Accelerating financial closes with help from AI agents: A pragmatic guide
The answer is complicated because every business’s books and closing process are different. This means that, despite the growing inventory of AI agents now available on platforms like SAP, it’s unrealistic to expect to “drag and drop” agents into existing closing workflows and have them do what they need.
Instead, many businesses will find that they need to build custom agentic solutions. Often, they’ll benefit from implementing multiple agents targeted at different tasks, e.g., accounts receivable, accounts payable and foreign currency exchanges, along with an orchestrator agent that oversees them all. Each agent will need to be tailored for the organization’s data sources, governance and compliance obligations, etc.
In addition, organizations must carefully define how agents interact with financial systems and employees. While some activities can be automated end-to-end, others require human review and approval to satisfy internal controls and regulatory requirements. Establishing clear workflows, escalation paths and audit trails is essential to ensure that agent-driven processes remain transparent and trustworthy. Organizations also need to invest in testing and validation to confirm that agents produce accurate results and can handle exceptions without introducing new risks into the close process.
