The abrupt shift to remote work rattled many businesses during the pandemic-and hit finance departments especially hard. For a group used to working together as a team in a physical office on time-consuming, manual processes, the prolonged virtual office environment and a blazing fast shift to remote system access disrupted their historical norm of where and how they worked.

As finance teams adjusted, it became clear that technology had changed the game-especially for those that moved at lightning speed to adopt cloud solutions. Distributed teams can now communicate and collaborate virtually, regardless of their work schedule or physical location. Formerly time-consuming manual processes are increasingly handled by machine learning, AI, and robotic process automation. This approach gives employees the time to focus on helping the business make decisions that grow the company.

This evolution of the role of finance makes it a much more interesting and satisfying department in which to work.