Artificial Intelligence will not replace finance professionals […]

Artificial Intelligence will not replace finance professionals but is instead expected to make their work easier, more efficient, and more strategic, according to SAP Southern Africa Solutions.

 This was the central message at the Zambia Institute of Chartered Accountants (ZICA) Pre-Annual General Meeting (Pre-AGM) in Livingstone, where SAP demonstrated how AI is being integrated into finance systems to automate routine tasks while keeping humans firmly in control of decision-making.

Speaking during the presentation, Sthembile Segwale, SAP Southern Africa Solution Advisor, said the role of AI is not to replace jobs but to remove repetitive manual work that slows down key finance processes such as financial close, reconciliations, and transaction processing.

She explained that AI agents can already analyse financial statements, generate reports, and perform intercompany reconciliations while providing transparent, traceable reasoning for every action taken.

Despite this, she stressed that final approvals and oversight remain with human finance teams. The demonstration showed how AI systems can surface reconciliation exceptions for review, allowing accountants to focus only on flagged issues rather than manually matching large volumes of transactions. Segwale added that AI is also transforming Accounts Receivable (AR) and Accounts Payable (AP) processes by handling invoice matching, dispute resolution, payment scheduling, and clearing of outstanding balances tasks that are traditionally time-consuming and labour-intensive.

 In AR operations, the AI assistant can analyse customer accounts, initiate clearing of outstanding items, and send dunning notices where necessary.

On the AP side, it can process supplier invoices uploaded in PDF format and schedule payments within approved organisational controls. She further stressed that role-based access controls remain critical, ensuring AI systems only operate within assigned permissions and maintain strong governance and accountability frameworks.

Segwale cautioned against the use of fragmented or siloed AI tools, arguing that organisations will only realise full benefits of AI if it is embedded into integrated end-to-end finance platforms. According to her, such integration helps reduce manual workloads, shorten financial close cycles, improve accuracy, and allow finance professionals to shift their focus toward analysis, planning, and strategy.

Article by Karen Ngulube