Mauritius – as reported by Bloomberg – is recognised as one of the world’s fastest-growing wealth markets with one of the more sophisticated financial systems in Africa – is increasingly moving to improve data analysis, management and operational efficiencies through automation. This is according to Sage Platinum partner, ALNET Technologies.
The Indian Ocean island is actively transforming its business landscape through the adoption of automation software, AI, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to enhance productivity and competitiveness. This digital shift is being driven by a national strategy to become a regional AI leader, with key implementations seen in the finance, manufacturing, hospitality, and administrative sectors. This trend is also reflected in the Mauritian Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) arena where the uptake of Business Process Automation tools for enhanced customer service is reported.
Gary Govender Head of Business Development, ALNET Technologies, notes how one example is how Sage Intacct optimises family office performance by providing cloud-based, multi-entity accounting, reducing close times from weeks to minutes, and enabling real-time, consolidated reporting across investments, trusts, and entities. “It automates complex workflows to enhance efficiency and accuracy, with AI-driven capabilities for improved financial planning, decision-making, and regulatory compliance,” says Govender.
“Information dissemination has become real-time and on demand; however, the challenge for many finance functions, regardless of sector or size of business, is to try and keep pace with all the modern sources of insight and analysis that internal and external stakeholders are receiving. Instantaneous and deeper financial insight is required more than at any other time in history, to respond to these challenges. What is required is an analytical approach that enables management to monitor and measure the development of the important strategic drivers and make decisions with confidence.”
According to Govender, Sage Intacct is the only financial solution to bring the family office a best-in-class cloud accounting solution. “Sage Intacct is built by financial experts for financial professionals and has more than 200 growth firms and family offices around the globe that manage one trillion US$ assets around the world,” he says.
Getting rid of the middle man – spreadsheets
“Real-time reporting is greatly enhanced when the middleman, namely spreadsheets, are eliminated. Disparate sources of data are seamlessly aggregated within a strong analytical tool. This is a tool that can sort, slice, and dice data to answer the sorts of everyday business questions that constantly arise,” Govender confirms.
Automation unlocks time for strategic impact
- Consolidating financial information from spreadsheets for multi-entity, multi-location, and multi-currency organisations.
- Calculating revenue recognition in after compiling project-based time and expense information from sales and HR systems.
- Performing manual data reconciliations and manual data re-entry between systems.
- Calculating allocations using data that doesn’t exist within some traditional accounting systems.
- Processing vendor payments and manually routing paper approval sheets.
Govender says on a global basis CFOs are leading the charge to go digital. “Mauritian CFOs are noted to be increasingly moving to real-time cloud accounting to kick the year off with enhanced financial control, driven by the need for faster, data-driven decision-making, increased efficiency, and robust security. In a fast-paced business landscape, the shift from traditional, legacy systems to cloud solutions—such as Sage Intacct, which allows them to replace tedious manual processes with automation, reducing errors and saving time.
“A PwC study endorses this and reports that, for the majority of CFOs, the digitalisation of the finance function is of great importance. Nevertheless, the digitalisation of the finance sector is often still in its infancy in many companies. The rate of digitisation seems to depend largely on the size and complexity of the organisation with top quartile turnover businesses investing significantly.
“Sage Intacct accelerates efficiency and enables finance leaders to focus on impact by reducing or eliminating the time spent on tasks such as:
- 85% of CFOs believe they will become more involved in strategy and counsel for the overall business.
- 57% predict a surge in collaboration with other senior executives and board members, indicating a move towards a more cohesive leadership model.
- 60% foresee a future where their insights will increasingly influence company-wide strategy.
- 59% of CFOs expect more interaction with the CEO and the board, while 57% predict closer work with CIOs and 55% with CTOs.
Govender confirms that regardless of sector whether it’s healthcare, hospitality or finance, or other, businesses around Mauritius are building on their successes through the implementation of Sage Intacct with impressive achievements in operational efficiencies such as:
- Automation of previously manual accounting work that consumed up to 40 hours a week—15 to 20 hours in accounts payable, and another 20 hours in payroll journal entries.
- Time to close the monthly books down from 30 to 10 days.
- Elimination of 40 hours a week of manual accounting work.
“These are impressive values. Moreover, Sage Intacct reduces budget creation time by 50%, introduces budget vs. actuals reporting, with companies confirming this was not previously possible. Moreover, Sage Intacct delivers new business insights for informed decisions,” concludes Govender.