82% of Real Estate CFOs Plan to Digitize Multiple AR/AP Functions

More than half of the chief financial officers in three industries say the importance of boosting the overall lifetime value of customers has increased during the pandemic.

According to The Strategic Role Of The CFO Playbook, a PYMNTS and Versapay collaboration based on a survey of 400 finance department leaders, 55% of CFOs from the real estate industry, 55% of CFOs from the industrial/manufacturing industry and 73% of CFOs from the wholesale trade industry say boosting lifetime value of customers has become more important.

Get the report: The Strategic Role Of The CFO Playbook

Wholesale trade CFOs rank this as the highest among six goals included in the survey. Real estate and industrial/manufacturing CFOs rank it third in importance behind overseeing projects with major financial impact and shaping potential long-term strategy.

In order to boost the overall lifetime value of customers, most CFOs plan to digitize multiple accounts receivable (AR) and accounts payable (AP) functions. That’s how the greatest share of CFOs from all three industries plan to go about doing that, with 82% of real estate CFOs, 77% of industrial/manufacturing CFOs and 73% of wholesale trade CFOs saying they plan to digitize multiple AR/AP functions to improve the value of their customer relationships.

Substantial percentages of the CFOs also plan to make AR/AP more transparent, more efficient and more understandable.

Transparency and efficiency are also among the key benefits CFOs expect to see out of AR/AP digitization. The largest share of CFOs from the industrial/manufacturing industry and the real estate industry say greater transparency in AR/AP is a benefit they expect to see from AR/AP digitization.

CFOs from the wholesale trade industry expect to see three benefits: greater efficiencies in AR/AP, better integration across AR/AP and more fully automated operations. Fifty-five percent of wholesale trade CFOs say those are benefits they expect to see from AR/AP digitization.