The financial sector is one of the most heavily regulated and data-intensive industries around, yet a large proportion of day-to-day work is still carried out using Excel spreadsheets, email chains and manual processes. Whether it’s a trust office, a private bank or an asset management firm: the tools are similar, and so is the frustration. We’ll show you how financial firms are using monday.com to digitise their processes and what concrete benefits this brings.
Every finance department is familiar with this Excel problem
Imagine this: the start of the month. The invoicing process begins. Time entries have to be exported from the time-tracking system, manually transferred to the accounting software, invoices created, and then sent by email. Sounds like half a working day? For some teams, it’s a whole one.
Or consider another scenario: regulatory checks that lie dormant in various Excel spreadsheets held by different people. No one knows exactly which checks are currently where, who is responsible for them, or whether the documentation is sufficient for the next audit.
These aren’t exceptions; this is everyday life for many financial firms. And that’s exactly where monday.com comes in.
The biggest problems in the financial sector
1. Invoicing processes – manual and prone to errors
In many trust and consultancy firms, billing is still handled across multiple systems: time tracking here, accounting software there, and in between, a person who has to manually reconcile everything. This takes time, leads to errors and ties up resources that could be put to better use.
2. Approvals and authorisations
A budget request is sent out. Three days later: no reply. Was the email too long? Did the manager overlook it? Was it forwarded, and if so, to whom? In many finance teams, approval and authorisation processes are not a structured procedure, but rather a quiet hope that the right person will open the right email at the right time. No clear responsibilities, no deadlines, no traceability. And when, three months later, someone asks who approved the investment request: no one can remember exactly.
3. Compliance and regulatory controls
The financial sector is heavily regulated. What is less well known is just how time-consuming it is to manage these controls without a centralised system. Stakeholders from different departments, controls spread across dozens of Excel files, decentralised collaboration – and in the end, the auditor asks for comprehensive documentation.
4. Coordination between departments and sites
Decentralised collaboration poses a real challenge, particularly in companies with multiple sites or teams. Differing quality standards and a lack of transparency regarding the current status not only cost time but also erode trust.
5. Reporting takes a lot of time
Quarterly reporting. The very mention of the term is enough to elicit a collective groan from many finance teams. Figures from the ERP system, comments from Excel, visualisations from PowerPoint – all manually gathered, copied together and formatted by hand. And then someone asks for a small adjustment, and the whole process starts all over again. What should really take an hour regularly ends up taking half a day – and that happens all over again with every quarterly close. Below, we’ve got the perfect solution for you: how to create a PowerPoint report in monday.com at the click of a button.
monday.com as a solution for financial processes
monday.com isn’t a traditional ERP system, nor does it replace accounting software. But it bridges the gap between your existing tools, particularly where coordination, approvals and process management are required. And that’s precisely where the greatest efficiency gains are made.
Automated invoicing and system integration
With monday.com as your central hub, you can seamlessly integrate a range of tools. Time-tracking systems such as MOCO, accounting software such as Bexio, automation platforms such as Make and n8n – everything works together seamlessly. The invoicing process is managed directly from monday.com; time entries are automatically transferred, and invoices are generated and sent automatically.
That may sound technical, but in practice it’s surprisingly easy to put into action, and the time saved is enormous.
Central Compliance Board for regulatory controls
Instead of Excel spreadsheets scattered across different people: a central board on monday.com that organises all regulatory checks by department and type of check. Each check has a clear assignee, a status, deadlines and a complete documentation history.
Dashboards display the status of all checks in real time – for team leaders, for management, and, if necessary, for the auditor as well.
Standardised checklists and processes
Particularly valuable in regulated environments: standardised checklists that ensure checks are always carried out to the same standard, regardless of who is in the office or which site is responsible.
Reporting at the touch of a button – straight from monday.com
What if you no longer had to put together your quarterly report by hand? By connecting monday.com and Make, you can generate PowerPoint slides fully automatically – directly from the data already stored in monday.com. One click, and your presentation is ready. No more copy-pasting, no formatting errors, no wasted afternoons.
We explain exactly how this works in our blog post:
monday CRM for financial firms – manage clients, deals and onboarding in one place
In addition to process automation and compliance, monday CRM offers another key benefit: customer relationship management. monday CRM provides a flexible alternative, particularly for asset managers, consultancy firms and trust companies whose existing CRM solution simply does not fit with their own workflows.
All client data, interactions and documents are stored in one place. Leads and client accounts can be tracked in a visual pipeline. Onboarding processes for new clients are standardised using custom forms and automated workflows – including secure document collection. And because monday CRM is fully customisable, it maps the specific workflows of a financial services firm, rather than forcing the team to adapt to a generic system.
In practice: two examples from the Swiss financial sector
Cognito Treuhand GmbH – From a full working day to just a few minutes
Cognito Treuhand GmbH faced a classic problem: monthly invoicing was a time-consuming, manual process. Time recording in MOCO, payroll processing in Bexio – and in between, manual data transfer, invoice creation and dispatch. A whole working day every month.
In collaboration with Blinno, we have developed an integrated automation solution that seamlessly connects monday.com, MOCO, Bexio and Make:
- Automatic synchronisation of company addresses across all systems
- Automated invoicing workflow, managed via monday.com
- Automatic transfer of all unbilled time entries per customer, with the correct application of customer-specific terms and conditions
- Automatic email generation including an invoice and a detailed timesheet
The result: a 95% reduction in processing time. The invoicing process, which used to take a whole working day, now takes just a few minutes and is completely error-free. The solution has proved so successful that it has been adopted directly by two other accountancy firms.
Globalance Bank AG – Regulatory controls taken to a new level
Globalance Bank is an independent Swiss private bank that invests assets with a focus on the future. As a pioneer in sustainable investment, it upholds the highest standards. At the same time, the highly regulated banking sector presented a specific operational challenge.
The starting point: Key checks were managed using Excel spreadsheets, numerous stakeholders were collaborating without a central platform, and the decentralised way of working across different locations led to varying results and quality standards. This posed a real challenge for audits.
Blinno has worked with Globalance Bank to set up a centralised system based on monday.com Work Management:
- Dedicated dashboards with a clear structure organised by department and type of monitoring.
- Permission-based access system: Each employee sees only what is relevant to their role.
- Detailed checklists and standardised workflows to ensure consistent inspection procedures.
- Real-time dashboards for management and compliance officers.
- Full documentation of all activities for audit purposes.
The results speak for themselves: a 40% improvement in overall transparency in the area of compliance, a 30% reduction in the time spent on control measures, and more efficient cooperation between departments – whilst maintaining consistently high standards, even when staff change.
The specific requirements of the financial sector and how monday.com meets them
Regulatory compliance: MiFID, FIDLEG, FINMA and others
Die Finanzbranche operiert unter strengen regulatorischen Rahmenbedingungen. monday.com unterstützt dabei nicht als Regulierungssystem, sondern als Prozess- und Dokumentationsplattform: Jede Kontrolle, jede Freigabe, jede Massnahme wird nachvollziehbar festgehalten. Das erleichtert die Vorbereitung auf Audits erheblich.
Privacy and Security
Financial data is sensitive – there’s no doubt about that. monday.com offers:
- SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certification
- Encryption in transit (TLS 1.2+) and at rest (AES-256)
- EU hosting (Frankfurt) available
- Granular permissions – not everyone can see all the data
- Full audit log: Who changed what and when?
- DSGVO-konform mit Data Processing Agreement
System integration rather than system replacement
A common misconception is that monday.com is intended to replace existing systems. That’s not true. It integrates with them. Using platforms such as Make, you can set up connections to SAP, Bexio, MOCO, HubSpot and many other tools – without any coding required, but with a huge impact.
What does that actually mean in practice?
The results from our projects in the financial sector paint a clear picture:
- Time savings: Manual processes that used to take hours or days are now automated and completed in minutes.
- Error reduction: Automatic transfers eliminate manual transcription errors.
- Transparency: All those involved can see the current status at any time – review status, responsibilities and deadlines.
- Audit trail: Full documentation of all activities, accessible at any time.
- Consistent quality: Standardised processes and checklists ensure consistently high quality – regardless of staffing levels or location.
Conclusion: Managing your finances requires more than just a spreadsheet
Excel is a powerful tool for calculations, analyses and ad hoc computations. But for anything that involves collaboration, approvals, deadlines, documentation and traceability, you need more. monday.com bridges precisely this gap: between your existing systems, between your teams, and between the chaos of day-to-day work and the clarity required by regulated environments.
And the best part is: getting started is easier than you might think. You don’t have to change everything at once. Focus on a specific process or a specific problem, and you’ll soon see what’s possible.
.svg)