Finance & procurement
The finance work people still do by hand.
See the repeat work behind invoices, payments, approvals, purchasing, and the monthly close. Pick one job with real examples and a clear right answer.
This is an inferred reference inventory for functional mid-market finance and procurement teams. It describes recurring work patterns, not a claim about any particular organization.
- Starts with
- A request, invoice, payment, exception, or reporting question arrives.
- Moves through
- Someone checks the records, applies the rules, fixes missing details, and asks the right person to approve.
- Ends with
- A payment, balance, report, or exception is ready for a person to review.
Find one job people repeat.
These lists show computer-based work a team may repeat every day, week, or month. Pick one job with clear examples and a person who knows what a correct result looks like.
Finance operating model
Set the operating rules, ownership boundaries, and review cadence that keep finance work consistent across teams and systems.
- Define finance service catalog
- Maintain finance process map
- Assign process owners
- Define approval authority matrix
- Set month-end calendar
- Set payment calendar
- Set procurement intake rules
- Publish close responsibilities
- Run finance operating review
- Review policy exception trends
- Update delegated authority records
- Escalate ownership gap
Spend and vendor intake
Collect the context needed to assess new spend and vendor relationships before commitments enter the purchasing system.
- Intake spend request
- Classify spend category
- Assess vendor need
- Run vendor onboarding
- Validate vendor identity
- Collect vendor tax form
- Collect vendor banking details
- Screen vendor sanctions status
- Review vendor terms
- Assign vendor owner
- Approve vendor activation
- Escalate incomplete vendor intake
Purchase requests and approvals
Turn a proposed purchase into a documented request with the budget, business need, and approval path required to commit spend.
- Create purchase request
- Validate request coding
- Check available budget
- Confirm purchasing channel
- Route request for approval
- Run PO approval
- Review nonstandard terms
- Approve capital purchase
- Approve emergency purchase
- Return request for clarification
- Reject unsupported request
- Escalate overdue approval
- Amend approved purchase request
Procure-to-pay
Coordinate requisitions, purchase orders, receipts, and payment-ready records so authorized spend can move through one traceable path.
- Convert request to purchase order
- Issue purchase order
- Confirm supplier acceptance
- Track purchase order status
- Record goods receipt
- Record service receipt
- Amend purchase order
- Close fulfilled purchase order
- Close cancelled purchase order
- Monitor unreceived purchase order
- Review spend against purchase order
- Reconcile receipt and order status
- Escalate aged open purchase order
Invoice intake and matching
Capture invoices, preserve source evidence, and match supplier charges to purchase and receipt records before posting or payment.
- Receive supplier invoice
- Register invoice metadata
- Validate invoice legal entity
- Validate invoice tax fields
- Match invoice to purchase order
- Run three-way match
- Match invoice to service receipt
- Apply contract pricing
- Validate duplicate invoice risk
- Route matched invoice for approval
- Post approved invoice
- Hold invoice pending receipt
- Escalate invoice without source record
Invoice exceptions
Resolve mismatches and missing evidence with the requester, supplier, and approver while preserving the reason for each disposition.
- Run exception resolution
- Resolve invoice exception
- Resolve price variance
- Resolve quantity variance
- Resolve tax discrepancy
- Resolve duplicate invoice alert
- Resolve missing purchase order
- Resolve missing receipt
- Resolve invalid cost center
- Resolve currency mismatch
- Request supplier credit memo
- Approve documented exception
- Reject unsupported invoice
- Age and prioritize invoice queue
- Escalate unresolved invoice case
Payments and cash controls
Prepare payment runs, verify cash and banking controls, and keep release decisions with accountable people.
- Prepare payment proposal
- Review payment due list
- Validate payment beneficiary
- Check payment hold status
- Check cash availability
- Review payment segregation
- Approve payment batch
- Run payment release
- Confirm payment file transmission
- Record payment settlement
- Investigate returned payment
- Reissue failed payment
- Review bank change request
- Escalate payment control breach
Close and reconciliation
Bring subledgers, bank activity, accruals, and account balances together so close progress is visible and supported by evidence.
- Open close checklist
- Confirm close task ownership
- Perform account reconciliation
- Reconcile bank activity
- Reconcile accounts payable subledger
- Reconcile accounts receivable subledger
- Post recurring journal entry
- Prepare accrual entry
- Review prepaid schedule
- Review fixed asset activity
- Review intercompany balance
- Manage close blockers
- Review late close task
- Approve close adjustment
- Sign off close package
Budgeting and variance
Maintain budget assumptions and investigate differences between plan, committed spend, actual results, and the latest forecast.
- Collect budget submission
- Validate budget assumptions
- Review department budget
- Review committed spend
- Run variance review
- Review budget variance
- Investigate forecast variance
- Document variance explanation
- Approve budget transfer
- Approve supplemental funding
- Refresh rolling forecast
- Reconcile plan and forecast versions
- Escalate material unexplained variance
Financial reporting and planning
Produce decision-ready reporting from controlled records, with clear definitions, review checkpoints, and a documented planning trail.
- Prepare management reporting pack
- Prepare monthly financial statements
- Prepare cash flow forecast
- Prepare operating expense report
- Prepare headcount cost report
- Prepare spend dashboard
- Validate reporting period
- Reconcile report to ledger
- Review reporting adjustments
- Publish approved finance report
- Collect planning scenario
- Review planning assumptions
- Escalate reporting discrepancy
Tax, audit, and evidence
Keep tax filings, audit requests, and control evidence complete, traceable, and ready for accountable review without overstating what a record proves.
- Prepare indirect tax return
- Review sales tax treatment
- Review use tax exposure
- Prepare tax payment support
- Respond to tax authority request
- Open audit request list
- Assign audit request owner
- Assemble audit evidence
- Validate evidence period
- Review control evidence package
- Track evidence submission
- Resolve auditor follow-up
- Escalate missing audit evidence
Finance data governance and exceptions
Maintain trustworthy finance master data, definitions, access boundaries, and exception records across the systems that carry financial decisions.
- Maintain chart of accounts
- Maintain cost center hierarchy
- Maintain vendor master record
- Maintain payment terms
- Maintain tax code mapping
- Maintain approval routing rules
- Reconcile finance system records
- Monitor integration sync
- Investigate duplicate master record
- Investigate missing transaction data
- Review finance access change
- Review data retention exception
- Document metric definition
- Resolve reporting data exception
- Escalate recurring data-quality issue
Keep the decision with the accountable reviewer.
- Evidence before approval
- Each request, invoice, payment, and adjustment carries the source records, policy checks, and unresolved questions a reviewer needs.
- Human-controlled release
- People approve vendors, purchase orders, exceptions, payment batches, journal entries, and close sign-offs at the authority boundary.
- Exception ownership
- Mismatches, missing records, aged queues, and control breaches receive a named owner, due date, disposition, and escalation path.
The 3-Day Working Build
Which finance job could we test this week?
Bring 5–10 real examples and the rules your team follows. Three days later, watch a working version handle the agreed test.