How to use Microsoft 365 Copilot in finance – Your workday reimagined #Finance

CYNTHIA JOHNSON: Finance teams play a crucial role in guiding a company’s growth and success. Financial processes span the company and support business strategy, keep

organizational health in check, and ensure Compliance with financial regulations. At the same time, many Finance tasks can be mundane, repetitive, and

manually intensive. Microsoft 365 Copilot supports Finance teams by surfacing insights required for strategic decision-making and it reduces time spent on simple tasks. Copilot connects with

their work data and is available in the productivity tools that Finance teams use every day, generating insights and actions in real-time. For example, Copilot helps with analysis in Excel,

especially with uncovering new functions and capabilities. It also supports common tasks, like meetings, gathering requirements, and creating reports. You can take Copilot even further with the Microsoft 365 Copilot #1a73e8; text-decoration: none;">Finance agent and custom agents built in Microsoft Copilot Studio, providing additional functionality to streamline business processes. Copilot has the potential to transform critical bold; color: #1a73e8; text-decoration: none;">Finance processes, such as planning, analysis, Risk Management, and procurement. Streamlining these processes can deliver measurable improvements to key performance indicators that most

style="font-weight: bold; color: #1a73e8; text-decoration: none;">Finance organizations are already tracking. First, Copilot can help Finance teams reduce Days Sales Outstanding by

improving processes, such as billing and collections, enhancing communications with customers, and assisting with the analysis of payment options. Next, Finance teams can get the benefits of

AI by extending Copilot into ERP and other line of business systems to provide easy access to data without performing expensive updates. Finally, Copilot can help Finance teams automate

repetitive, labor-intensive tasks, to free up valuable time, and reduce outsourcing spend. Within Microsoft, the Finance organization has been using Microsoft 365 Copilot, the

href="https://cashnews.co/finance" style="font-weight: bold; color: #1a73e8; text-decoration: none;">Finance agent, and custom agents to enhance many business processes. Some key improvements have been a 50 percent reduction in contract review time and a 75 percent time

Savings on Compliance reporting. In fact, analysts have reduced data reconciliation by an average of 20 minutes per account. Copilot is helping to strengthen the none;">Finance team’s role as a key strategic partner to Microsoft’s business units and improve insights and decision-making. At Microsoft, we’re putting Copilot to the test every day to deliver value to our color: #1a73e8; text-decoration: none;">Finance team and make jobs more fun. I’m excited to have Shali Lan here to share her experience and some of the value Copilot can offer none;">Finance teams. She is a Senior Data Solutions Manager on the Finance team. Hi, Shali. Thank you for being here. SHALI LAN: Hi Cynthia. Thanks for having me. CYNTHIA JOHNSON: Can

you start by telling us a little bit more about your role here on Microsoft’s Finance team? SHALI LAN: Sure. My job on the bold; color: #1a73e8; text-decoration: none;">Finance Audit Risk and Compliance team involves building analytics solutions, developing data strategies, and providing decision-making insights to support audit and other Compliance activities. CYNTHIA JOHNSON:

Amazing. It sounds like you always have a million things going on. Can you tell me a little bit about how you and your colleagues in Finance have been using Copilot? SHALI LAN: Sure. One of

my favorite way to use Copilot is to get help writing DAX code in Power BI. Power BI is so important for us in analyzing and presenting information to the teams we support, and I’m always trying to get more efficient at using it. As you can see here, I can just enter a simple prompt, like,

show me which store has the highest sales, and then it will write the DAX code for me. Then I can run it and see the results. This is just a simple example, but Copilot can create code for more complex queries. It really reduced the learning curve for getting the most value out of Power BI. CYNTHIA

JOHNSON: Nice. I bet that saves a lot of time, and it probably enables some valuable insights, too. SHALI LAN: Yes, creating a new dashboard is so quick now, but it’s not just about saving time. We strive to help our business partner make better decisions by providing clear insights. Using

Copilot in Power BI really helps with that. Now, everyone can get creative with their reporting and not be held back by lack of technical know-how. Speaking of creativity, Copilot is great at helping brainstorm new ideas in Whiteboard. Here I’ve entered a prompt to suggest ways the audit team

can use Copilot. It generates an extensive list. Once we have all of our ideas captured, Copilot can organize them into categories. CYNTHIA JOHNSON: Kicking off a brainstorming session is such a great use case. You can get past that initial phase where people don’t really know what to say.

What are some other ways that you’re using Copilot? SHALI LAN: We’re excited about using the Microsoft 365 Copilot Finance agent as well. It’s the next step

in our journey, where we can use a Copilot built precisely for the work we do daily, like data reconciliation and variance analysis. For data reconciliation, I just select the data source I want to compare. It automatically aligns the data categories, but I can edit them if I need to. Then it

creates the reconciliation report with details of the discrepancies. I can copy the summary right into the report, and finally, it will help investigate each transaction. CYNTHIA JOHNSON: I can only imagine how much easier that’ll make your life, saving time, creating all the index match

statements, and then having Copilot create the report for you. How much time do you think you personally save each day using Copilot? SHALI LAN: My job is different every day, but no matter what I’m doing, I found ways to use Copilot to help, whether it’s writing reports, finding

information, or doing things like the Power BI analysis I demoed. I will say I save 30-40 minutes on an average day, but there are times where I can save hours with just one prompt. Like, if I’m writing a macro in Excel, and I don’t know how to do what I want. Instead of going to

Research, I just ask Copilot and then it writes great code for me. Things like that can save hours. CYNTHIA JOHNSON: That’s incredible. I just finished business school and having Copilot for the past year has been so helpful, helping me to get some of that time back to complete all those

Excel case analyses. What about you? What do you do with the extra time you get back? SHALI LAN: With Copilot helping me save time on repetitive work, I can focus more on analysis to help provide the information our decision makers are looking for. CYNTHIA JOHNSON: With that time that you spend on

additional projects then, what are some of the biggest impacts that you see for your team and for Microsoft as a whole? SHALI LAN: Copilot has been a game changer in terms of productivity and efficiency for text-decoration: none;">Finance at Microsoft. It has enabled us to complete tasks much faster and then with greater accuracy, such as summarizing meetings and the quick data insights. CYNTHIA JOHNSON: Awesome. Is there any advice that you would give to a

href="https://cashnews.co/finance" style="font-weight: bold; color: #1a73e8; text-decoration: none;">Finance person that is new to Copilot or maybe a Copilot champion looking to drive adoption in text-decoration: none;">Finance? SHALI LAN: Yes. Three things I would say. First, get familiar with Copilot. Second, use it. Try to integrate Copilot into daily workflow, such as data analysis, drafting e-mails, and the report generations. The third, share it. Help others on your team

to get started with Copilot. What helped me and my team were regular learning sessions. CYNTHIA JOHNSON: That’s great advice. We saw that the Finance team at Microsoft has experienced a

50 percent reduction in contract review time and a 75 percent time Savings on Compliance reporting. In fact, analysts have reduced data reconciliation an average of 20 minutes per account. Shali, what advice can you give

style="font-weight: bold; color: #1a73e8; text-decoration: none;">Finance teams looking to reimagine their processes? SHALI LAN: Sure. I have a few things that can help. First, focus on efficiency and then cost optimizations. Implementing AI tools, like Microsoft 365 Copilot, can greatly reduce

manual tasks. As you mentioned, using Copilot for data reconciliations saved an average of 20 minutes per account, leading to a 22 percent reductions in handling cost. Automating this repetitive task enabled text-decoration: none;">Finance team to focus on strategic activities. Second, take advantage of opportunities for automation. We use AI to enhance process, like data collections, contract management, and invoice capture. Improving this process not only speeds up financial insights but also

ensure data accuracy and consistency. Third, promote continuous learning and sharing. We have Copilot champions within each Finance team that we can work with to get the most out of Copilot.

The champions encourage everyone to integrate Copilot into their workflows. Regular learning sessions and sharing best practice can help maximize the benefit of Copilot. CYNTHIA JOHNSON: That’s such great advice. Shali, thank you so much for sharing your Copilot experience with us. SHALI LAN:

My pleasure. Thank you for having me. CYNTHIA JOHNSON: For everyone watching, hopefully you’ve gotten some inspiration to leverage Copilot to drive Revenue growth, optimize costs, and help your text-decoration: none;">Finance team thrive. To learn more about how Copilot is transforming business processes, reach out to your Microsoft team. Thank you for joining us.