Fintechs are celebrated for offering sleek payments solutions, yet they often cling to outdated manual processes for back-office tasks. The primary offender: Excel spreadsheets.

Because of the manual nature of data entry, relying on spreadsheets can have serious negative consequences, including costly mistakes. Manual processes also don’t scale up well to take advantage of the new wealth of data available.

Automation is the key to addressing these issues and ushering in an era of efficient reconciliations and reporting within the payments industry. Automated systems can process vast amounts of data and generate reports and dashboards in real time, thus reducing operational risk. By shifting the focus away from manual data manipulation, teams can dedicate more time to understanding and analyzing data and inspiring more informed business decisions.

In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Marc McCarthy, Chief Commercial Officer at Kani Payments, and Brian Riley, Director of Credit and Co-Head of Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed the benefits of automating back-office processes and how automation not only ensures data accuracy and compliance but also unlocks valuable insights and cost-saving opportunities.

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The State of Reconciliations and Reporting

Payments reconciliation is a complex task in the payments industry, with the need to match countless transactions across various platforms and networks. The process is essential to ensuring the accuracy of financial records, complying with regulatory requirements, and detecting discrepancies or fraud.

Traditionally, companies have relied heavily on spreadsheets and internal systems to handle these tasks. However, the sheer volume and diversity of data—often coming from multiple sources—make manual reconciliation error-prone.

“Approximately 25% of spreadsheets globally contain errors,” McCarthy said. “From a management perspective,