One of the functional areas which have benefited the most from RPA is accounting and finance. Financial institutions and banks manage a number of customers on a daily basis which leads to countless transactions. The abundant work and processes become tiring and hard to handle with minimum sources in hand. To overcome it Robotic Process Automation can be deployed in accounting and other banking and financial compliance activities.
What is RPA?
RPA stands for Robotic Process Automation. RPA operates in automating manual tedious repetitive tasks by software robots. These software robots are software programs that are built to do the self-regulation work by replacing the human element.
The work could be addressing queries, making calculations, maintenance of records, and performing transactions.
Why should accounting & finance opt for RPA?
The team needs to work error-free while handling a lot of transactions, and a lot of data, and closely work on details. All this manual work gets done by the team to fulfill customer demands.
Since most of the processes in accounting are repetitive and time-consuming so rather than doing every task manually, one can deploy Robotic Process Automation in finance and accounting. It will save time, money, and error-free completion of the task.
What are the benefits of RPA in accounting and finance?
- Scalability - When the workload increase, you may try to find people to hire so that it can be decreased. But with RPA it is not the case if the workload increase, the bots can be managed accordingly.
- Efficiency - There are a number of repetitive tasks in finance that can be reduced to an extent level providing your team the time to put on more strategic work.
- Compliance - The finance and accounting industries require utmost attention as any mistake can be a big blunder. The team members should have to be very careful. RPA increases team accuracy and reduces human errors.
How RPA is used in Finance and accounting?
To learn more about how RPA can help your business, let’s take a look at some of the common use cases.
Accounts Receivable - Accounts receivable are very important as it is directly related to cash flow. Accounting teams spend a lot of time tracking payments and filling in information. If an error occurs then it will affect payments directly.
RPA can be utilized here for sending & tracking invoice payments with that the late payments will decrease.
Accounts Payable - Accounts payable are as important as accounts receivable. Both are the repetitive processes of accounting. It is a time-consuming and heavy process. But with RPA, reminders can be set to prevent late payments and it automatically distributes incoming invoices to the necessary recipient.
Financial Planning & forecasting - All the data and financial statements should be kept in order so that the future finances will be easily done as all information will be helpful in predicting the future. Bots can be very helpful as they manage collections transformations and storage for future predictions.
Accounts Reconciliation - Accounts Reconciliation is necessary for any organization whether a big firm or small as it is very important to compare internal account balances to external statements to ensure the organization's financial reports.
RPA solves any issue regarding Accounts Reconciliation and can reduce the time taken to perform all the related tasks.
Some of the other uses of RPA in accounts and finance are travel and expense processing, financial statements and financial close, client onboarding, & data management.
Implementation of RPA in Finance and Accounting -
Simply put, “it identifies all the processes that the team works on manually, and lists them in order.”Understand the list and if there is any chance of improvements, note them. Design the process and lastly test the outputs.
With robotic process automation in finance and accounting, professionals in these departments are able to allocate more of their time to high-value, strategic, and advisory roles to help organizations remain competitive, innovative, and profitable.