How modern finance teams are reclaiming 26 hours per week 

Finance teams are under pressure to deliver financial stability and agility. But sometimes, they’re too busy keeping the ship afloat to look up and see the opportunities on the horizon. 

Manual tasks like cash position monitoring, spreadsheet maintenance, and working across multiple systems make some finance teams feel like they’re constantly busy but never making any progress. In our latest report,  Buried Treasury: Unearthing the Secret to Financial Stability, we uncovered the root of the problem—businesses across Europe estimate they spend 26.4 hours per week on manual treasury tasks. 

These tasks aren’t just inefficient time-sucks. They’re taking time away from treasury’s true purpose — building a resilient, future-proof business. 

Imagine what your finance team could accomplish with an extra 26 hours every week: Leaders can focus on mission-critical work, empowering them to deliver the kind of significant change expected from them. Finance teams can dedicate more time to making informed decisions and maintaining control over cash flow in an increasingly volatile world.  

Below, explore the manual tasks pulling finance teams away from this kind of strategic work. Plus, discover what innovative companies are doing to reclaim this time — and how you can do the same. 

Where focus goes, energy flows: How manual tasks distract from mission-critical work 

Our report found that 51% of finance teams aren’t able to focus on mission-critical work. The reason? They’re too busy putting their energy into time-consuming manual treasury tasks like: 

• Manual payments 
• Manual reconciliations
• Cash position monitoring 
• Monitoring cash overview
• Reporting and spreadsheet maintenance
• Cross-checking data across multiple systems

These manual tasks might seem like an essential part of the finance function, but the truth is, they’re a distraction from the real work of treasury: creating financial stability and agility. 

Find a way to eliminate these manual tasks, and finance teams suddenly have more time to focus on the bigger picture. 

How to identify and eliminate your biggest time-wasting processes 

Ready to eliminate those repetitive tasks and move towards a more streamlined and efficient finance team? Here’s our step-by-step guide to getting it right. 

Step 1: Audit your current processes

Start by mapping out the daily, weekly, and monthly processes that each member of the finance team is responsible for. If possible, ask everyone to track approximately how long they spend on each of these tasks. 

Step 2: Identify labour-intensive manual tasks

Once you’ve created a list of manual processes, highlight which ones take up the most time. For example, maybe your finance team spends hours each week creating manual expense reports, reminding employees to upload receipts, or making manual payments. Focus on eliminating the most labour-intensive tasks first before working your way down the list. 

Step 3: Leverage automation tools

The good news? The same tools that make manual tasks easier can unlock a wealth of new opportunities for finance teams, especially in driving strategic decision-making.

Here’s how spend management platforms like Pleo can help:

• Manual payments: Pleo cards replace petty cash and shared credit cards, reducing the need for manual payment processing.  
• Manual reconciliations: Instantly capture receipts, track spending in real time, and streamline expense approval workflows. 
• Cash position monitoring: Real-time spend tracking makes it easy to monitor cash outflows and current cash position. 
• Monitoring cash overview: Pleo’s dashboard offers a centralised overview of all expenses, making it easy to stay on top of spending.  
• Reporting and spreadsheet maintenance: Automated expense reports and analytics help monitor your company’s finances, no spreadsheets required. 
• Cross-checking data across multiple systems: Sync Pleo with the rest of your tech stack, including accounting systems, for instant access to all the data you need. 

Whatever platform you choose, make sure it integrates with your existing tech stack. If your finance team has to constantly switch between different tools, they may end up returning to manual solutions like spreadsheets instead — exactly what you’re trying to avoid. 

Step 4: Review and optimise 

Eliminating manual processes isn’t a once-and-done type of exercise. As businesses grow, finance teams need to assess whether their current automation tools are working or if any adjustments are required. 

Why automation is the way forward

Automation isn’t just about improving efficiency and reclaiming lost time, although that’s a huge benefit. It reduces the chances of manual errors, which improves the accuracy of financial reporting. But that’s not all — it also helps finance teams gain a competitive advantage. 

By using automation to improve visibility and control over cash flow and finances, it’s easier to find all the details needed to make informed decisions. This helps CFOs and other leaders focus on developing proactive responses to key financial events, identifying spend patterns, and making excess cash work harder. 

This kind of approach helps solidify their roles as change-makers with the power to influence organisational success, drive business growth, and shape corporate strategy. But don’t just take our word for it. Here’s how forward-thinking companies are leaning into automation to transform their treasury processes and, at the same time, free up time for strategic thinking. 

How to overcome potential challenges

Striking the right balance with automation can be tricky, too little limits insights, too much may overwhelm teams. Some leaders also face concerns around training and managing the transition.

To tackle these issues, choose tools aligned with your specific goals identified during the audit phase. Develop a clear change management plan that highlights benefits, provides tailored training, and tracks outcomes. Appointing internal champions or super-users can also support faster adoption through peer-led guidance.

Bonzer: Streamlining month-end accounting 

SEO agency Bonzer initially worked with external accountants for month-end processes, but with operations covering three countries, this involved working with external accountants across different markets. When CFO Johannes Max Fichtner wanted to streamline this process by taking it in-house, he turned to Pleo. 

Our multi-entity feature meant Fichtner could set up accounting integrations for each country. By combining these integrations with other automation tools, Bonzer’s accounting and reconciliation processes can now easily be handled by one person. 

Here’s how much time the finance team is saving each month:

• 5-6 hours: Using Pleo’s Fetch integration to automatically find and upload employees’ digital receipts.
• 1-2 hours: Streamlining Bonzer’s tech stack accounting by using Pleo to consolidate around 200 receipts every month.

This means Johannes has more time to dedicate to the kind of high-level, strategic thinking that his role demands.  

“The core benefit we’re getting from Pleo is more of Johannes, in a strategic context. He has more time to engage with us in more strategic matters, and in the development of the business.”

— Ulrich Svarrer, Founder and CEO, Bonzer

To find out more about how Pleo saves Bonzer 1,000 GBP per month, read our full case study.

Using automation to improve financial accuracy 

The team at The Rocket Scientists, a Düsseldorf-based agency, used to spend hours per month on manual tasks: sorting through paper receipts, submitting expense reports, and reminding employees to submit receipts for their reimbursements.

They knew a better way was possible, so they turned to Pleo. 

Now, invoice processing and receipt management are completely automated, with no time lost to process payments or chase receipts. Because Pleo integrates with The Rocket Scientist’s project management tool, expenses can be automatically linked to specific projects. And no manual data entry means everything is documented, and financial records are more accurate. 

Here’s how much time Pleo is saving

• 3-3.5 days: The finance team used to spend at least five days per month keeping on top of company spend. Now everything is documented and streamlined through Pleo, they only need 1.5-2 days. 

To discover how The Rocket Scientists found the onboarding process, read our full case study. 

Full speed ahead: Why automation helps finance teams chart a course to success 

When finance teams are too busy with mundane, repetitive tasks, there’s no time to look at the bigger picture. Remove that manual, labour-intensive work, and suddenly, there’s time to chart a course toward financial resilience and new opportunities for transformation.  

To discover more about how automation can help your finance team focus on what really matters, download Pleo’s latest report: Buried Treasury: Unearthing the Secret to Financial Stability.