In today’s technological world, reconciliations remain a critical control process for financial organisations. As firms extend their product offerings, grow transactional volumes, increase market coverage, undergo mergers, introduce new systems and adhere to emerging regulations, their reconciliation footprint grows in complexity. Very often this is under the prospect of diminishing budgets and the demand for greater efficiency.
The progression and development of automated reconciliation solutions has enabled firms to tackle these challenges in a way that wasn’t possible in the days of spreadsheets. AutoRek, a leader in operational transformation, has provided clients with a scalable, fully automated, end-to-end financial control and reporting platform.
Given the nature of financial operations, and particularly the data that firms manage, considerable human interaction remains central to the successful completion of daily reconciliation processes.
The emergence of new technologies, specifically Artificial Intelligence (AI), now offers a path towards the next generation of automated reconciliation platforms. Moving reconciliations from rule-based automation – to intelligent, collaborative, responsive and adaptive co-working solutions with staff responsibilities.
Introducing… AutoRek ARIA
Harnessing the opportunities presented by AI has been realised in the development of the AutoRek Intelligent Agent: AutoRek ARIA.
AutoRek ARIA narrows the gap between rule-based automation and manual intervention by identifying and addressing persistent inefficiencies within the process. Operating
as a digital co-worker, AutoRek ARIA can understand context, interpret questions in natural language, analyse task status, matching performance and error messages, all to provide detailed guidance and support to human users.
Reconciliation teams are therefore freed up to focus their oversight on vital analysis and decision-making.
AutoRek ARIA is a set of advanced skills structured upon a specific set of user personas, with the aim of supporting each persona’s responsibilities. The introduction of intelligent collaboration targets the remaining efficiency gap by marrying repetitive tasks with advanced technological capabilities.
The initial set of persona’s supported by AutoRek ARIA are the Help Assistant, Reconciler, Manager and Developer.
The AutoRek ARIA Help Assistant supports all users by providing intelligent access to technical documentation and product articles. AutoRek ARIA understands user questions in natural language and will provide assistance based on the information found in the help documentation.
Exception management remains one of the more manual stages of an automated reconciliation process. The AutoRek ARIA Matching Assistant transforms this step for Reconcilers. By learning from the history of manual matches carried out within a reconciliation, AutoRek ARIA will identify patterns in the data and surface exceptions which follow the same logic for the user to review and act upon.
Reconciliation Managers rely on clear oversight of processes with access to actionable insights. The ability to identify bottlenecks quickly is essential for meeting daily processing timelines and approaching payment deadlines. AutoRek ARIA puts this control directly in the hands of Managers.
Managers can interact directly with AutoRek ARIA to interrogate the latest status of execution schedules and workflow cases. AutoRek ARIA will also assist Managers by troubleshooting errors identified across tasks and provide essential guidance on how they can be resolved.
AutoRek ARIA supports the role of the Developer within the platform. This comes in the form of assisted configuration development and best practice analysis. Developers can engage directly with AutoRek ARIA to configure new reconciliations or to create new objects.
Developers will also receive valuable insights from AutoRek ARIA into where solution configuration deviates from considered best practice. AutoRek ARIA will provide guidance on the actions to be taken and links to help documentation which detail optimal configuration.
The future for automated reconciliations
Reconciliations are an essential financial control process which underpin confidence in processes, data, and regulatory compliance. Working in collaboration, humans and AI can deliver the most effective reconciliation control process, helping to achieve operational excellence and deliver strategic value for organisations.
AutoRek ARIA has been created to provide assistance and intelligent support for all reconciliation staff. Targeting where advanced technologies can be used to augment the user’s role, rather than replace it. AutoRek ARIA will execute repetitive tasks and provide actionable data insights, allowing users to focus their attention on critical thinking and key decision-making.
Learn how AutoRek ARIA can transform your reconciliation capability. Book a demo today!