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Quest Training

Finance & Management Accounting Automation

Learn to automate record-to-report, payables, receivables, reconciliations, close and management reporting with ERP, RPA and AI under sound controls.

AFRI · Accounting, Financial Reporting & IFRSAll Levels#1794ClassroomEnglish , Arabic
Duration
5 Days
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Free substitution at any time · 30+ days' notice: full refund minus 10%. Cancellation policy

Sectors:Finance, Investment & BankingCategories:Accounting, Financial Reporting & IFRS

Course Overview

In many finance departments, highly qualified accountants still spend much of each month keying journals, matching transactions, chasing approvals and rebuilding the same spreadsheets for management reports. Finance & Management Accounting Automation shows finance leaders and practitioners how to redirect that effort by automating repetitive, rules-based work while strengthening the accuracy, control and timeliness of financial information. The course examines automation across the core finance cycle: record-to-report, procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, reconciliations, month-end close and consolidation, management reporting, costing, and the data collection that supports budgeting and forecasting. Participants will learn how to assess process maturity and data readiness, select the right automation candidates, and redesign processes before automating them rather than automating existing inefficiencies. Participants will explore the practical toolkit available to finance teams, including native ERP capabilities, workflow and approval tools, robotic process automation, intelligent document processing, reconciliation and close management solutions, and artificial intelligence and machine learning for forecasting, anomaly detection and report commentary. The emphasis is on what each tool does well, where it fits, and where professional judgement must remain. Because automated finance processes must remain auditable, the course gives particular attention to internal controls, segregation of duties, access management, audit trails, data quality and master data governance, and the monitoring of automations in production. Participants will also learn how to build a credible business case and sequence initiatives into a realistic roadmap. Through process mapping exercises, case studies and design workshops, participants will develop a finance automation plan suitable for government entities, banks, financial institutions, oil and gas organizations and large corporations seeking a faster close, more reliable management information and a finance function focused on analysis and decision support.

Learning Objectives

  • Analyze how automation and AI are reshaping the finance and management accounting function.
  • Assess finance processes for standardization, data readiness and automation potential.
  • Prioritize automation candidates using volume, repetition, error rates, cycle time, value and risk.
  • Evaluate the roles of ERP capabilities, workflow tools, robotic process automation and intelligent document processing.
  • Design automated record-to-report, procure-to-pay and order-to-cash processes with effective exception handling.
  • Develop automated reconciliation and close management approaches that shorten the close and improve its quality.
  • Apply automation to intercompany processing, consolidation and multi-currency reporting.
  • Design automated management reporting, costing and profitability analysis that draw on a single source of data.
  • Evaluate machine learning applications for forecasting and anomaly detection in finance data.
  • Embed internal controls, segregation of duties, audit trails and data governance into automated processes.
  • Build a business case for finance automation that quantifies costs, benefits and risk reduction.
  • Develop a phased finance automation roadmap with clear ownership, change management and success measures.

Who Should Attend

This course is designed for chief financial officers, finance directors, financial controllers, chief accountants, management accountants, finance operations managers, shared services leaders, and heads of accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger, reporting and costing who are responsible for the efficiency and reliability of finance processes. It is also relevant for financial planning and analysis professionals, consolidation and reporting specialists, ERP and finance systems managers, process improvement and transformation professionals, and internal auditors and risk and control specialists who review or support automated finance processes. The course is particularly valuable for decision makers in government entities, banks, financial institutions, oil and gas organizations and large corporations who are planning, approving or overseeing finance automation initiatives and need to balance efficiency gains with control, compliance and auditability.

Learning Outcomes

  • By the end of the course, participants will be able to:
  • Explain the main automation technologies available to finance and how they differ in purpose and fit.
  • Identify finance and management accounting activities that are suitable, and unsuitable, for automation.
  • Score and prioritize automation opportunities using value, feasibility, data readiness and risk.
  • Redesign transactional finance processes before automating them to remove waste and rework.
  • Specify automated invoice processing, matching, approval and cash application workflows.
  • Design matching rules, tolerances and exception queues for automated reconciliations.
  • Plan a faster close using task automation, dependency tracking and close quality indicators.
  • Design automated management reporting and costing outputs from a consistent data foundation.
  • Interpret machine learning forecasts and anomaly alerts with appropriate professional scepticism.
  • Define the controls, access rights, audit trail and monitoring required for each automation.
  • Prepare a finance automation business case that senior management and auditors can rely on.
  • Develop a practical finance automation roadmap with pilots, owners, milestones and success measures.

Course Outline

Course Outline:

Day 1

The Case for Automating Finance and Management Accounting

  • The changing role of the finance function: from transaction processing to business partnering
  • Where finance time is spent: manual journals, spreadsheets, reconciliations and report preparation
  • The automation toolkit: ERP capabilities, workflow, robotic process automation, intelligent document processing and AI
  • Rules-based automation versus judgement-based finance activities
  • Assessing process maturity, standardization and data readiness before automating
  • Criteria for selecting automation candidates: volume, repetition, error rates, cycle time and risk
  • The impact of automation on finance roles, skills and organization design
  • Common reasons why finance automation initiatives fail to deliver
  • Practical application: Mapping a finance process landscape and scoring automation candidates by value, feasibility and risk
Day 2

Automating Transactional Finance: Record-to-Report, Payables and Receivables

  • Record-to-report process design and the role of the chart of accounts and master data
  • Automating recurring, accrual and allocation journal entries
  • Procure-to-pay automation: invoice capture, three-way matching, approval workflows and payment runs
  • Order-to-cash automation: billing, cash application, collections and credit monitoring
  • Intelligent document processing for invoices, receipts and supporting documents
  • Expense, travel and employee claims automation
  • Handling exceptions, duplicates and incomplete documents in automated workflows
  • Measuring transactional performance: cost per invoice, days sales outstanding and touchless processing rates
  • Practical application: Redesigning a procure-to-pay or order-to-cash process with automated matching, approvals and exception handling
Day 3

Automating the Close, Reconciliations and Consolidation

  • Mapping the month-end and year-end close and identifying bottlenecks
  • Close management tools, task checklists, dependencies and status tracking
  • Automated bank, subledger, balance sheet and intercompany reconciliations
  • Matching rules, tolerance thresholds and exception queues
  • Intercompany transactions, eliminations and multi-entity consolidation
  • Multi-currency translation and consolidation adjustments
  • Moving toward a faster, continuous close
  • Close quality indicators: days to close, post-close adjustments and reconciliation backlogs
  • Practical application: Designing an automated reconciliation and close checklist with matching rules and exception workflows
Day 4

Automated Management Reporting, Costing and Forecasting with AI

  • Building a single source of truth for management information
  • Automated management reporting packs, dashboards and self-service analytics
  • Automating cost allocation, product and service costing and profitability analysis
  • Supporting budgeting and rolling forecasts with automated data collection and consolidation
  • Machine learning for revenue, cost and cash flow forecasting
  • AI-based anomaly detection in journals, payments, expenses and ledger balances
  • Generative AI for variance commentary, report drafting and finance queries, with human review
  • Interpreting model outputs, accuracy, bias and the limits of automated insight
  • Practical application: Designing an automated management reporting pack and an anomaly detection approach for ledger data
Day 5

Controls, Governance and the Finance Automation Roadmap

  • Designing internal controls into automated finance processes
  • Segregation of duties, access rights and management of automation credentials
  • Audit trail, evidence retention and working with internal and external auditors
  • Data quality, master data governance and ownership of automated outputs
  • Monitoring automations, change control and managing failures
  • Building the business case: costs, benefits, capacity release and risk reduction
  • Sequencing initiatives, pilots and scaling across the finance function
  • Change management and reskilling finance teams for automated ways of working
  • Final workshop: Building a finance automation business case and a phased 12-month roadmap with controls, owners and success measures

Upcoming Dates

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Zurich · 21 – 25 Dec 2026 · Classroom

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ParisScheduled
2 – 6 Nov 2026€5,700—
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CairoScheduled
2 – 6 Nov 2026€3,300—
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LondonScheduled
2 – 6 Nov 2026€5,600—
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MadridScheduled
9 – 13 Nov 2026€5,400—
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RiyadhScheduled
9 – 13 Nov 2026€4,200—
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CasablancaScheduled
9 – 13 Nov 2026€4,300—
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DohaScheduled
16 – 20 Nov 2026€4,400—
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MakkahScheduled
16 – 20 Nov 2026€4,200—
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RomeScheduled
16 – 20 Nov 2026€5,800—
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DubaiScheduled
22 – 26 Nov 2026€4,400€3,960until 2 Nov
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SalalahScheduled
23 – 27 Nov 2026€5,300€4,770until 2 Nov
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ManamaScheduled
23 – 27 Nov 2026€4,700€4,230until 2 Nov
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GenevaScheduled
30 Nov – 4 Dec 2026€6,300€5,670until 9 Nov
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Sharm El-SheikhScheduled
30 Nov – 4 Dec 2026€4,300€3,870until 9 Nov
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AmmanScheduled
30 Nov – 4 Dec 2026€3,100€2,790until 9 Nov
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MilanScheduled
30 Nov – 4 Dec 2026€6,000€5,400until 9 Nov
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AmsterdamScheduled
7 – 11 Dec 2026€5,400€4,860until 16 Nov
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IstanbulScheduled
7 – 11 Dec 2026€4,700€4,230until 16 Nov
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TrabzonScheduled
7 – 11 Dec 2026€4,700€4,230until 16 Nov
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MunichScheduled
7 – 11 Dec 2026€5,400€4,860until 16 Nov
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BarcelonaScheduled
14 – 18 Dec 2026€5,400€4,860until 23 Nov
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MuscatScheduled
14 – 18 Dec 2026€5,300€4,770until 23 Nov
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Kuala LumpurScheduled
14 – 18 Dec 2026€4,400€3,960until 23 Nov
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ViennaScheduled
14 – 18 Dec 2026€5,700€5,130until 23 Nov
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OnlineScheduled
20 – 24 Dec 2026€1,700€1,530until 30 Nov
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ZurichScheduled
21 – 25 Dec 2026€5,000€4,500until 30 Nov
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LisbonScheduled
21 – 25 Dec 2026€5,400€4,860until 30 Nov
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BerlinScheduled
21 – 25 Dec 2026€5,800€5,220until 30 Nov
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CairoScheduled
28 Dec 2026 – 1 Jan 2027€3,300€2,970until 7 Dec
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LondonScheduled
28 Dec 2026 – 1 Jan 2027€5,600€5,040until 7 Dec
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