The Findings
Your department's reality. Everything the FDE found, organized so leadership can absorb it in 2 minutes.
How 280 People Actually Spend Their Time
60% of this department's time goes to work that agents can handle. 12% requires human judgment. 8% is the strategic work you hired these people to do.
Process Maps — SOP vs. Reality
Top 12 AP Exception Types
| Type | Freq/mo | Resolution | Repeatable | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PO Price Mismatch | 85 | 2.1 days | Yes | AP Analyst |
| Missing Goods Receipt | 72 | 1.4 days | Yes | AP Team Lead |
| Duplicate Invoice | 68 | 0.5 days | Yes | AP Analyst |
| Quantity Variance | 55 | 1.8 days | Yes | AP Analyst |
| Missing PO Reference | 48 | 3.2 days | Yes | AP Specialist |
| Tax Calculation Error | 42 | 1.1 days | Yes | AP Analyst |
| Vendor Master Mismatch | 38 | 2.4 days | Yes | Controller |
| Currency Conversion | 35 | 0.8 days | Yes | Treasury |
| Freight Charge Dispute | 28 | 4.5 days | No | AP Team Lead |
| Payment Terms Mismatch | 25 | 1.6 days | Yes | AP Analyst |
| GL Code Misclassification | 22 | 0.9 days | Yes | AP Analyst |
| Approval Threshold Exceeded | 18 | 2.8 days | No | Controller |
70% of exceptions follow a repeatable decision pattern. 30% require human judgment. Agents handle the 70% on day one and pre-assemble context for the 30% so human decisions take minutes instead of hours.
Risk Register
Depends on one person's personal vendor name mapping across 3 ERPs. When she's out, reconciliation stalls. No backup, no documentation.
Undetected until external audit. No internal validation or automated matching. Potential restatement risk.
Team misses 2/10 eligible discount terms because invoices aren't processed fast enough. Estimated $3.6M/yr in missed savings.
Same vendor exists under 4 different names across systems. No deduplication, no master record, no cross-system ID mapping.
No consolidated view across 14 entities until controller manually checks each Excel file. 3 entities consistently miss deadlines.
Ramp and Concur running in parallel across different entities. Neither integrated with NetSuite. Creates duplicate processes and reconciliation overhead.
Cash position assembled manually every morning, delivered at 10:30am, already shifted from overnight settlements. CFO making decisions on outdated data.
Leadership decisions based on data that's 30+ days old by the time FP&A delivers the variance package.