AI solution to make financial reconciliation efficient launched

Financial institutions across the country have been encouraged to leverage modern technology in their operations to ensure optimal financial management because it enhances efficiency, accuracy and transparency in financial processes. 

The Head of Project Management and Corporate Development of CWG Ghana, Oluwaseun Layade, stressed that advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and automation streamlined tasks such as account reconciliation, fraud detection and transaction monitoring, reducing human errors and operational costs.

He was speaking in Accra recently at the launch of an AI enabled software which makes financial reconciliation easy and efficient for financial institutions.

Dubbed; “CLIREC” it was developed by technology solutions provider, CWG, in partnership with a Nigerian firm, Precise Financial Systems (PFS). 

The event brought together representatives from various banks and financial institutions who were taken through the rudiments of the technology.

Financial reconciliation is the accounting process by which two different data sets are compared to verify whether the information within them is accurate. Reconciliation is an important business accounting practice because it ensures the reliability of a business' financial records.

Benefits

Mr Layade noted that financial reconciliation had always been a major hurdle for many financial institutions due to its time-consuming procedure..

“This is a major problem that a lot of organisations have when it comes to reconciling accounts at the end of the day. It's usually manual or semi-automated. But with the CLIREC, account reconciliation solution, this is a fully automated system that even today is built on AI,” he said.

“As we know, everything right now is AI. So the goal is to ensure that our customers are able to have ease as far as their account reconciliation is concerned,” he added.

He, therefore, encouraged businesses to adopt the new systems to make their process more transparent and robust to achieve greater results.

“So when you now have a world-class automated solution like this, for a solution that has been sold in over 40 countries, that gives you an impression of the power of the solution, to be able to meet the needs, and be able to address that issue of public-private sector,” Mr Layade said.

Efficiency

The Deputy Managing Director of PFS, Philip Ayeni, emphasised that using the programme would free up and allow employees to focus on higher-level strategic activities leading to improved efficiency and productivity, as fewer staff members would be needed to perform routine checks.

“This system allows you to carry out your investigation in a very efficient manner, very reliable manner. That's all we have. Streamline your processes, streamline your system, you train your staff, you segregate it,” he said.

“You don't have a single person responsible for reconciliation from the beginning to the end. The data input can be segregated from the matching to exercising of judgment, depending on the nature of the account, even to access of numerous reports,” Mr Ayeni added.

The Deputy Managing Director of PFS also said the partnership with CWG was a testament to what African companies could achieve through collaborative efforts.