Make (it) in finance: How four Make customers automated their way to efficient, secure data processing

According to McKinsey, 70% of CFOs say excessive manual workload is the biggest barrier to unlocking data value. Meanwhile, PWC reports that automation can reduce time spent on finance tasks by up to 40%. That’s why more and more finance teams are adopting no-code automation, freeing up their teams to focus on high-impact work.

In this round-up, we spotlight four companies that automated invoice handling, simplified cross-platform data flows, ensured compliance in sensitive transfers, and more – all with Make. 

Celonis: Building business system integrations 5× faster with Make

Celonis is a global leader in process mining and execution management, helping some of the world’s largest companies uncover inefficiencies and boost performance. Valued at $13 billion with 3,000+ employees worldwide, it’s trusted by industry giants like Uber, Siemens, and Mars.

The problems

Celonis’ finance team was slowed down by manual, repetitive tasks:

• Legal invoices in Brightflag had to be manually re-entered into Workday, including downloading PDFs, copying data, and reattaching files.

• This manual process tied up Accounts Payable specialists for hours, caused delays, and increased the risk of costly errors.

• Relying on engineering for each finance-related integration made improvements slow and unsustainable.

The solutions

Using Make, the Celonis team transformed its finance operations with automation:

• Built a custom workflow that fully automates invoice handling between Brightflag and Workday, gathering data, attaching PDFs, and submitting for approval.

• Replaced manual invoice re-entry with a five-minute, hands-free process.

• Created reusable Make templates for other finance tasks, like syncing financial data between Workday and Anaplan, or handling purchase requisitions from ServiceNow. Employees can now use automation without assistance from engineering. 

The results

• 5× faster integration delivery across finance workflows

• Fully automated invoice processing, saving hours of manual work per week

• Created and published 10+ custom apps for internal and community use

• Reduced risk of payment delays and human error in Accounts Payable

• Empowered staff to build and maintain automation

“Make changed everything for us. We went from slow, high-effort integrations to a touchless workflow. Faster, more secure, and easier to maintain. It even changed the course of my career, from auditing spreadsheets to designing automation.”

Joe Graboff, Principal Architect of Integrations at Celonis

Fonds Finanz: Saving 10,000 hours of manual back-office work in a single year

Fonds Finanz is Germany’s largest broker pool, supporting over 31,000+ insurance brokers and financial advisors with cutting-edge tools and services. As a digital pioneer of the industry, the company plays a central role in Germany’s insurance ecosystem. 

The problems

Before implementing Make, Fonds Finanz faced growing operational inefficiencies:

• Processing insurance contracts was time-consuming, error-prone, and heavily paper-based.

• Disconnected systems made data flow between tools like Salesforce, SAP, and internal platforms difficult.

• Manually syncing leads from Facebook, WordPress, and multiple CRMs slowed down marketing and sales.

• Social media content creation was manual and inconsistent across brokers.

The solutions

Using Make, Fonds Finanz transformed into an automation-first organization:

• Created a Make scenario that automates contract processing with Document AI.

• Formed a dedicated in-house automation team and empowered staff to automate their own tasks.

• Built no-code workflows to sync lead data, onboard clients, and extract contract details.

• Enabled AI-powered social media automation for people from the insurance industry, from content generation to LinkedIn publishing.

The results

• 10,000 hours of manual back-office work saved in a single year

• Industry recognition with an innovation award for AI-driven social media automation

"Contract assessment and management is a very manual process. An employee had to check everything – extract the insurance holder, extract the premium, extract who is insured, his insurance company, and so on. Then they had to check everything was right in the contract, bring the contract into the system, and send it to the insurance company. We used Make to automate this process."

Jonathan Posselt, Team Leader – Artificial Intelligence at Fonds Finanz

PayWhiz: Ensuring 99.9% uptime and securing payroll data

PayWhiz is a custom payroll and HR service provider based in Brooklyn, NY. 

The problems

PayWhiz faced major challenges in securely handling sensitive payroll data at scale:

• Needed a secure, compliant way to automate file transfers for clients across regulated industries.

• Lacked a flexible automation platform that could integrate with diverse tools and support secure protocols like SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol).

The solutions

By combining the SFTP To Go platform and Make, PayWhiz transformed how it processes and delivers payroll data:

• Used SFTP for secure, encrypted file transfers with 99.9% uptime and full regulatory compliance.

• Leveraged Make’s webhooks to trigger real-time workflows, replacing outdated batch processing.

• Automated tasks like encryption, formatting, file routing, and custom alerts, ensuring fast, secure, and personalized service

The results

• Reduced manual work and eliminated data transfer delays

• Kept sensitive payroll data fully secure and compliant

• Achieved 99.9% uptime while scaling operations cost-effectively

“Make isn’t just a tool for us – it’s the backbone of our operations, enabling us to deliver data securely and instantly while meeting the unique needs of our clients.”

Zev Hershkowitz, CEO of PayWhiz

Bunch Capital: 40% of the team now builds automation independently

Bunch Capital is a German fintech startup building an operating system for private market investors. Trusted by over 2,000 investors and used to manage more than €1.75 billion in funding across 750 startups, it’s reshaping how capital flows in private markets.

The problems

Before Make, Bunch Capital faced key challenges as it scaled:

• Manual processes slowed down operations and onboarding, making it hard to grow efficiently.

• Engineers were bottlenecked by repetitive tasks, while business teams lacked tools to automate on their own.

• Data from tools like customer questionnaires wasn’t structured or actionable.

The solutions

By adopting Make, Bunch Capital empowered its team to automate and scale processes with no code:

• Business team members used Make to automate onboarding, data processing, and operations without engineering support.

• Around 360 automated workflows now run 24/7, built by non-technical staff.

• A company-wide automation hackathon helped identify and launch high-impact solutions in under a day.

The results

• 40% of the team now builds automation independently

• Faster onboarding and internal process execution without developer involvement

"Last summer, we started onboarding customers from a questionnaire, but then we only had the submissions in a huge table and didn't really know how to work with it afterwards. With Make, it's super easy to automate it, so it's not that you have to be very technical in order to do so."

Valeska Pachelbel, Data and Automation Manager at Bunch Capital.

Conclusion

From expense management to payroll, private capital to insurance, these finance teams all faced the same challenge: complex operations, disconnected systems, and too much manual work. By using Make, they turned their finance processes into a strategic advantage, automating workflows, reducing risks, and freeing time for what really matters: growth, accuracy, and scale.

Want to streamline your finance operations and cut manual work?

Start building secure, scalable finance automations with Make today.