There are many possibilities for automation in the finance and accounting departments that can cut the clutter.
Putting RPA robots to work for finance and accounting department automation allows you to more efficiently manage high-volume processes across enterprise infrastructures, leaving you more time for Budget planning, fiscal analysis, Managing payroll and billing.
Some of the use cases include :
| Invoice Management | RPA monitors the emails and downloads into a specific folder, The robot extracts the relevant data and transfers it to the accounting software database of the integrated ERP solution. It repeats these steps until the work order queue of invoices is complete. |
| Improve Employee Expense Management | Employees either email the claim to the finance department or upload it on a web portal. RPA tools extract data from the expense receipts and transfer it to a database for validation. Rules-based procedure can approve the right expenses. |
| Financial Review Preparation | Connect and automate data movement from various core banking applications for easy consolidation for executive reporting. Cleanse data for easier formatting between applications—like Adobe or Excel—to create readable reports. |
| Account Reconciliation | Download subaccount balances into pre-approved formats. Upload transaction data from various sub-systems and different formats. Perform data validation and exception research and handling. Create and balance journal entries, noting and remediating discrepancies. |
| Standard Journal Entries | Create standard monthly journal entries. Enter and manage data into your ERP. Perform validation analytics to ensure accurate entries. |
| Bank Reconciliations | Automate bank statement download workflows for individual accounts. Create text files and store them in appropriate folders. Reconcile balance and transactions to core finance sub-systems. Create balancing journal entries to handle discrepancies. |
| Intercompany Reconciliation | Check and reconcile balances on intercompany accounts. Conduct basic research and reporting for any exceptions between accounts. Create exception files and email reports for review and approvals. |
| Accounts Payable Processing | Setup and maintain processes for paying different vendors. Create workflows for accounts payable approvals. Enter data to complete payment preparation and processing. Process payments and bulk payment files for sub-system journal entries. |
| Financial Planning and Analysis | Connect pre-population of forecasts using historical and market data. Load balances into planning systems to record. Create variance reports that show pre-population and actuals. |
| Operational Finance and Accounting | Conduct pricing review approval process to handle multiple variations for customer accounts. Calculate and process rebates. Download detailed monthly sales data and commission calculations. Create files and emails to gain approvals. Post necessary information to general ledgers and sub-systems. |
| Regulatory Compliance and Reporting | Pre-populate annual complex reporting and routing. Capture and manipulate data to support auto-generated regulatory reports. Create an audit trail or reports and get confirmation of receipt. |
| Accounts Receivable Processing | Credit approvals and maintain a customer master file. Route and process customer orders. Process accounts receivable cash receipts. Send late payment notifications. |
| Tax Management | RPA software eliminates manual data entry in online tax forms. You can create these bots by mapping the RPA software to scanned tax forms/spreadsheets in the database or extracting online financial data such as balance sheets. |
| RPA Tools | Popular Robotic Process Automation Tools |
|---|---|
| UiPath | Manage credentials, encryption and access controls, faster automation through Citrix |
| Automation Anywhere | Bank-grade security, authentication, encryption, and credentials, Real-time reports and analytics |
| Blue Prism | Multi-environment deployment model, Network and software credentials Security, Multi-platform |
| Pegasystems OpenSpan | high-volume, repetitive tasks, bridging system and data integration gaps at scale |
| Power Automate | Microsoft Power Platform |
| NICE Systems | makes routine desktop tasks easy, fast and error-free, for improved efficiency, customer satisfaction and employee engagement. |
| Kofax | automate repetitive tasks and manual processes |
| Others | Redwood Software, Contextor, Jidoka, Kryon Systems, Visual Cron, WorkFusion, Inflectra Rapise |