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RPA is key to digitally transforming finance and accounting

RPA should be thought of in terms of enhanced productivity and efficiency, enabling your existing human workforce to do more, says Ken Mertzel, global industry leader – financial services, Automation Anywhere.
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RPA is key to digitally transforming finance and accounting

Digital transformation is the catchword for 2019. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, not only are 83% of enterprises already on their digital transformation journeys, they expect to significantly increase their investments in digital technologies over the next year. The finance and accounting function is front and center for these investments. More than half of organizations (52.8%) are currently planning digital improvements to their controller operations, according to a recent Deloitte poll of more than 1,700 finance and accounting professionals.

Finance and accounting a top priority for RPA

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is the core technology in finance transformation plans: more than one in three finance professionals say that RPA is a top priority. By deploying RPA, businesses can automate manual and Excel-based finance processes and streamline financial operations across a fragmented legacy system environment which reduces errors and compliance risks

What is RPA? Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is software that automates simple, repeatable, and high-volume tasks traditionally performed by humans. With RPA software robots, or “bots,” all those mundane rule-based, business processes can be automated, freeing up employees to devote more time to serving customers or actively engage in higher value work.

Benefits of deploying RPA

Most businesses initially apply RPA in finance and accounting with the goal of saving money and improving cash management. For example, Automation Anywhere customer Quad Graphics automated more than 50 finance processes and increased cash flow by $10 million a day by processing accounts receivables more efficiently. And Quad Graphics has gotten so good at RPA that new bots only take 10 weeks to deploy, allowing them to automate faster.

But it’s important to think beyond cost reduction and reducing headcount. Rather, think in terms of enhanced productivity and efficiency, enabling your existing human workforce to do more—and higher value—work for you. According to KPMG, 68% of companies deploy RPA to drive cost savings, but also to achieve improvements in the following areas:

  • Enable employees to focus on higher value, strategic work by reducing manual, repetitive labor (40.5%)
  • Reduce human error and improving internal controls and compliance (23.5%)
  • Improve visibility into future risks and opportunities by testing wider data sets and helping employees use their uniquely human capabilities to analyze trends and anomalies (16.9%)

Examples of processes automated by RPA

By 2020, RPA will eliminate 20% of non-value-added tasks within the office of finance, according to Gartner.Bots can be programmed to automate a broad range of finance operational processes without human intervention. Here are some examples of where RPA can be used to automate finance processes:

Financial operations and accounting: Reconciliations, manual journal entries, intercompany settlements, fixed asset management, regulatory and external reporting.

Financial planning and analysis: Budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, and management reporting.

Treasury operations: Bank statement consolidation, consolidated cash position reporting, cashflow forecasting, FX exposure forecasting as well as hedging, and ACH/wire-payments.

Accounts payable: Vendor setup, purchase order creation, invoice validation, invoice and lease payments, travel and expense reimbursements, and payables reporting.

Accounts receivable: Customer setup, sales order processing, invoice creation, collections, payment processing, and receivables reporting.

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