The Institute of Financial Operations & Leadership (IFOL) is pleased to announce its participation in the upcoming EMPOWER 2026 conference event taking place on 24-25 September 2026 at the Crowne Plaza, Winnersh, UK. FISCAL Technologies, the event host, is approaching its 20th year in the AP, P2P, and shared services space, and is currently focused on providing value and accuracy to clients through its AI-driven platform.
IFOL has a long-standing partnership with FISCAL Technologies. Paul Taylor, IFOL’s O2C Education Lead, notes, “We share a commitment with FISCAL to help finance and procure-to-pay teams improve performance, strengthen their capabilities, and position themselves for change.”
Building Value Together
This year’s EMPOWER theme is “Humans and AI, Building Value Together.” The goal is to explore how people and artificial intelligence must work in sync to bring the greatest benefit to their AP and P2P organizations.
While finance solutions powered by AI are becoming ever more pervasive, technology alone won’t elevate an organization to best-in-class status. That requires teams who are confident, capable, and well-informed. “Modern technology is a formidable tool, but it’s just that — a tool,” says Taylor. “It’s the combination of leading edge software and knowledgeable humans that can make a finance organization a true powerhouse.”
In fact, it’s this perspective that drives IFOL’s partnership with FISCAL Technologies. IFOL is dedicated to training finance professionals with the knowledge and job skills to productively leverage AI-driven tools and data. However, their skillsets must also encompass a variety of other responsibilities, including maintaining positive business relationships, problem resolution, process improvement, and regulatory compliance — human-powered insights for improving the organization’s reputation and potentially increasing ROI.
“The synergy between automation and people parallels the relationship between FISCAL and IFOL,” explains Taylor, “and it’s what we’ll be exploring at EMPOWER this year.”
What You’ll Learn at EMPOWER 2026
This year’s conference offers numerous informational sessions to help attendees get their heads around the practicalities of finance solution implementation. Major themes include:
Informed transformation. While automation offers a lot of positive change, finance teams often underestimate what’s involved and what they need to do in order to prepare. That can lead to a disconnect between what’s expected and what’s actually delivered. You’ll explore those challenges through the insights of panelists with considerable real-world experience.
The practical side. Here, you’ll take a look at transformation from a real world perspective rather than from a theoretical standpoint. For example, organizations must get finance automation to integrate smoothly with the organization’s ERP system. Then there’s the impending mandate for e-invoicing that must be addressed, not to mention the pace of change that’s flowing into automated finance systems. How can organizations manage all that while experiencing only minimal business disruption?
Data and decision-making. Data in and of itself doesn’t reveal much unless it’s interpreted as real-world, actionable information. For example, what does the available data tell us about late payment issues? How can you use public sector spend data to make better decisions? What’s a realistic approach for automation transformation that doesn’t require burning everything down and starting over?
Lessons learned and what’s ahead. It’s always useful to hear the perspectives of those who have experienced a transformation firsthand — their thought processes, their successes, their biggest problems and the strategies for overcoming them. You’ll hear these stories, and learn about future challenges experts think will be top of mind in the months to come. Whether you already have AI automation in place or are just considering it, you’ll get valuable and actionable information.
The Human Side of the Equation
Paul will be among the those presenting the panel discussion, “Practicalities of Implementing Finance Solutions.” His focus will be on such important questions as:
- Where should an organisation start in its transformation journey?
- What distinguishes true transformation from simply implementing a new system?
- Should you automate an inefficient process and then fix it, or redesign it first?
- How can finance leaders re-envision their team’s roles to complement new technology?
That last question is of particular importance to IFOL, since it speaks to the benefits of professional training.
It’s easy to get bogged down in the features — and complexity — of new technology. But it’s essential to come at it with a more expansive vision. Yes, technology can be transformational, if done right. But that won’t happen without human support, innovation, and vision.
That’s where IFOL comes in. A finance team must be prepared through enhanced skills and capabilities to master the new system, and find ways to leverage the benefits it can bring, among them better, faster, and more insightful reporting; less time spent on clerical tasks; enhanced fraud detection; more time for relationship building and envisioning the future. This will enable the team to create productive, sustainable improvements to their processes. IFOL’s training and certification programs are specifically designed to prepare finance professionals for these opportunities and their future roles. We’ll help you jump start your transformation process.
Learn More
Come and talk to us. If you’re attending EMPOWER 2026, meet the IFOL team to discover how our certification and training programs can help you strengthen your skills, develop your finance team and prepare for transformation.
Get IFOL certified. Preparing for the future of finance and its rapidly evolving technology landscape isn’t something you want to take on alone. Let IFOL help by teaching you best practices and imparting you with the knowledge and confidence to help move your organization — and your career — forward.
Leading a team? IFOL’s Enterprise Academy offers your entire finance team unlimited access to certifications for all roles: accounts payable and P2P; accounts receivable and O2C; leadership; fraud prevention; and more. This all-in-one solution provides an initial skills gap analysis to help you understand where training will bring the greatest benefit, and is more economical than one-off certifications.
