Q&A with Adem Turgut at SolveXia
As a CFO or finance leader you are constantly being asked for more. More insights, more analysis, more communication. You are probably aware that the only way to ‘do more’ is to free up time through automation of business-as-usual tasks such as reporting and reconciliation. This is where SolveXia can help, having been doing so for clients globally since 2008.
Having met with hundreds of companies over the last 10 years, a recurring theme has been a desire to increase reconciliation automation. The initial driver often being to increase staff availability; however, the benefits expand much further such as less training for new staff, reducing manual data errors and minimise fraud risk.
Establishing cost-effective systems for seamless integrations not only enhances flexibility but also unlocks the potential to engage with multiple banks, payment companies, and fraud solutions. No longer do you have to rely on a single, costly provider because your finance team couldn’t handle another data point to reconcile.
Payments Consulting Network Associate for Melbourne, David Johnston, interviewed Adem Turgut, CEO of SolveXia Pty Ltd, to discuss the company’s trajectory, the importance of automated reconciliation, and what the future of reconciliation will look like.
DJ: Please provide a brief high-level overview of your business.
AT: SolveXia has been helping finance professionals be more productive and successful at work by automating mission-critical processes for over 15 years. Our low-code platform reduces data preparation and analysis complexity and risk by automating finance, tax and compliance processes.
We have customers in APAC, EMEA and North America, including financial services, fintech and retail companies. These organisations use our platform to automate reconciliations, rebates, data preparation, regulatory reporting and financial modelling.
DJ: What payments services do you offer merchants and not-for-profit organisations in Australia?
AT: Many organisations in Australia use our platform to automate their payment reconciliations. Our platform allows finance teams to run their reconciliations up to 100x faster and with 98% fewer errors.
DJ: Why is there a need to automate payment reconciliations?
AT: While offering many payment methods and distribution channels enables revenue generation and enhances the customer experience, they complicate the reconciliation process. With increasing numbers of payment service providers and transaction volumes, the need for automated reconciliations intensifies. By automating payment reconciliations, companies can minimise hours of manual spreadsheet work, overcome complications caused by timing differences and increase financial control.
DJ: Are there any industry sectors or client types that you focus on for merchant services?
AT: We automate processes across different industries, focusing on financial services, fintech and retail. For us, the more complicated your reconciliation is, the better!
DJ: What do you see as your key strengths and differentiators with respect to your industry and merchant services?
AT: When looking for a reconciliation solution, many companies consider ERPs or off-the-shelf-tools. ERPs often lack flexibility and struggle to effectively integrate into diverse ecosystems, while other reconciliation tools may struggle to adapt to complex use cases.
Key differentiators for SolveXia are its ability to handle complex scenarios, employing a no-code/low-code approach for ease of use and flexibility, offering robust data management capabilities, advanced matching rules, being an open platform for interoperability, and its ability to handle high transaction volumes.
What sets SolveXia apart the most from other tools is its extensibility across the Finance function. Not only does this decrease the total cost of ownership, but it empowers your team to seek efficiency gains across different reconciliations and other finance processes. Additionally, our solution is completely customisable, we offer personalised implementation and customer support to provide a bespoke solution aligned with the company’s specific requirements and needs.
DJ: What were your key achievements over the last 12 months in merchant services?
AT: A big client win over the last 12 months was 7-Eleven Philippines. Their team in the data processing centre have automated their daily three-way reconciliation across two payment gateways, the POS system, and the bank. Using SolveXia, the team is completing their reconciliation up to 100x faster, enabling them to divert more time to analysis, while reducing fraud.
New product features include native connectors to systems like NetSuite ERP, OneDrive and Sharepoint. This makes it easy and seamless to integrate our reconciliation solution with the core systems and file storage tools for our customers.
DJ: What merchant services innovations do you have on your product/service roadmap for the next 12 months?
AT: We are ramping up our AI capabilities. Without giving too much away, think of things like real-time anomaly detection and AI-generated matching rules for reconciliations.
DJ: What key criteria or features should a business consider when evaluating automation solutions?
AT: When evaluating an automation solution, the following features should be considered:
- No-code/low-code: Ease of use for any skill level
- Scalability and agility: Ability to grow with your business use cases and adapt to change.
- Total cost: Of ownership and extensibility across your finance processes.
- Implementation: Time to deploy and necessary training.
- Governance and security: Audit capability and approval checks.
DJ: What industry changes or trends to do you see occurring over the next 2-3 years that will have a major impact on your business and/or your clients?
AT: The first major industry change I see is AI’s increased prevalence. While we hear about AI all the time, I think we have only just scratched the surface. Over the next 2-3 years, AI will continue to take shape and change how finance teams operate. AI and machine learning will continue to decrease the need for manual intervention, while continuing to improve analytics and insights.
The second thing we’ll see in the next 2-3 years is that companies that don’t automate are left behind. Organisations that don’t embrace automation and digital transformation will struggle to keep up with their competitors and face challenges in delivering the level of service and accuracy that stakeholders such as regulatory bodies, investors and boards may expect. Failing to adopt automation will also bring about other issues, such as talent retention as skilled finance professionals will prefer to work in an organisation where they can focus on more strategic tasks, the inability to adapt to market changes, difficulty scaling with business growth, increased risk, and a lack of financial control.
Reconciliation automation forms the backbone of a company’s financial operations. Streamlining and automating reconciliation, through services such as those provided by experts like SolveXia, ensures fast, efficient and secure reconciliation giving a company’s staff time to focus on other areas of the business. With labour costs rising and a shortage of skilled staff, automation doesn’t only make sense, it is almost a must for a business wanting to secure and retain the best staff. No one enjoys manual and tedious reconciliation tasks and having a clunky reconciliation process is seen by finance staff and potential hires as a reflection of your overall business operations.
Author: David Johnston, Associate, Melbourne, Payments Consulting Network
With two decades of expertise in banking and finance across Australia and the Asia Pacific, David has held prominent roles at WBC, ANZ, and NAB. Beyond his banking career, David founded Rubee Pay, dedicated to advancing SME and enterprise payment software, and played a pivotal role in establishing an ISO for an Australian venture capital group, underscoring his entrepreneurial and strategic acumen.
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SolveXia is a member of our Reconciliation and Data Insights Panel.
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