Introducing Copilot for Finance by Microsoft
Microsoft recently announced that they will be releasing a Copilot chatbot that can perform key duties assisting finance professionals on tedious and time-consuming tasks. Microsoft Copilot for Finance is a whole new experience that provides financial personnel with AI-assisted competencies from within productivity applications they use daily, including Outlook, Excel, Teams, and more.
There is already a Copilot for general-purpose industrial use in Office applications, along with Copilots designed for sales and customer-service employees. With this in mind, Microsoft says the goal is to have a Copilot enabled for every department of an organization.
Benefits of Copilot for Finance
The main tasks that Copilot for finance will initially be able to perform consists of running a variance analysis, reconciling data in Excel, and speeding up the collections process in Outlook. However, additional features are expected to be released later this year.
On average, thousands of people within the financial world spend one to two hours each week completing reconciliation. However, with the new Copilot for Finance, this task will take about 10-20 minutes per week. This allows employees to spend less time on tedious tasks, and more time on increased engagement activities and making valuable contributions to the company.
In addition to saving time, Copilot for Finance can help reduce the risk of errors and missing unidentified variances. With Copilot, you can detect outliers and highlight variances rather than manually reviewing large data sets for unusual patterns.
Users can also interact with Copilot for Finance by typing a prompt in natural language and asking questions. By doing this, Copilot can help understand forecasts and data by directly pulling insights from across companies ERP and financial systems. Similar to other Copilot experiences, users can easily check source data to ensure transparency.
Microsoft’s Experience with Copilot for Finance
Microsoft didn’t just deploy this new technology without trying it out for themselves first! They chose a treasury team within their organization who focused on accounts receivable, as well as a team in financial planning and analysis to pilot their new tool. After utilizing the data reconciliation tools in Copilot, it was clear to the users that this tool displayed great value for any financial team.
Gladys Jin, Senior Director Microsoft Finance Global Treasury and Financial Services, states “The accounts receivable reconciliation capabilities help us to eliminate the time it takes to compare data across sources, saving an average 20 minutes per account. Based on pilot usage, this translates to an average of 22% cost savings in average handling time.”
Next Steps
With this this new tool, finance professionals can reimagine the way they work by getting back to delivering insights and driving business growth. Ready to take the next step to enhance your financial journey?
Microsoft Copilot for Finance is now available for public preview! Users can explore the public preview demo, OR learn more here. Let’s have a conversation, contact us today!