Emma Robot – Automate Complex Workflows with AI

Accounts Payable (AP)

Ensuring that the organization pays its suppliers and vendors accurately and on time. This includes matching invoices, purchase orders (POs), and delivery receipts, as well as processing payments.

Step 1

Invoice Capture & Validation

Vendors submit invoices via email, mail, or portals. Accounting teams often type these details into the ERP or AP system manually. This is error-prone and time-consuming. With AI, Emma can use OCR to extract invoice data—such as vendor name, invoice amount, and due date—from PDFs or scanned documents, then push it automatically to software like QuickBooks, SAP, or Oracle NetSuite. This slashes data entry hours and minimizes manual typos.

Step 2

PO & Receipt Matching

The classic “3-way match” compares the vendor invoice against the purchase order and the goods receipt to ensure correctness. Doing this manually involves flipping through spreadsheets or rummaging through emails. Emma retrieves relevant documents from systems like Coupa or SAP Ariba, compares line items, and flags discrepancies—for instance, if an invoice reflects 100 units but the receipt shows only 90.

Step 3

Approval Workflows

Once matched, invoices typically require approval from department heads or project managers. This can result in endless email threads. Emma sets up a predefined workflow in tools like Tipalti or AvidXchange, notifying the right approvers and auto-reminding those who haven’t responded. This fosters timely approvals and consistent enforcement of spending limits.

Step 4

Payment Processing

After approvals, AP staff manually schedule checks, ACHs, or wires. Emma plugs into banking portals (via secure connections) or integrates with payment systems like Bill.com, automatically initiating payments on the appropriate due dates. This prevents late fees, leverages early-payment discounts, and reduces reliance on staff to remember deadlines.

Step 5

Reconciliation & Reporting

At month’s end, teams reconcile cleared payments with bank statements. Manually, this can consume hours of cross-referencing. Emma imports transaction data from the bank, matches it to paid invoices, and highlights any mismatches for quick resolution. This closes the loop faster and gives finance teams near-real-time visibility into cash outflows.

Accounts Receivable (AR)

Managing outgoing invoices to customers, tracking payment status, and handling collections. Proper AR ensures healthy cash flow and customer satisfaction.

Invoice Generation

When a sale occurs or a project milestone is hit, an invoice must be issued. Many companies rely on staff to copy data into invoice templates, risking errors in quantity or pricing. Emma reads sale orders from Salesforce, Zoho CRM, or your ERP, and automatically generates a complete invoice in Xero, QuickBooks, or SAP, emailing it to the customer. This lowers the chance of missed billings or mispriced items.

Customer Follow-Up

If customers are late, AR personnel juggle phone calls, reminder emails, and statements. Emma automates polite, professional reminders at pre-defined intervals (e.g., 7 days past due, 14 days, 30 days), including a secure payment link. By removing guesswork, Emma helps keep DSO (Days Sales Outstanding) as low as possible.

Cash Application & Reconciliation

When payments come in, staff must match them to specific invoices. Manual attempts often lead to deposits posted to the wrong account. Emma scans bank statement data or payment platform reports, identifies invoice numbers, and auto-applies them in AR systems like FreshBooks or Billtrust. This reduces unallocated cash, a major headache for finance teams.

Dispute & Deduction Management

Customers sometimes short-pay or dispute an invoice (e.g., claiming damaged goods). Manually logging each dispute is chaotic. Emma flags partial payments, starts a dispute case in systems like HighRadius or Oracle Financials, and compiles relevant documents for quick resolution. This structured approach shortens dispute cycles and preserves customer relationships.

AR Aging & Reporting

Management needs to see which invoices remain unpaid after 30, 60, or 90 days. By automating the aging reports, Emma ensures they’re always up to date. In CRMs or ERPs, Emma highlights the top overdue accounts for immediate follow-up, improving credit control and reducing the risk of bad debt write-offs.

General Ledger (GL) Reconciliations

Ensuring financial accounts (e.g., cash, inventory, fixed assets) accurately reflect real-world transactions. GL reconciliations validate that sub-ledgers match the main ledger, crucial for financial integrity.

Step 1

Data Extraction

Accountants typically pull sub-ledger reports (e.g., AP, AR, inventory) from multiple systems. Consolidating these into one master Excel file can be prone to copy-paste mistakes. Emma fetches data from the source—like NetSuite, Dynamics 365, or Oracle—and prepares a single, standardized dataset, eliminating hours of manual data wrangling.

Step 2

Identify Variances

Reconciliation means comparing balances or transactions across different ledgers and periods. Humans scanning thousands of lines is slow and error-prone. Emma employs rule-based logic or data comparison in software like BlackLine or FloQast, immediately flagging out-of-balance accounts. Teams can then investigate these items rather than searching for them in the first place.

Step 3

Investigate & Resolve Errors

Common causes of variances include duplicated entries, missed transactions, or currency conversion glitches. Emma centralizes the supporting documents (invoice images, bank statements, journal entries) into a shared folder or system like OneDrive or Google Drive, letting accountants pinpoint the cause faster. This cuts the resolution time significantly.

Step 4

Automate Journal Entries

Correcting errors often involves adjusting journal entries. Instead of manually opening the ERP to enter them, Emma uses a virtual mouse and keyboard to fill the relevant fields (date, account codes, amounts) and updates the ledger accordingly. This ensures consistent formatting and drastically reduces oversight.

Step 5

Reporting & Sign-Off

After reconciling, accountants must sign off for compliance or audit trails. Emma packages final reconciliation reports—complete with documentation links—into a digital sign-off queue in BlackLine or Trintech. This fosters accountability, as managers can quickly review and confirm accuracy without rummaging through scattered files.

Expense Management

Capturing employee expenses (travel, meals, mileage), verifying receipts, applying corporate policies, and reimbursing or logging them against projects.

Receipt Collection & OCR

Employees use receipts from restaurants, hotels, or taxis. Manually keying each expense line into an expense report is time-consuming and prone to errors (e.g., reading the wrong total). Emma accepts scanned or photographed receipts and uses OCR to capture the date, vendor, and amount. Tools like Expensify, Concur, or Zoho Expense can integrate seamlessly with Emma for this data extraction.

Policy Enforcement

Companies often have daily meal allowances or maximum lodging rates, which staff might not always remember. Emma automatically compares the captured expense against policy thresholds. If an expense exceeds the limit, Emma flags it in the expense software, prompting additional approval or rejection. This prevents over-reimbursements and fosters compliance.

Manager Approval Workflow

After employees submit expense reports, supervisors must verify validity. Emma routes these reports through Concur or SAP SuccessFactors, notifying the right manager for sign-off and sending reminder emails if the request remains pending. This ensures prompt reviews, preventing large backlogs of unapproved claims.

Reimbursement & GL Posting

Once approved, staff either receive reimbursements via payroll or separate payment runs. Emma schedules these payouts in ADP or QuickBooks, ensuring each transaction is recorded in the general ledger under the correct cost center. This automates a usually repetitive process and delivers accurate expense classification for financial reporting.

Analytics & Reporting

Over time, finance leaders analyze expense patterns to see if certain travel budgets are consistently exceeded. Emma aggregates spending data—by department, vendor, or location—into dashboards using business intelligence tools like Power BI or Tableau. These insights guide cost-optimization strategies and future policy tweaks.

Budgeting & Forecasting

Projecting revenues, expenses, and cash flow over a given period. Effective forecasting supports strategic decisions, from hiring plans to capital investment.

Finance teams gather past financials, sales trends, and operational metrics. Manually rummaging through multiple systems is error-prone. Emma pulls data from your ERP (e.g., SAP, Oracle), CRM (e.g., Salesforce), and historical spreadsheets, merging it into a single dataset. This alone can save days of grunt work each budgeting cycle.

Forecast accuracy hinges on assumptions (growth rates, seasonal demand, cost fluctuations). Emma can systematically highlight anomalies or outliers in the historical data using tools like Anaplan or Adaptive Planning, helping leaders refine assumptions with real data instead of guesswork.

Various “what-if” scenarios—e.g., a 10% drop in sales or a 5% increase in raw material prices—are crucial for robust planning. Emma automates the creation of scenario-based models in Excel or specialized platforms like Workday Adaptive Planning, letting teams quickly see how each assumption tweak impacts the bottom line. This encourages more iterative, data-driven forecasting.

Multiple stakeholders input budgets for their departments, often risking version confusion (e.g., “Budget_v2_final_FINAL.xls”). Emma maintains a single source of truth in solutions like Vena Solutions or Planful, merging each department’s changes in real time. This fosters better collaboration and avoids chaos from conflicting spreadsheets.

Many companies adopt rolling forecasts instead of annual budgets. Emma updates the forecast monthly or quarterly, pulling actuals data directly from the ERP and adjusting future projections automatically. This real-time agility helps finance teams pivot faster when market or business conditions shift.

Payroll Management

Ensuring employees are paid accurately and on time, including base salary, overtime, commissions, bonuses, and tax withholdings.

Employees clock in via timesheets or digital punch-in systems. Finance teams often cross-reference these with schedules to confirm no over-claimed hours. Emma aggregates time logs from tools like Kronos, ADP Workforce Now, or TSheets, scanning for anomalies (e.g., double-shifts). This yields a validated dataset for payroll calculations.

Different pay structures (hourly, salaried, commission-based) make manual payroll a labyrinth. Emma integrates with Gusto or Paylocity to handle deductions, tax rates, and benefit contributions in real time. This step drastically reduces miscalculations and ensures compliance with constantly changing tax regulations.

Before finalizing pay runs, managers must review exceptions (unapproved overtime, leaves without pay). Emma automatically alerts relevant managers if anomalies appear—like 20 hours of OT in a week. This ensures any issues get resolved promptly, averting overpayment or underpayment.

Cutting checks or initiating direct deposits is the final step, but it can be prone to data entry mishaps. Emma schedules direct deposits via integrated bank connections, then generates digital pay stubs for employees to view in BambooHR or Workday. This paperless approach and guaranteed accuracy free finance teams from last-minute payroll chaos.

Governments require monthly, quarterly, or annual filings of payroll data (e.g., W-2, 1099, T4 in Canada). Emma compiles the relevant payroll info, populates e-file forms, and submits them through government portals. This is especially helpful in cross-border or multi-state operations, where rules differ significantly. AI-driven checks ensure forms are complete and on time.

Financial Reporting & Month-End Close

Producing accurate financial statements—Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Cash Flow—at period-end for management and stakeholders. Includes verifying transactions, posting adjustments, and creating final reports.

Step 1

Pre-Close Checklists

Leading up to close, finance teams follow checklists: ensuring all transactions are posted, reconciling accounts, capturing late invoices, etc. Emma centralizes these tasks in a platform like FloQast, BlackLine, or Trintech, automatically assigning checklist items to staff and highlighting which tasks need attention.

Step 2

Accruals & Adjusting Entries

Certain expenses or revenues need to be recognized in the correct period (e.g., accrued payroll, unearned revenue). Identifying these items manually is time-consuming. Emma detects patterns—like monthly rent invoices or partial shipments crossing month-end—and suggests necessary accrual JEs (journal entries) in the ERP. This ensures timely, accurate accounting.

Step 3

Trial Balance Review

After all entries, the trial balance must be error-free. Emma compares the trial balance to prior periods in NetSuite or SAP, spotlighting unusual fluctuations beyond a set threshold (e.g., a 20% variance in an expense account). This “sanity check” helps accountants pinpoint anomalies faster.

Step 4

Consolidation for Multi-Entity

Many corporations operate multiple subsidiaries that require consolidated financials. Emma automates intercompany eliminations—matching and offsetting transactions across entities—and merges each ledger into a single set of statements. Tools like OneStream or Hyperion integrate seamlessly, reducing messy manual consolidation tasks.

Step 5

Report Generation & Distribution

Final statements are often needed in CFO dashboards, board presentations, or external auditor packages. Emma assembles these neatly in PowerPoint or PDF, merges data visuals from Power BI or Tableau, and emails them to relevant stakeholders. This drastically shortens the close timeline and ensures consistent formatting.

Cash Flow Management & Treasury

Monitoring and optimizing cash inflows/outflows to maintain sufficient liquidity, manage banking relationships, and invest surplus cash wisely.

Step 1

Bank Balance Tracking

Finance teams juggle multiple bank accounts across various regions or currencies. Manually logging into portals daily is tedious. Emma auto-retrieves balances, statements, and transaction details from each bank or treasury management system (TMS) like Kyriba or GTreasury, aggregating them in a dashboard. This gives immediate clarity of available cash.

Step 2

Cash Flow Forecasting

Projections must incorporate pending receivables, scheduled payables, payroll runs, and credit line interest. Emma reads AR aging reports, AP due dates, and budgeted payroll schedules. She then calculates upcoming net cash flow in Excel or specialized software like Cashforce, spotting potential shortfalls or surpluses well in advance.

Step 3

Intercompany & Cash Pooling

Large organizations frequently shift funds between subsidiaries to optimize working capital. Instead of waiting for manual requests, Emma triggers transfers when a subsidiary dips below a set threshold. This ensures global liquidity remains balanced, reducing costly overdrafts or idle balances.

Step 4

Payment Optimization

Knowing exactly when to pay bills can yield early-payment discounts or avoid interest fees. Emma flags invoices nearing discount deadlines, scheduling early payment if there’s enough liquidity. This dynamic approach helps finance teams maximize savings. Tools like Coupa Pay or Tipalti can orchestrate these payments seamlessly.

Step 5

Investment & Financing Decisions

Surplus cash may be invested short-term, while deficits require bridging loans or lines of credit. Emma presents CFOs with recommended moves (e.g., deposit surplus in a money-market fund vs. pay down a high-interest loan). By pulling real-time data from TMS solutions, Emma ensures decisions reflect current market rates and company financial health.

Tax Compliance & Filings

Preparing and filing taxes—income tax, sales tax, VAT, payroll taxes—on time and accurately. Non-compliance risks audits, penalties, and reputational damage.

Gather Taxable Data

Companies must compile revenue, expenses, payroll figures, and any allowable credits or deductions. Manually extracting these from multiple systems or states can introduce errors. Emma aggregates relevant data from the ERP and expense systems (like Vertex or Avalara for sales tax), ensuring a unified dataset.

Tax Calculation & Allocation

Complexities multiply when dealing with multi-jurisdiction sales or multiple product/service tax rates. Emma applies region-specific rules—like US state or city taxes, or European VAT—based on location data. This step alone can eliminate hours of research and manual classification each cycle.

Prepare Returns

Most tax authorities (IRS, HMRC, etc.) accept electronic returns. Emma pre-populates e-file forms with relevant figures, checks them for consistency, and flags any missing data. Integrations with Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE or CCH Axcess simplify the entire tax return generation process.

Review & Submission

Tax managers typically review final forms before filing. Emma notifies them that the return is ready, highlighting potential anomalies (sharp spikes from prior periods or large negative balances). Once approved, Emma submits electronically to the authority and retrieves confirmation notices, storing them securely.

Audit Trail & Documentation

Tax agencies can audit anytime. Emma automatically organizes all supporting documents—receipts, invoices, general ledger data—tagged to each return in secure drives like Box or SharePoint. This thorough digital archive allows quick retrieval if the tax authority questions any entry, safeguarding the company against prolonged audits.

Audit & Regulatory Compliance

Adhering to financial regulations (GAAP, IFRS, Sarbanes-Oxley, etc.) and responding to internal or external audits. Strong compliance fosters trust among shareholders and regulators.

Firms typically have policy manuals or internal controls that staff must follow. Emma centralizes these documents in a repository (e.g., SharePoint or Confluence), ensuring everyone references the latest versions. She can also track acknowledgments, logging which employees have reviewed updated policies—vital for SOX compliance.

Auditors (or internal compliance teams) test controls (e.g., verifying that no single person both initiates and approves a payment). Emma simulates these checks by analyzing user roles in the ERP or scanning transaction logs for suspicious patterns. Tools like AuditBoard or Galvanize (HighBond) integrate with Emma to produce quick control compliance reports.

Any major regulation—SOX, IFRS 16 for leases—has multiple requirements (documentation, sign-offs, data retention). Manually verifying each can be a full-time job. Emma sets up triggers for each compliance requirement and checks them off automatically as tasks are completed. This proactive approach avoids last-minute compliance scrambles.

External auditors request massive amounts of documentation (journal entries, bank statements, reconciliations). Emma compiles them into an organized folder or platform like BlackLine. This short-circuits the back-and-forth that usually dominates audit season, cutting down the time auditors spend chasing or reviewing incomplete records.

If an audit identifies weaknesses (e.g., missing approvals), Emma logs them and schedules remediation tasks. She ensures that each fix is tracked—like introducing multi-factor authentication for certain transactions or reassigning user roles—and verifies completion. This continuous improvement cycle preserves compliance integrity year-round.