CFOs are feeling the weight of their roles as the Zuckerberg-dubbed 2024 “year of efficiency” put the pressure on many finance teams to cut costs. It made for a tough year for many in finance and treasury, and according to a recent Oracle and CFO Alliance survey, 80% of CFOs say they feel “stuck in the grind.”
And of course the grass often appears greener (even though it generally isn’t), with over a third of CFOs actively considering leaving their jobs as a result. It’s not just about long hours — it’s about feeling trapped in an endless cycle of operational inefficiencies, mounting expectations, and a lack of meaningful process improvements.
While improving efficiency is something businesses always need to be doing, there have been some common issues with the implementation of it in recent years. For many companies, it’s just meant cutting costs and freezing or reducing headcount, leaving finance leaders and their teams overstretched and under-resourced.
True efficiency isn’t just about cost-cutting. It’s about simplifying operations and removing friction. The key to escaping the grind isn’t squeezing more out of your existing resources, but instead finding ways to work smarter by streamlining data, automating routine tasks, and creating scalable financial processes.
On a theoretical basis, you probably already know that, so in this article we’re going to look at practical steps to help you get out of the grind.
Breaking free from the burnout cycle
Most CFOs and their teams don’t need to be told that their workloads are increasing. What’s less discussed is how much of that work is low-value, time-consuming, and ultimately avoidable. According to Travelers’ 2024 study of over 600 CFOs, 62% said strategic planning for the future is the most valued skill for those in their position. But that’s only possible if you have the time and resources to do it.
Treasury and finance teams spend far too many hours manually reconciling accounts, gathering bank data, and consolidating information from a range of different systems. These are tasks that could be automated with the right tech infrastructure.
Many companies know they need to modernize their finance operations but get stuck in analysis paralysis, debating which tools to implement, worried about integration challenges, and hesitating to disrupt business as usual. But the status quo isn’t working either, and companies who are taking the lead on technology integration are opening up a measurable gap against their competition.
Finding efficiency through simplification
There’s a common misconception that digital transformation means replacing people with technology. The reality is that the best finance teams use technology to amplify their capabilities, not replace them. Yes, over time that should mean smaller and leaner teams can do the work of a much larger one, but this can be done in the form of slower hiring practices and natural attrition as tech becomes integrated.
AI and automation should free up time for higher-value work, not just reduce headcount.
Think about how many hours your team spends on tasks that don’t require deep financial expertise. Downloading bank statements, formatting reports, reconciling transactions, and searching for missing data. These aren’t strategic activities, yet they dominate the day-to-day workload. Reducing headcount might save money in the short term, but it doesn’t reduce the amount of work that needs to be done.
To be clear, in my view integrating technology the right way shouldn’t aim to deliver the same work quality at a reduced cost. It should act as a growth lever to improve margins and drive increased enterprise value. It’s playing offense, not just defense.
For companies that get this right, the payoff is massive. Cleaner data leads to more accurate forecasts, real-time reporting enables faster decision-making, and automation reduces errors and inefficiencies that can slow down the entire finance function.
That all sounds great, but the challenge is that many companies struggle with implementation. According to a survey from Deloitte and the Institute of Management Accountants, integration is the biggest barrier to AI adoption in finance, with nearly 20% of executives citing it as a major challenge.
The good news is that there are plenty of practical steps you can take to maximize your chances of success in integrating new technology into your finance and treasury departments.
10 practical steps for escaping the grind
While every business is different, there are some fundamental concepts that will apply to most.
1. Evaluate your data infrastructure and processes
The first step is to determine where data issues exist within your current tech stack. What solutions are you using now? Where are they falling down? What inefficient workarounds do you have to use? Where is your team spending their time?
This step should be pretty easy, just ask your people what their biggest problems are. No matter how efficient your organization is, there is almost sure to be a list of annoyances, inefficiencies and time-intensive processes that your team would love to change.
2. Eliminate manual workflows
With a clearer understanding of your existing position, you can look to automate high-volume, low-value tasks like cash reconciliations and reporting. Anything that involves spreadsheets or the movement of data from one database to another has the potential to be automated.
This is the low-hanging fruit of efficiency gains. For example, Eventbrite saved 48+ hours per month of employee time with Trovata by implementing bank data aggregation with open banking APIs.
3. Streamline financial data management
One of the key aims of a digital transformation or automation project should be to consolidate financial data into a single source of truth. This serves not just to help your people find the data they need quicker and easier, but it offers spillover benefits across the whole organization. With a consolidated financial dataset, departments can be fully aligned on budgets, progress and performance.
4. Implement a phased integration process
It can be tempting to try to overhaul your entire back office in one fell swoop. Indeed, many enterprise ERP providers will attempt to do just that, but this runs the risk of an implementation process that costs a huge amount, takes months to complete, and potentially fails due to the sheer scope of the project.
Instead, tackle one system and process at a time. Start with high-impact, quick-win opportunities that drive immediate value, using those successes to build momentum for broader transformation and future investments. With those quick wins you’ll get better buy-in from your team and senior management, giving the project the best chance for success.
5. Invest in skill development
As we’ve discussed, tech isn’t about replacing people, it’s about making them able to do better work, more valuable work, and more fulfilling work. To do that, they need the training and upskilling on the tools which will form the basis of a modern treasury and finance team. Not only can this allow you to get more out of your existing team, it can help you recruit the best in the future.
A 2023 joint report by the AICPA & CIMA and PwC showed that for 63% of those surveyed, promotion and career advancement was the main motivation behind a move to a new company, ahead of an increase in salary. Even more telling, of the respondents who said that upskilling programs do exist in their company, only 17% wanted to leave their current roles.
There are many avenues for finance teams to invest in their development and learn about the latest technology. For example, the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) hosts an annual and several regional conferences every year, during which finance teams can hear about successful transformation projects from their peers.
7. Prioritize UX
It can be easy to be blinded by feature lists when shopping for new software. Obviously features are important, but more does not always equal better if all those features aren’t accessible. If you want your organization to embrace new technology, you need it to be easy to use, so user experience (UX) should be at the top of your list when considering options to modernize your treasury and finance operations.
As part of this, you’ll want to opt for treasury and finance platforms that integrate easily into existing workflows rather than requiring complex, costly implementations.
6. Make it a team effort
I’ve mentioned buy-in a couple of times already, and that’s because it is absolutely central to successful digital transformation. Cross-departmental collaboration should start well before the integration of new software. You need every team within the business to understand why better financial data will help them to reach their own objectives.
Then, rather than attempting to push the importance of data on them, you’ll all be pulling together to integrate it effectively.
A CFO’s path forward
To get out of the grind, CFOs and finance leaders need to shift their focus from reactive problem-solving to proactive strategy, and the only way to do that is by eliminating the manual, time-consuming tasks that dominate their day-to-day work.
Modern treasury and finance technology can play a key role in making this shift happen. With real-time data access, automated reconciliations, and AI-powered insights, finance teams can stop spending their days getting the numbers to add up, and start working on how to improve them.
The companies that act now — prioritizing simplification, automation, and integration — will be the ones that stay ahead of the competition.
