A study conducted by McKinsey & Company showed that companies implementing RPA (Robotic Process Automation) in their processes can see an ROI of up to 200% in the first year alone.
The research also indicates that intelligent automation technologies can fully automate up to 42% of a company’s financial activities, bringing numerous benefits such as cost reduction.
In other words, leveraging RPA for finance and accounting in a company can be an excellent option to automate processes end-to-end, from data entry to the generation of complex reports.
So, keep reading the article to learn about the main advantages of RPA for finance and accounting and discover the key use cases in this sector!
Learn more: ROI in RPA: How to Calculate and Best Practices
Advantages of RPA for Finance and Accounting
Implementing RPA in your company’s financial processes can bring numerous benefits. Check out the main ones below:
Cost reduction
Reducing costs is one of the most significant advantages of implementing robotic process automation (RPA).
This happens for several reasons, such as the reduction of costs associated with human errors, since with automated processes, filling corrections and reconciliations do not need to be carried out.
Additionally, with RPA, financial reports become more accurate, avoiding costs associated with errors or duplications in information. Another factor is freeing up employees to perform more complex and strategic tasks, which reduces operational costs associated with manual activities and frees up human labor to perform analytical processes and tasks of higher value to the company.
Learn more: Automation management: how to manage RPA tasks
Improved productivity
RPA is effective in automating repetitive and manual tasks that consume a lot of employees’ time. So, by choosing a good automation software, there is an overall improvement in the efficiency of all financial processes of the company.
This is because, when automated, tasks are performed by software robots that can execute tasks faster and more accurately than humans, speeding up processes.
Thus, the time required to complete activities decreases considerably, and the overall efficiency of the company increases. In Python automations, for example, robots can be up to 20 times faster compared to those created with low-code tools, completing tasks with excellent execution time.
Learn more: List of main Python libraries
Easy Integration
RPA tools easily integrate with a wide range of systems (ERP, CRM, and BPM) and applications – even legacy ones -, making maintenance and implementation of new technologies more accessible.
Furthermore, many RPA platforms can integrate with external systems through APIs, facilitating communication and information exchange between platforms. RPA solutions also support scripts that can be customized to meet specific integration standards.
Learn more: RPA and BPM: what are the differences and how to choose the best one?
Regulatory Compliance
In sectors such as finance and accounting, regulatory compliance is essential in process automation. With RPA, it is possible to track all activities performed, providing a comprehensive audit trail essential to ensure compliance with company regulations.
Moreover, with the reduction of manual errors, the accuracy and integrity of records can be ensured, meaning that automated financial documentation will comply with regulatory requirements.
RPA systems can also assist in protecting the company’s data and privacy. Implementing encryption measures, access control, and other practices can be performed through automation.
Use Cases of RPA for Finance and Accounting
Now, let’s look at the main use cases of RPA:
Accounts Payable and Receivable
The use of RPA to automate accounts payable and receivable provides efficiency, accuracy, and agility in financial processes. In this context, RPA can be applied to invoice processing, where software robots are programmed, using computer vision, to extract information from invoices, such as due dates and amounts.
Thus, this data can be automatically entered into the company’s systems, avoiding errors and speeding up the process. Payment processes, such as order generation, transfers, and even external ones, can be automated through RPA, ensuring compliance with deadlines and reducing the risk of human errors.
Generating Reports
Generating financial reports to track income, expenses, profits, and losses is essential for monitoring the department’s performance in the company. However, issuing these reports manually can take a lot of time and become unfeasible for employees. So, using RPA to generate financial and accounting reports can streamline this process and improve efficiency.
Software robots can be programmed to extract data from various sources, such as databases, ERP systems, and spreadsheets, and generate standardized reports based on the company’s needs. RPA can also be used to perform calculations and analyses on financial data, generating reports with profit margins, projections, and financial indicators. With this, robots can generate customized reports and adapt to various formats and layouts, according to the company’s needs.
Learn more: Intelligent Document Processing: How to Apply?
Managing Payrolls
Managing payrolls is a critical task for many companies, as it requires attention to numerous details such as overtime, absences, and benefits. In other words, closing the payroll requires time and attention from employees. Implementing RPA can assist employees in this context, as it can streamline processes, minimize the chance of errors, and increase compliance.
Thus, workers can be freed up for more strategic activities. Software robots can be programmed to extract attendance and hours worked data directly from the time clock or spreadsheets with entry and exit records. Additionally, automation can be configured to perform calculations and determine salaries, bonuses, and benefits.
The company’s rules can be inserted into the automation, allowing robots to consistently apply the company’s policies in calculating overtime, deductions, taxes, and other factors that affect the payroll. After processing the payroll, the system can still automatically generate pay stubs and even other necessary documents for employees. Moreover, the system can also be configured to perform reconciliations between financial records and payroll, contributing to the corporate auditing process.
Intercompany Reconciliation (ICR)
Another important use of RPA for finance and accounting is intercompany reconciliation (ICR), which involves reconciling financial transactions between different branches of the same company. Automating this process provides speed, error reduction, and transparency. RPA can assist in extracting financial data from different systems used by branches for reconciliation. Additionally, it can be used to standardize data, ensuring consistency in information, facilitating comparison between extracted data, and identifying possible discrepancies.
Inventory Management
Robotic process automation in inventory management provides agility, efficiency, contributes to error reduction, and improves operational efficiency in the company. This happens because with the use of RPA it is possible to configure robots to continuously monitor inventory levels and, thus, automatically update available quantities, issue restocking alerts, and identify low items, for example.
With the use of RPA, it is also possible to automate order processing, from receiving purchase orders to the arrival of goods. The RPA software can also be integrated with inventory management systems to ensure that changes are automatically reflected in all systems. Additionally, the system can also be configured to update product prices in the system based on cost information, promotions, and registered changes.
Issuing Invoices
Using RPA for invoice issuance ensures process agility and improvement, as errors are reduced, and the company ensures that invoices will be issued in compliance with tax regulations. When it comes to issuing invoices, robotic process automation can assist in data extraction, as robots can be programmed to extract necessary information for invoices from different internal systems, digital documents, and even emails.
With the extracted information, the RPA system can automatically fill in the fields for issuing the invoice, reducing errors that may be caused by manual data entry. Furthermore, with automation, it is also possible to perform automatic calculations to determine taxes, discounts, and other values associated with issuing invoices. After issuing the invoices, the sending process can also be automated, whether by email, integration with management systems, automation customization in ERP systems, or even uploading to specific platforms.
Learn more: RPA Course: 10 options from basic to advanced
Ready to automate the financial sector of your company?
How about starting to invest in automating your company’s financial processes? To succeed with automation, it’s necessary to choose an RPA platform that offers orchestration, flexibility, and competitive pricing.
Take the opportunity to get to know the open-source platform BotCity. With it, you can perform advanced customizations, parallel processing, code assistants, integration with various frameworks, and much more.
So, sign up for free on our website or schedule a meeting with one of our specialists right now!
