We're living in a time of increased business complexity where supply chains and markets have become ever-more global and interconnected.

And the larger the organization, the more complex the business processes, right? But does business complexity inevitably have to lead to increased burden and inefficiency?

Business complexity creates challenges

Without due care, it's easy for increasing business complexity to allow today's processes to become bloated or even overwhelm a growing organization. And when that happens, mistakes, errors, and inconsistency can all too easily creep in. What tools and techniques can an organization adopt to avoid the pitfalls associated with doing business in today's world?

That's where automation can help.

While automation projects may initially feel like an attempt to cut costs and headcount, perhaps even more important than those gains are the improvements to be realized in standardization, elimination of errors, and providing a solid evidence base for audit. Being able to reproduce the same results each period and demonstrate the process and calculations behind those results without having to manually collate information is invaluable.

Automate processes to bring long-lasting benefits

In recent years, automation tools such as RPA and custom workflows have been employed to remove manual effort and reduce exposure to human error. But these are typically focused on replicating singular procedures. A better and more powerful approach is to look at the end-to-end process and find how these same, repeating monthly processes can be taken from initiation through to completion with touch points only where needed.

In the world of intercompany finance and accounting, end-to-end means the full life cycle from the original business event that triggers the creation of intercompany invoicing through to the ultimate reconciliation and settlement of resulting balances — be that cash settlement, netting, or loan.

Similarly, what intercompany represents in one industry or organization isn't universally applicable elsewhere. So rather than introduce point solutions for each occurrence — whether that's cross charges, inventory shipments, operational transfer pricing, staff secondment, or elsewhere — being able to look at the intercompany function as a whole has huge benefits.

Why is Virtual Trader different?

Virtual Trader is a dedicated intercompany application that automates the whole intercompany life cycle from initiation through to settlement. Rather than tackling just one process or an individual transaction flow, Virtual Trader takes a holistic look at where intercompany occurs in your business and works to automate each and every aspect.

Each of these areas is controlled by highly flexible business rule sets that allow you to configure the system you need without the unwanted restrictions. And because it does this from a single platform, all your business rules are kept in one place; all transactional data is retained, allowing for reporting across the enterprise; and scaling to meet the needs of business expansion or acquisition is easily achieved through rules-based configuration.

Download our presentation to read more about how successful multinationals use Virtual Trader to automate intercompany business processes, remove manual effort, centralize operations, and save time and cost.