AI Becomes CFO Consigliere as Focus Turns to Cash Flow Forecasting

For CFOs, generative artificial intelligence (AI) has made the leap from mere curiosity to an offering that can be applied to change the very nature of decision-making surrounding enterprise payments.

In an episode of PYMNTS TV, and as part of the monthlong PYMNTS B2B Outlook 2030 event, Ahsan Shah, SVP, AI/analytics at Billtrust, spotlighted the ways in which AI-powered business payments networks can drive efficiency in uncertain times — reducing days sales outstanding (DSO) and leading to improved cash flow forecasting.

Generally speaking, Shah said, AI has been around for decades, and has been used to train data in a supervised learning environment. But more recently, in the past few years, the revolutionary shift has come with generative AI, which, through whole language foundational models, has opened up a wealth of new opportunities for enterprises.

With generative AI, he said, “You are able to just take these models ‘off the shelf.’ … “You can use it everywhere, because it can write, create and code things.” That creational mindset, he said, can personalize the experience of buyers, and within the organization itself can be used to forecast cash flows. Indeed, AI can be used throughout an organization, becoming so pervasive that its spread is akin to the spread of electricity.

Changing Role of the CFO

Harnessing technology to improve the organization itself is of critical importance, Shah said, to CFOs, who are finding their roles are changing. Case in point: Shah said that he’d recently met with a number of CFOs who told him that their roles have greatly expanded.

“The CFO is now front and center of attention for most companies,” Shah said. But historically those same executives struggled with data analysis, with gleaning insight from a broad range of fragmented data sources and systems — and they want to augment their payment teams with new AI capabilities and tools.

Billtrust, operating as a B2B provider of software, has seen that CFOs wind up taking their individual paths as part of their respective firms’ evolutions. By and large they are seeking to do more with technology and relatively flat organizational structures to improve cash flows and supply chain relationships.

“A year ago when I would talk to a CFO,” Shah said, with a nod to AI, “they often did not know where to begin. Now they are at the point where they know that [the technology is] there. They know that it’s a value driver,” and they are examining and discussing, within the firm, how AI might be used.

“They now have the ability to use AI,” to circumvent training, coding and building large engineering teams to harvest and synthesize vast amounts of data, “and get to faster insights and actions” as they seek to maximize cash flows. The AI models on offer from Billtrust, he said, can help answer the basic questions of how to spot new growth opportunities and to maximize cash flow, while spotting pain points before they become trouble spots.

He offered up the example where Billtrust’s customers might see some “drift” in payments over time, where a buyer may have been quick to pay but now is lagging, perhaps because they are being impacted by macro conditions, or perhaps terms might need to be adjusted. AI, he said, can be harnessed to offer actionable and proactive strategies via AI-powered accounts receivable functions, such as grace periods or a lower cost of card acceptance — in effect creating those personalized payment options.

“It’s in early innings still, but we’re moving at a rapid pace,” Shah said, as Billtrust continues to educate its client firms about what AI can do for them.

Over the longer term, Shah said, work will be “shifted” within organizations, as 80% of manual tasks can be done by AI — freeing those employees to turn their efforts toward creativity within their companies.

AI is “a creative enabler, Shah said. “It’s a team member, and it’s not going to take away that human creativity.”

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