Author: Waqar Ul Malik
Editors: Pankaj Anand, Aderito do Rosario da Cunha Mambares
It was a busy, stressful evening at the office. A donor report was due that same night, and I was wrestling with formulas and broken data links in a donor reporting template. The data itself had been checked and verified for over six months yet updating that single template felt like climbing a mountain in two hours. I submitted the report on time, but the next day I realized that some payments I had approved were missing participant lists for an event.
I told myself I would follow up immediately. Still, an uneasy feeling stayed with me, the sense that something important had been overlooked, not because of negligence, but because too much time had been consumed by repetitive, non‑creative work.
Many of us in finance know this scene all too well.
I remember an earlier time in my career when I was adding up hundreds of bank journal lines using a calculator, and every attempt produced a different total. In those days, the person with a large monitor and CPU, what some people at the time even called a ‘magic box’, could do in minutes what took the rest of us hours. Today, those bulky machines have become slim laptops, and basic calculations are no longer the bottleneck. Yet finance teams still spend long hours regenerating spreadsheets, verifying the same data repeatedly, and producing routine reports, until a new wave of artificial intelligence slowly and silently began to enter our work around 2020.
At first, I was wary. New technology always brings fear: fear of being left behind, fear of losing control. I had lived through the shift from manual ledgers to computerized accounting systems, and one lesson stayed with me, technology can be a supporting hand, but it never replaces professional responsibility. Accountability remains with humans.
My first interaction with an AI chatbot felt ordinary. The responses were generic and occasionally flattering, the kind that makes you feel understood without saying very much. I worried about bias, errors, and over‑confidence. Over time, however, as I provided context and real data, the tool began to support my work in practical ways. It helped me build a simple financial performance dashboard from the information I already had. Over the past five to six years, AI has also become significantly better and smarter. Like any evolving technology, it remains a work in progress, constantly improving, but still requiring human judgment, critical thinking, and oversight.
Suddenly, figures that once confused non‑finance colleagues became easier to understand. Instead of lengthy explanations, I could show trends, risks, and progress at a glance. Finance conversations became more focused on decisions rather than just numbers.
That experience taught me two important lessons. First, AI can free finance teams from repetitive tasks and help us see financial performance more clearly and earlier. Second, while finance professionals should not shy away from adopting AI, they must remain fully aware that accountability, transparency, and professional standards will always rest with them. AI is an ally, not an excuse. The responsibility for approving transactions, ensuring accuracy, and interpreting results cannot be delegated to a tool. If we shift responsibility away from people, we risk weakening the very accountability that donors and communities expect from us.
We have moved from manual ledgers to ‘magic boxes’ and now to AI. The tools continue to change, but our mission does not. The real question is whether we are ready to lead this new wave of change while keeping professional judgment and ethical responsibility firmly in human hands.
For the non‑profit sector in Timor‑Leste, the way forward does not need to be complex. Start small. Pilot AI tools on low‑risk tasks, invest in basic staff training, and keep simple checks in place so humans verify outputs. Use technology to improve reporting, learning, and transparency, not to hide weak processes. If we approach AI this way, it can help us work smarter, strengthen accountability, and ultimately serve our communities better, while keeping accountabilities exactly where it belongs.
