Finance and accounting teams are already cashing in on automation — with faster closes, fewer errors, and more time for analysis.

Our new report, “The ROI Of Finance Automation,” kicks off Forrester’s Finance & Accounting Automation research series. It’s your blueprint for turning automation from a buzzword into a boardroom win. We show you how to build a business case that gets funded fast.

Why This Matters — And Why Now

Finance automation isn’t just about productivity improvements. It’s about:

  • Freeing up finance talent for strategic work instead of invoice firefighting.
  • Cutting costs by retiring outdated, high-TCO systems.
  • Unlocking working capital through early payment discounts.
  • Staying compliant across multiple countries across the globe without breaking a sweat.

Why now? Advanced AI — including agentic AI and generative AI — is the game changer. These technologies are powering next-gen automation capabilities like intelligent invoice matching, predictive cash flow, and autonomous exception handling. The result? Faster ROI, smarter decisions, and a finance function that drives growth instead of just closing the books.

The Acme Story: Use Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) Framework To Calculate The ROI

To make it real, we modeled a fictional global enterprise using Forrester’s Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) framework. After implementing modern AP automation, they have achieved ROI 111% with Payback in under 6 months. Forrester clients can use our Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) to calculate your own finance automation ROI.

A conceptual graphic showing the four pieces of Forrester’s TEI model — benefits, costs, flexibility, and risk — and the elements that comprise them. Benefits consists of people, process, and technology; costs consists of quantified value and defined metrics; flexibility includes opportunities created for the future; risk includes uncertainty and the impact of assumptions.

What’s Next

This report is just the start. Coming soon, we will publish a series of finance automation reports:

  • Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) Model For Finance Automation
  • Gauge Your Finance Automation Program Maturity
  • Top Agentic AI use cases for AP automation
  • Top Agentic AI use cases for AR automation
  • The state of e-invoicing and tax compliance

Forrester clients can read the full report and  request a guidance session or inquiry with us.