Part of our Finance & Accounting agents
AI agents for finance teams in media and publishing
Actionist is an AI automation tool whose agents operate the apps your publication already uses, from rebuilding the freelance pay run by hand every month to a batch that arrives checked and waiting for your approval.
Publisher finance teams get back the hours lost to pay run prep, ad remittance matching, and deferred revenue schedules.
AI Employees for Media & Publishing Finance in 4 simple steps
Manual Time
We'll go over where you currently waste your time doing manual tasks.
Actionist Automations
We'll show you exactly how Actionist can automate these manual tasks.
Your Benefits
How much time and money you'll save by onboarding AI agents.
Easy to use
We'll show you how easy it is to enable AI across your business.
Where you spend your time
We know how your week actually goes
- Freelancers paid right, on the run dateEvery approved invoice is checked against the commission and the tax form before the batch is built.
- Ad cash matched to the insertion orderAgency and advertiser payments are applied to the order they settle, with any gap named.
- Subscription money traced to the bankStripe, Apple, and Google payouts are matched line by line, net of fees and refunds.
- Annual and gift subs spread correctlyDeferred revenue is released across the twelve months a reader actually pays for.
- A close that is drafted, not discoveredAccruals and journals are prepared as drafts while the month is still ending.
- Built around your publicationThese are examples of what a publisher finance agent can do. Build a custom agent for any job you repeat.
And hundreds of other tasks you do manually..
An agent can take a lot off your team's plate. Take a look below to see the time and cost you could save by adding AI agents to your Media & Publishing Finance team's day.
Where the hours go
The freelance pay run eats two days every month because invoices, commission fees, kill fees, and missing tax forms all have to be reconciled by hand before anyone dares press release on the payment batch.
An agent checks each approved invoice against the commission and the tax form on file, builds the batch draft with every exception listed, and leaves you to approve and release it.
Ad revenue is a three way guess: the insertion order says one number, the ad server another, and the agency remittance a third, and nobody finds the gap until the month is already closed.
An agent lines up the order, the delivery report, and the cash received each week, names every gap, and spreads each flight across the months it ran.
Annual and gift subscriptions sit in deferred revenue schedules that live in one person's spreadsheet, so a late sale or a refund quietly throws the balance out until the auditor asks.
An agent adds each new annual or gift subscription to the release schedule as it is paid, books refunds against it, and ties the paid count to the billing platform.
Print, wire, and licence invoices arrive in an inbox with no one checking them against the print order or the signed licence, so the overcharge is found, if ever, after the cheque has gone.
An agent reads each supplier invoice, checks it against the order or licence, and queues it with the difference noted so the approver sees the issue before paying.
Actionist Will Automate
What one automation looks like
A week with your Media & Publishing Finance agents
Some of the apps for your Media & Publishing Finance team
Some of the finance apps your agent operates for you. Hundreds more are in the Actionist App Store.
Your Agent wakes up Automatically whenever something happens
Your agents watch the apps you already use and act the moment something happens, usually within about a minute, handle it based on your instructions, 24/7.
Your benefits
Where the time goes back
What you do manually today
What your agent runs for you
- Media & Publishing Finance720 min / weekReconciling the freelance pay run
Two days of checking invoices against the commission sheet, hunting for missing tax forms, and keying the batch by hand, with kill fees worked out on the side.
Media & Publishing Finance Agent0 minAgent builds the batch draft with exceptions listedAn agent checks each approved invoice against its commission and tax form, applies kill fees and currency, and lists every exception for your approval before anything is staged.
- Media & Publishing Finance240 min / weekMatching ad cash to insertion orders
Opening agency remittances one by one, finding the order each settles, and discovering the short payments after the month has closed.
Media & Publishing Finance Agent0 minAgent applies payments and names the gapsAn agent matches each remittance to its insertion order each weekday, lists short payments with the difference, and spreads each flight across the months it ran.
- Media & Publishing Finance180 min / weekTracing subscription payouts to the bank
Splitting Stripe, Apple, and Google payouts into charges, fees, and refunds in a spreadsheet to find why the bank line is short.
Media & Publishing Finance Agent0 minAgent matches payouts and posts only exceptionsAn agent breaks each payout into its parts, matches the total to the bank, and posts only the payouts that do not reconcile with the gap shown.
- Media & Publishing Finance150 min / weekKeeping deferred revenue honest
A schedule in one person's spreadsheet that falls behind every annual and gift sale, and gets rebuilt in the week of the audit.
Media & Publishing Finance Agent0 minAgent adds each sale to the release scheduleAn agent logs each annual and gift subscription the day it is paid, builds its twelve month release, and ties the paid count to the billing platform.
- Media & Publishing Finance300 min / weekDrafting accruals and journals at close
Estimating unbilled freelance cost, prepaid print, and deferred revenue in the last days of the month, with every number built from scratch.
Media & Publishing Finance Agent0 minAgent drafts the journals with working attachedAn agent estimates the accruals and drafts each journal with its working, leaving the finance lead to review and post instead of build.
What that's worth
Calculate what your team saves
Based on typical team usage: the visible tasks plus a few other automations the agent runs: ~6 hrs / person / week of admin work automated.
How easy it is to use
We'll do all the heavy lifting for you.
From entering your website address to having a working AI team, no effort from you.
- Step 1
Enter your website
- We'll research your business
- Automatically configure everything for you
- Step 2
Actionist Auto
Optional- Watches you work
- Creates your agents, workflows and schedules
- Step 3
Marketplace
- Hundreds of apps, plus agents and workflows
- Pre-configured by other users
- Step 4
Invite your team
- We'll automatically onboard them too
- Focus on the things that matter
Enter your website URL for a personalised demo
See exactly what Actionist would automate for your business.
You stay in control
An agent near your ledger, your bank portals, and your contributors' payments only earns its place if you stay in charge. Actionist is built so you see everything it prepared, approve every payment and journal, and keep every record.
The agent builds the batch and stages it. A named person approves and releases every payment, and the agent cannot widen that on its own.
Accruals, deferred revenue releases, and credit notes arrive as drafts for the finance lead. Nothing is posted to the ledger without a sign-off.
Remittance notes, form requests, and supplier queries are drafted and held for approval unless you widen autonomy through Approval Modes.
Every check, flag, and draft is logged with a timestamp. Your ledger and contributor data is encrypted, never used to train a model, and can be self-hosted.
More Media & Publishing teams
Frequently asked questions
Does our publisher finance team need to be technical to use Actionist?
How do I get started with an AI agent for our finance team?
How do I make customised AI agents for how our finance team actually works?
How quickly can I set Actionist up for a publisher finance team?
Where does our ledger, contributor, and subscriber data live, and is it used to train AI?
Our ad server and our bank portal have no API. Can an agent still work with them?
Will the agent release a payment or post a journal without my approval?
Can it keep up through the Q4 ad rush and a Black Friday subscription sale?
Is this replacing our finance team?
See an agent prepare the freelance pay run and match ad cash to its orders
Book a free demo and watch an Actionist agent check invoices against commissions, match a payout to the bank, and draft a deferred revenue schedule from your own data.