RPA in Accounting

Accounting departments started to receive more and more attention after the 2008 global financial crash. Businesses started to place a higher premium on financial health, starting with cost control and risk management. To improve the financial health of the business, accounting departments have been under pressure to deliver greater performance against the budget.

Moreover, organizations have a lot riding on the efficiency and effectiveness of their procure-to-pay processes. The inability to purchase or pay for goods and services can have a negative impact on a company's supply chain, customers and financial standing, yet most companies rely on manual or semi-automated processes, that just cost too much, take too long and create too many errors, which ultimately leads to stakeholder and supplier frustration.

This negative rant could go on and on for ages ... but that's not why I'm here!!!

Since the birth of the computer we, humans, have been incredibly successful in coming up with solutions that make our life easier. Does this mean that we're just lazy? ... as Bill Gates said:

... and that's what we did.

We have invented RPA robots

RPA robots in accounting are similar to Excel macros. However, the key difference between them is that instead of being limited to the macro running only in Excel, RPA software runs across any accounting applications that you point it to. Think of RPA as a macro that can tell three applications what to do instead of just Excel.

Let me tell you a story ...

Rachel works in Accounts Receivable, and she's responsible for uploading her company's invoices to a Sharepoint website for their customers to pay. She normally processes each invoice manually, which takes 5-10 minutes per invoice depending on the customer. She doesn't have an RPA robot assistant, so she has to do all by herself: has to find the folder where SAP saves the invoices, then she has to select only the XML files, group them into a single folder and zip it, then navigate to the appropriate website where she has to upload the files, log in and upload the zip containing the invoices to be paid.

Sometimes, when Rachel is tired, she might make mistakes, like forgetting to select a few XML files, which might cost the company. Other times she comes to the office unhappy because she knows that the first task of her day is something repetitive, boring and highly manual.

Now imagine this ...

Rachel works in Accounts Receivable, and she's responsible for uploading her company's invoices to a Sharepoint website for their customers to pay. She has to do this process every Monday morning. She comes into the office with a big smile on her face, because she is excited about the new accounting strategy she'll be working on with the executives. Before heading to the meeting to do something that has a huge impact on the company, she boots up her computer and with a press of a button starts her RPA accounting receivable robot, which: finds the folder where SAP saves the invoices, selects only the XML files, zips them into one folder, then navigates and logs in to the appropriate website and uploads the zip containing the invoices to be paid ... all this in less than 2 minutes per invoice and making no mistakes.

How did you like this future?

A future where your employees are happy and work on the most crucial tasks that truly drive the business forward.

A future where repetitive and manual tasks are completed 80% faster than usual, with minimal to no human supervision and error FREE.

Sounds too good to be true? ... Keep reading

Implementing RPA robots in your accounting team is much more cost-effective at processing large volumes of recurring tasks. The robots can work around the clock without fatigue and, although there are initial setup costs and ongoing maintenance costs, the return on investment (ROI) with RPA is much higher. However, for many accounting departments, ROI may not be the only driving factor. Here, RPA also provides:

• better risk management and compliance
• higher accuracy
• better cycle times
• improved throughput.

This is essential for end-of-month reporting, accounts receivable and many other processes. Robots free up your expensive F&A resources to work on higher-value activities and focus on outcomes.

What processes are suitable for RPA in accounting?

3 Step Process for RPA Success in Accounting

1. Select the right process
2. Start small and fail fast (proof of concept)
3. Organize for success

How to select the right process? - The Robotic Accounting Fitness Criteria

• It must be a highly manual, repetitive and high volume process
• It must be a rule-based process
• It must have a low exception rate
• The inputs must be electronic or machine-readable (eg. scan, PDF)
• The process and their underlying Applications must be stable (not changing soon)

One of the key considerations is variation. For example, if 90% of your transactions can be mapped in ten steps, but 10% require an additional two steps to be completed after step three, this becomes an exception to the rule that needs to be managed. Here, exception paths need to be built into the workflow to manage the variation. While these processes can also be automated, it will take time to build workflows into the robotic process, so the business has to decide as to whether the additional time delivers value.

This is where the role of humans alongside RPA will change. As robots take over the routine, repetitive transactional processing tasks, finance and accounting professionals will be expected to become expert exception handlers. They will need to perform the complex, judgment-based, transactions that the robots are not able to perform. The role of managers in accounting departments of the future will move away from managing people to driving higher-value activities from their staff, including exceptions and decisions that require human intervention, while the orchestration engine oversees operational performance. Finance and Accounting professionals will move away from data gathering, data entry, and book-keeping and instead take on more advisory roles where their judgment and consultative skills will see them become business partners.

Sounds easy ... but why aren't you there, yet?

Automation is still very behind only because the approach to it is wrong. Companies think if they put an IT team to install a software that automates a small part of the business process, it will be enough. But many quick fixes like this will lead to employees having to learn how to manage 5+ softwares and spending time transitioning from one to another.

RPA helps you build this bridge between multiple applications, making them work together seamlessly and at lightning speed.

If you already have an accounting process in mind that you'd like to automate, you can submit it here and get a FREE audit from my team at FewerWork to see whether your process is suitable for RPA.

Good luck! ??

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