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ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION (RPA) IN Finance

Posted On: January 24, 2020

Robotic process automation as a software to aid Digitisation has been of late making rounds of news across the globe in various industries. Businesses are deploying RPA technology and leveraging its ability to take over mundane, recurring procedures in key areas of operation.

RPA will always be an enabler rather than replacement of Humans across the domain. Mundane activities will be taken over by the BOT, keeping emotional intelligence with Humans to drive effective digitisation.

Of the various industries touched upon, RPA is making a significant impact in Finance and Accounting processes.

Benefits of Using RPA

RPA has proven use cases which has helped organizations to improve the efficiency andaccuracy in their key operations.

Introduction of RPA in Finances has brought enhancements in the process workflows proving procedures being carried out with increased accuracy and consistent outputs delivered on agreed timelines. Being able to save money by automating tasks that were formerly handled by Humans, the reduced number of errors in certain transactions has been able to improve profitability as well.

Dashboards have often been able to publish statistics on the volume, payments processed and timings of transactions across the lifecycle RPA allows teams to focus on Critical Success Indicators (CSI) of the processes and allows for enhanced compliance which further improves data accuracy and compliance.

Increased data accuracy of data accompanied with reduced risk of human error implies that businesses have less risk in their records, operations and business transactions.

RPA and the Outlook of Finance

Finance roles will cease or will change significantly with the advent of RPA and Digitisation. New roles will be created where humans would still be required to manage bots and be accountable.

In Finance, the distrust with RPA would be there in the initial stages namely with financial entries, login credentials for payment systems and access to balance sheets however when deployed organization-wide with security considered as primary, RPA would emerge as a prominent tool to lay a foundation for digitisation in F & A.

Robotic processes with accurate entries, prompt payments, zero error reconciliations and invoicing ensure Finance as a domain has improved SLA’s and Faster TAT in its operations.

Below are key areas in F&A where RPA is applied:

  • General ledger and subledger Reconciliations / Bank reconciliations and Inter-company reconciliations
    In Recon, below tasks can be automated to a larger extent:

    1. Login to multiple bank accounts
    2. Login to ERP/ SAP / Oracle system
    3. Extraction of relevant general ledgers
    4. Cross referencing of balances from Bank statement to Ledgers / ERP’s
    5. Preparation of bank reconciliation statement
    6. Uploading data in ERP/ SAP / Oracle and Recon
  • Sales ordering and invoicing:
    1. Invoice receipt and classification
    2. Invoice data extraction
    3. Invoice data entry and interface
    4. Multi-Channel purchase order/invoice/ receipt matching
    5. Updating of details for new customers
    6. Posting of data entries into ERP/ SAP / Oracle
  • Fixed asset management
    1. Comparing multiple quotations and reporting
    2. Preparation of budgets
    3. Fixed asset register reconciliations
  • Procure to Pay
    1. Supplier onboarding
    2. Portal queries: Leverage a robot to connect to all your portals and automatically gather or post information either at pre-set times or as part of a defined workflow.
    3. Price comparisons: track changes and best pricing with a robot.
    4. Market intelligence
    5. Contract terms: validated to ensure compliance with contract terms
  • Accounts Receivable
    1. Sales order entry
    2. Customer data set up and data management
    3. Billing/invoicing Collection activities
    4. Cash application
    5. Credit risk management
    6. Dispute verification and resolution
    7. Chargeback management
  • Taxation:
    1. Data aggregation for tax liability
    2. Complete tax return workbooks
    3. Prepare tax returns
    4. File tax returns and payments
    5. Tax accounting entries
  • Financial planning, analysis and reporting: Aggregate data from various sources like email, organization systems and databases, and automatically generate reports based on standard rules.
  • Risk management: Combine past and present transaction data from organizational systems to flag potentially fraudulent activities

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