, Salesforce, bank feeds
Plan to forecast
Monthly or rolling
Strategic plan
Budget
Rolling forecast
From drivers and signals
Agent
Variance analysis
In plain language
Agent
Reforecast
Typical systems. Anaplan, Workday Adaptive Planning, Pigment, Excel
Treasury
Daily
Cash position
Across every bank
Agent
FX exposure
Flagged as it builds
Agent
Funding
Payments
Bank reconciliation
Matched daily
Agent
Typical systems. Kyriba, SWIFT, bank portals, ERP
Agent intervention point
The CFO control tower
Not a pack that arrives on working day eight. A live view of where the close stands, where cash is stuck and what needs your sign off today.
Illustrative
CFO control tower
Sample data to show the view. Not client results.
Days to close
6
▼ from 11
DSO
52 days
▼ 6 days
Unapplied cash
€1.9m
▼ 58%
Forecast accuracy
96.1%
▲ 3.4 pts
Duplicates stopped
€212k
This quarter
Exceptions
14
3 high severity
This week’s finance brief
Close
Germany intercompany break of €340k with the UK entity
Cause found in a duplicated recharge. Journal ready for approval
Cash
Top 20 overdue accounts hold 61% of the overdue balance
Four are disputes with evidence attached. Collections agent
Variance
Q3 gross margin 1.1 points below forecast
Freight and two price increases not passed on. Explained by line
Payables
€58k in early payment discounts captured this month
Invoices approved and paid inside the discount window
Close progress by entity, day 3
Netherlands
94%
UK
88%
UAE
81%
Germany
63%
Germany is the blocker. One intercompany break and 11 open accruals, all with owners named.
Illustrative example. Figures are invented to show how the view works. In discovery we build it on your own data and KPIs.
Your industry changes the agenda
A CFO Office at a bank and one at a retailer share a title, not a canvas. Here’s the question we hear most from finance leaders in each industry, and where agents help first.
CPG
How do we stop trade deductions eating into margin and cash?
Deduction validation and dispute resolution
FMCG
How do we forecast margin when input costs move every month?
Driver based forecasts with cost signals
Retail
How do we match thousands of supplier invoices, rebates and returns?
Invoice and rebate matching
D2C
How do we reconcile payments across every channel and provider?
Payment provider and order reconciliation
Automotive
How do we close fast across a group of plants, dealers and finance arms?
Intercompany and multi entity close
Healthcare
How do we get paid faster when claims get rejected and delayed?
Claims follow up and cash application
Energy
How do we control capital project spend and hedge exposure?
Project cost tracking and treasury exposure
Manufacturing
How do we see true product and plant margin, not averages?
Cost allocation and margin variance analysis
Logistics
How do we accrue and audit freight costs before carriers bill us?
Freight accruals and carrier invoice audit
BFSI
How do we close under IFRS 17 or IFRS 9 when data sits in many systems?
Data reconciliation across policy, claims and actuarial systems
B2B technology
How do we recognise revenue correctly and report ARR the board believes?
Contract reading and revenue schedules
How the CFO Office connects
By the time money reaches finance, it has passed through planning, procurement and operations. Most finance problems start there. The agents that serve the CFO Office share the same platform and data as those offices, so issues get fixed where they begin.
How we’d start
Pilot 1
Continuous close on one entity
↳
Reconciliation agents on bank, intercompany and key balance sheet accounts
↳
Breaks flagged daily, journals prepared for approval
↳
Measured on days to close and manual journals against your last three closes
Your decision
Whether to roll it out to every entity.
Pilot 2
Collections and cash application
↳
Collections agents on one region or customer segment
↳
Remittances matched to invoices automatically
↳
Run against a control group so the effect on DSO is clear
Your decision
Whether to extend it across the receivables book.
Both run under our Validation First Framework. They’re tested on your own data before you commit a larger budget, and if the numbers don’t hold, we tell you.
Your intervention map
Bring your close calendar, your aged debt report and the number the board keeps asking about. We bring the CFO Office canvas. In one session we map it to your ERP and processes, and mark where agents would pay back first.
01
Your CFO Office canvas
What you run and answer for, checked against how your controllers, FP&A and finance operations really work.
02
Your value chain
The canvas placed on your industry and your company, with the ERP and systems behind every number.
03
Your intervention points
Each leak with an agent design, its controls and the KPI it moves. Delivered as a mind map, an architecture view or an interactive dashboard.
AI for the CFO Office, answered
What can AI do for the CFO Office?
Agentic AI takes on the volume work in finance. Agents reconcile ledgers and bank lines continuously, chase receivables and apply cash, check every invoice before it is paid, build forecasts that explain each variance and test controls on the full population. The close gets shorter, cash comes in sooner and your team spends more time advising the business.
How can AI speed up the month end close?
By moving the work out of month end. Reconciliation agents match ledgers, bank lines and intercompany every day, flag breaks as they happen and prepare journals for approval. By the time the period ends, most of the close is done. Agents work inside SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics and close tools like BlackLine.
Can AI reduce DSO and improve cash collection?
Yes. Collections agents rank accounts by risk and value, chase by email and voice, and resolve disputes with the evidence attached. A cash application agent matches remittances to invoices so cash isn’t left unapplied. Your team handles the conversations that need a person.
Can finance teams trust an AI forecast?
Only if it explains itself. Forecast agents blend business drivers, pipeline and external signals, and explain every variance in plain language with the data behind it. FP&A reviews and adjusts the numbers. The forecast is faster to build and easier to challenge.
Is agentic AI in finance auditable?
It should be designed that way from the start. Every agent action is logged, journals and payments go to a person for approval, and segregation of duties stays in place. Control testing agents can then check the full population, not a sample, and assemble the evidence auditors ask for.
Where should a CFO start with agentic AI?
With the close or with cash. Continuous reconciliation on one entity, or collections agents in one region, both show results inside a quarter. The value shows up directly in days to close or DSO, which makes the case for the next step easy to make.
