Robotic Process Automation in accounting enables firms to improve productivity, drive down costs, and streamline compliance.
FREMONT, CA: Technology continues to revamp society at a rapid pace, and accounting by no means immune. New technologies are increasingly able to mimic human activity, taking on repetitive activities more quickly and accurately than people can. Here is an overview of how robotic process automation may change the way accounting operates.
• Increased Productivity
RPA robots can be designed to mimic human actions within a given workflow. When bots perform these tasks, users can redeploy the team to more strategic tasks that add value to the firm's overall productivity. Considerable time is spent on collecting and entering data connected with invoices. Since all the data has to be extracted from several systems, doing this manually can present human errors and repetitive tasks. RPA bot, when implemented, interacts with several data sources, gathers all the information, and enters it into the system.
• Saves Time
When robots take over manual labor, it saves a lot of man-hours. Processing invoices in different formats and layouts can be a time taking task if done by a regular employee. However, if firms have a digital employee (robot), it can use the optical character recognition (OCR) technology to recognize several types of invoice formats and process them quickly. It results in a faster document for approval, resulting in quicker clearing of suppliers’ invoices.
• Better Compliance
Another great advantage of RPA in accounting is improved compliance. With the business environment and regulatory requirements changing rapidly, compliance can become a hurdle, especially when recording processes for historical auditability. When RPA is leveraged, the bot mitigates the scope of errors to none, and each step has a trail for ensuring full compliance with financial regulations.
• Enhanced Customer Service
Implementing an RPA system enables organizations to enhance customer service, get a competitive advantage, and scale operations while lowering costs. The slightest error in reconciliation can result in a delay in invoice processing and claims settlement. By automating the manual, time-consuming work, RPA can lead to better accuracy, lower oversight and exception handling and intervention. It ensures a higher level of customer service and strategic work for the team.
