Top 10 AI Tools Every Finance Professional in Salt Lake City Should Know in 2025

Salt Lake City finance teams face the same AI tide reshaping CFO roles worldwide - automation, richer data analytics and tighter risk controls - so local professionals who pilot AI can turn repetitive close tasks into strategic insight, not layoffs.

Industry research shows AI can speed invoice and reconciliation work from hours to minutes and improve predictive forecasting, fraud detection and credit assessment, all critical for Utah's growing banking and fintech scene.

Finance leaders should treat AI as a strategic investment with measurable ROI - start with a single use case, build governance, and scale - advice echoed by global CFOs and practitioners.

For hands-on skills, Salt Lake finance pros can learn practical prompt-writing and workplace AI workflows through the Nucamp AI Essentials for Work syllabus to run safe, high‑impact pilots that deliver clear wins.

Bootcamp	Length	Early-bird Cost	Details
AI Essentials for Work	15 Weeks	$3,582	AI Essentials for Work Syllabus (15-Week Program) | AI Essentials for Work Registration

“CFOs have evolved to be not only financial stewards, but also strategic drivers of sustainable, financial and digital transformation. They are navigating heightened stakeholder demands for transparency, increasingly complex disclosure requirements, and a growing talent gap.” - Jill Klindt, World Economic Forum

Selection for the Top 10 tools centered on what matters most to Salt Lake City finance teams: real integration with ERPs and Excel, enterprise-grade security and governance, measurable ROI on a single pilot use case, and scalability as organizations grow - criteria echoed across industry guides that recommend starting by identifying specific requirements and vetting vendor credibility and integrations (see CloudEagle's vendor evaluation checklist).

“The Association for Institutional Research (AIR) uses Vena Copilot to quickly access financial information.” – Charles McCumber, Director of Finance, AIR

For Salt Lake City finance and HR teams eyeing sensible AI adoption, Workday's next‑gen Workday Illuminate™ and the extensible Workday platform offer a practical path from automation to insight: Illuminate is built on the world's largest, cleanest HR and finance dataset and uses role-based AI agents (Expenses, Recruiter, Optimize) to surface anomalies, automate approvals, and orchestrate cross‑process work so teams can spend more time on strategic analysis instead of manual chores; one customer example shows 7,500 hours saved on submitting expenses.

Paired with Workday Extend and partner-built apps, local finance leaders can tailor workflows that integrate with existing ERPs and Excel-driven reporting, speed close cycles, and improve compliance with always‑on auditing and data lineage.

Learn more about Illuminate's AI agents and responsible approach on the Workday AI page and see how the Finance suite turns continuous forecasting and anomaly detection into action in the Workday Financial Management overview.

"The business world is in the midst of a tectonic shift, excited about the immense potential of AI while also struggling to implement it in a way that drives meaningful results," said Carl Eschenbach, CEO, Workday.

For Salt Lake City finance teams juggling fast growth, multi-entity bookkeeping, and tighter audit windows, Brex packages corporate cards, treasury tools, and AI-powered expense management into one practical platform that cuts busywork and surfaces the exceptions that matter most.

Brex Assistant uses LLMs and L3 payment data to auto-generate receipts, populate memos and attendees, and route in‑policy spend so managers only review true anomalies - its AI can even flag a suspicious “vodka” line when “alcohol” isn't visible on a receipt - freeing up hours for analysis rather than chasing paperwork.

Issue virtual cards with spend limits, sync transactions to NetSuite or QuickBooks, and run natural‑language queries like “marketing expenses > $200 without receipts last month” to find issues in seconds.

Local finance leaders can pilot Brex's automation for faster closes, stronger controls, and cash management (Brex also offers banking and treasury features), and explore details on Brex AI and its expense management platform to see which workflows to automate first.

Metric	From Brex
Estimated hours saved	~4,000 hours (illustrative)
Employee policy compliance	~99% (illustrative)
Customer reach	30,000+ companies

“I love how easy it is to close out expenses. We're saving several hours on expenses every month, and we've seen the employee compliance rate skyrocket.” - Candice Chow-Gamboa, Chief of Staff, Heirloom

QuickBooks Online now packages AI features that matter for Salt Lake City small businesses and their accountants - from smarter bank feeds that suggest partial or combined matches and category recommendations based on full bank descriptions and your history to AI-powered reconciliation that can import a PDF statement for a three‑way match and flag issues for review; see the QuickBooks guide to QuickBooks AI suggestions for matching and categorizing bank transactions.

The new Accounting Agent/Intuit Assist works as a co‑pilot with Ready‑to‑Post batching, context gathering (magic links and client requests), anomaly detection (those little blue “sparkles” that call out irregular jumps), and invoice automation that Intuit says can speed collections (Intuit Assist reminders help customers get paid ~5 days faster).

For Utah bookkeepers juggling monthly closes, these tools cut reconciliation guesswork, reduce miscategorized tax items, and free time for advisory work - start by testing Ready‑to‑Post and the AI reconciliation on one account to prove time saved before scaling across your practice; learn more about the agent lineup in the Intuit Assist and AI agents overview.

Plan	AI highlights
Simple Start	Automated bookkeeping, Intuit Assist basics
Essentials	Accounting Agent features, Ready‑to‑Post
Plus	AI reconciliation (BETA), anomaly detection, P&L insights
Advanced	Finance Agent, forecasting, project & reporting agents

“Intuit AI bridges the gap in collaborative client work, helping us speed up the close process without sacrificing accuracy - a dream come true for accountants and business owners.” - Jan Haugo‑Vuicich

Anaplan's Connected Planning platform turns disconnected forecasts and manual spreadsheets into a single, agile FP&A engine that Salt Lake City finance teams can use to plan faster, test multiple futures, and tie financial targets to operations in real time; the platform's AI‑infused scenario modeling and analytics help surface which assumptions matter most so leaders can act with confidence rather than guesswork.

Built for cross‑functional planning - from finance to supply chain, sales and workforce - Anaplan's FP&A solutions bring PlanIQ, Predictive Insights and Optimizer-style capabilities to improve forecast accuracy and recommend optimal decisions, while Excel users can keep familiar workflows via the Anaplan Excel plug‑in.

For local pilots, start with a focused use case (rolling forecast, headcount modeling, or demand-driven cash planning) and evaluate how connected planning shrinks the strategy‑execution gap described in Anaplan's FP&A research; learn more about the product and connected planning on the Anaplan Financial Planning & Analysis page and the Connected Planning overview.

Plan	Core FP&A highlights
Basic	Dashboards, platform APIs, ETL connectors, mobile access
Professional	Application lifecycle, audit, MyPages, DocuSign integration
Enterprise	Advanced optimization, HyperConnect, expanded support (HyperCare)

Salt Lake City finance teams juggling client calls, board reviews, and tight month-ends can treat Fathom as two practical tools in one: the free, fast AI meeting assistant that records, transcribes and produces summaries in under 30 seconds (saving roughly 20 minutes per meeting - about 1.5 weeks back per year) and a full-featured reporting, forecasting and consolidation platform built for three‑way cash forecasts and management reports.

Use the meeting assistant to capture action items, share clips with stakeholders, and sync summaries to CRMs or Zapier, then feed consolidated numbers into Fathom's reporting suite for branded management reports, 90+ charts, and driver‑based scenario forecasts that play well with QuickBooks, Xero or Excel - see the meeting product at Fathom AI meeting assistant and explore reporting & forecasting capabilities on Fathom reporting and forecasting features.

With SOC2 attestations, granular access controls, and both generous free and team plans, local finance leaders can pilot meeting capture and end-to-end analysis without heavy IT lift - freeing time for insight, not transcription.

Plan	Highlights	Price
Free	Unlimited recordings, transcription, basic summaries	Free
Premium	Unlimited AI summaries, action items, Ask Fathom, CRM/Zapier	$19/user/month
Team / Enterprise	Shared folders, org-wide views, SSO, advanced security, coaching & pipeline analytics	$29–$39/user/month

“Being PRESENT in a meeting while not missing anything important is PRICELESS” - Jenn Hood

For Salt Lake City finance teams wrestling with month‑end headaches and sprawling spreadsheets, BlackLine's cloud Financial Close solution offers an enterprise-grade route to faster, audit‑ready closes: automated account reconciliations, high‑volume transaction matching, and journal entry posting that link straight back to ERPs like NetSuite, SAP and Oracle so local controllers can stop chasing versions and start interpreting results.

Customers report AI and rule‑based automation that can automatically match up to 99% of transactions, cut reconciliation time by roughly 85% and speed the month‑end close by as much as 70%, turning what used to be late‑night spreadsheet marathons into a single dashboard that highlights exceptions and ownership in real time.

For Utah organizations with multi‑entity footprints or heavy audit demands, BlackLine's task orchestration, centralized audit trail and built‑in compliance controls make it a natural fit; explore the product tour on the BlackLine Financial Close page and the TEC deep dive into BlackLine's features & modules to map which modules to pilot first.

Metric / Capability	From BlackLine Research
Automated transaction matching	Up to 99% matched automatically
Reconciliation time reduction	~85% faster
Faster month‑end close	~70% faster
ERP integrations	SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, Sage

“We can hit refresh and see a report in seconds. Plus, management has on‑demand access to the information instead of us emailing spreadsheets.” - Michelle Soss, Associate Controller

Salt Lake City finance teams looking to tighten T&E controls should consider AppZen as a practical, audit-first tool that automatically audits 100% of expenses in real time - validating receipts, flagging duplicates, and checking merchant and attendee data against external sources so problems are caught before reimbursement.

AppZen's models surface suspicious spend (FCPA and Sunshine Act checks included), rein in foreign expenses across 42 languages and 97 countries, and plug into common stacks with a pre‑built Concur integration and card-provider connections to minimize integration lift; the platform's AI Agents can automate roughly 50% of T&E reviewer work and customer case studies report auto‑approval rates (and big time savings) in production.

For Utah controllers balancing rapid growth and audit readiness, AppZen turns sprawling expense files into a single, rules‑backed workflow that routes only true exceptions to managers and accelerates month‑end certainty.

Capability	From AppZen / AWS
Audit coverage	100% of expenses, real‑time / prepayment auditing
Global reach	42 languages, 97 countries
Automation / ROI signals	AI Agents automate ~50% of tasks; case study auto‑approval rates reported (~60%)
Starter pricing (example)	12‑month subscriptions start at $25,000 (AWS Marketplace)

“The reason that we wanted to go with AppZen was the ease of use and implementation alongside [our EMS]. We had a lot of things missing in our process, and things like finding duplicates couldn't be done by our team alone. AppZen has completely changed the way we audit, now.”

Kensho, the AI innovation hub inside S&P Global, packages a set of practical services Salt Lake City finance teams can use to turn messy filings, call transcripts and PDFs into timely, decision‑ready data: Scribe for real‑time, high‑accuracy transcription, NERD to identify and disambiguate companies, people and events, Extract to convert complex PDF tables into machine‑readable rows, and Link to map local counterparties to S&P Global company IDs.

These tools are built to tame unstructured information - Scribe claims a ~25% accuracy improvement over other services and 99%+ accuracy after a professional review - so analysts and controllers can search, correlate and connect sources instead of manually retyping them; explore more on the Kensho Solutions page or read the Kensho NERD case study with S&P Global to see research and trading use cases.

Capability	From Kensho
Scribe transcription	~25% accuracy improvement; 99%+ with review
NERD entity linking	Identifies companies/people; links to Capital IQ / Wikimedia (~100M entities)
Extract	Convert PDFs/tables to machine‑readable data

“Without Kensho NERD, our research study would not have been feasible or relevant.” - Dr. Alex Zhang

Salt Lake City finance teams juggling customer billing, collections and client communications can use Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) as an all‑in‑one, AI‑enabled CRM to tighten transactional messaging and boost cash flow - from reliable order confirmations and payment receipts to SMS reminders for overdue invoices or appointment confirmations.

Brevo's Aura AI speeds content creation, smart segmentation and send‑time optimization so teams can automate high‑touch workflows without losing the personal touch, while the platform's transactional email features keep critical notices flowing (transactional messages have far higher open rates and prevent the exact trust problem Brevo cites - “if you buy a laptop for $2,000 but receive nothing in your inbox, trust is damaged”).

U.S. users should note Brevo's SMS automation notes on compliance (toll‑free registration required for U.S./Canada SMS) as they set up invoice reminders or payment links; explore the product and Aura AI at Brevo AI-enabled CRM and Aura AI, read Brevo's transactional email best practices, and learn how to automate SMS sends for order updates and reminders in Brevo's SMS automation guide.

“Brevo gives us the functionality and flexibility we need to manage our marketing engagement as well as our sales pipeline while saving us $30,000 annually compared to HubSpot.” - Kevin Yen, Head of Growth at AI Camp

Degreed offers Salt Lake City finance teams a practical route to future-ready skills by combining AI-driven personalization, measurable skill data, and curated pathways tailored to finance needs like regulatory compliance, cybersecurity, big data and DeFi; its Degreed Maestro engine acts as a 24/7 AI coach (text and voice) that recommends role‑specific pathways, runs skill assessments, and curates practice opportunities so staff spend less time hunting for courses and more time applying new capabilities - imagine a bench of mentors on call that nudges learners toward exactly the training needed to close a compliance or analytics gap.

For Utah organizations building skills programs, start with a targeted cohort (e.g., fraud detection or data‑driven forecasting) to measure change and ROI using Degreed's analytics - see Degreed Maestro's AI features and the platform's Financial Services use cases to map pilots that scale across teams.

An LMS is like the frozen food section - a bunch of prepackaged cold learning resources. An LXP is like a community garden in the middle of the forest. There's a ton more fresh content that's growing there, and there's so many more options.

Salt Lake City finance leaders can move from worry to measurable wins by following a few practical steps: form a cross‑functional AI committee, pick one high‑value pilot (for example expense automation or a rolling‑forecast test), set clear KPIs and timelines, and lock down governance and data access before scaling - advice echoed in regional and industry guides.

Invest in structured learning so teams can run pilots with confidence: the University of Utah Developing an AI Strategy for Your Business executive course teaches roadmaps, governance and KPIs (University of Utah Developing an AI Strategy for Your Business executive course), while the Nucamp AI Essentials for Work syllabus teaches practical prompt skills and workplace workflows to get non‑technical staff productive fast (AI Essentials for Work syllabus).

Tap local momentum - network with vendors and peers at the upcoming AI‑Native Banking and Fintech Conference in Salt Lake City (AI‑Native Banking and Fintech Conference in Salt Lake City) - and treat each pilot as an experiment: measure time saved, accuracy gains, and customer or member impact, then iterate.

The goal is simple and local: convert repetitive tasks into repeatable, auditable workflows that free finance teams to advise rather than archive, and make Utah organizations more competitive in the four phases of AI adoption.

Bootcamp	Length	Early‑bird Cost	Links
AI Essentials for Work	15 Weeks	$3,582	AI Essentials for Work syllabus | AI Essentials for Work registration

“Following the success of last year's conference, we are excited to host the AI-Native Banking and Fintech Conference again,” said John Sun, CEO of Spring Labs.