Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is hot right now. It’s so hot that in 2018 it was the fastest-growing segment of the enterprise software market according to Gartner. More and more companies are utilizing this software to create an army of bots, running through business processes with pinpoint accuracy.
It seems all functional units within an organization want to join the parade and start creating their digital workforce through the use of RPA bots. Finance, moreover, is one of the more exciting functional units that is embracing the ongoing RPA revolution. The solution fits like a glove – many tasks in the office of finance lend itself to automation by the inherent structure needed to create a sustainable financial organizations.
As RPA continues to gain popularity, we are here to help showcase the most common use cases in the work that you do.
Accounts Receivable
The Accounts Receivable (AR) Process is very important as it directly affects the cash flow for your company. However, this work by nature is repetitive and manual. It requires a lot of work to ensure that our payments are being collected and reconciled in a timely manner. Moreover, this process is prone to errors – and these errors hurt. The tedious nature and need for perfection often leave the employee in charge of the AR process to burn out quick leading them to seek other opportunities in finance. However, with the help of RPA, the job description for accounts receivable is quickly transforming with RPA Bots being positioned in both ends of the AR process.
The start of the AR process comes from the invoices we manage, and with the many different invoice templates, it takes a long time to correctly parse through these documents. Luckily, Bots have been helping companies capture the important data from these invoices with the use of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and machine learning technologies. In short, these bots learn overtime to categorize theses invoices as they come in and creates a dictionary that maps a company to an invoice format, allowing it to quickly understand information accurately. We no longer need to strain our eyes and our fingers from all the reading and typing required with the documenting of invoices.
We cannot expect that all of our accounts will pay on time, and more often than not, a lot of accounts will go past due. RPA bots can help monitor accounts past due and send reminders to customers who have an open balance, and can do it fast, up to ten times faster than any employee could. Companies quickly see an improvement in their cash flow position as these collection bots help ensure everything is getting collected in a timely fashion.
Financial Reporting
Reporting takes time, and with the disparate data sources and multiple dashboard formats, it’s hard to manage. With many business leaders wanting insights at the speed of now, it’s often hard to please everyone. Furthermore, the time we spend creating reports for others understanding is time we are not working on strategic growth initiatives.
RPA has positioned itself well here. The bots we create as RPA developers are often software agnostic, interfacing with in house applications, web applications, and enterprise solutions without trouble. This agnostic approach to design allows for easy management of these disconnected sources and easy interface with our reporting tools. As long as we know what data we need and how we want to present it, we can let RPA handle running through the process itself, freeing up our valuable time.
See it in action
With RPA, seeing is believing. Once you watch a process run itself, you will never look back. We have included a video explaining how an Accounts Payable Process, another ubiquitous finance function, can be automated using the toolsets out are disposables. We recommend that you watch the video as you will truly grasp the potential of the technology available today.
A final note
The real range of options of were RPA can be utilized in finance is limitless. As long as your process can be mapped and follows a logical progression, it can be automated through the use of RPA. We are here to help – if you have a process in mind that you believe can be automated we would be happy to work with you and understand the art of the possible.
