Is RPA the new business process outsourcing?

RPA (Robotic Process Automation) is hyped as the all-purpose weapon, especially with regard to accounting tasks. RPA can be used to automate monotonous, repetitive process steps by processing, validating or transmitting structured and unstructured information from different sources according to certain rules . What sets RPA apart from traditional IT automation is the ability of RPA software to adapt to changing interfaces or releases of the systems. It followsmore of an outside-in approach and leaves the underlying systemunchanged. The robot thus becomes the company’svirtual employee and has the potential to free skilled workers from monotonous work. Typicalareas of application are logistics and accounting. How often is ERP data exported to Excel, edited, converted or condensed there and then made available in a web application? A typical RPA scenario!

Process Automation with RPA in Accounting

A process is suitable for robotic process automation if it is often repeated identically , is based on statistical rules, contains a large volume of processes (number of executions), is stable in time, i.e. has few changes in the process, involves a high susceptibility to human error, is completely digital and is executed via different software systems.

The software solutions “Blue Prism”, “Automation Anywhere” and “UIPath” currently receive the best marks. Our bot at ICS adminservice is called UIPath.

For many accounting processes, the use of RPA is obvious. Weaknessesin the process and a high risk of errors, especially in manual processing, can be eliminated and there is the potential tomake work more efficient. Typical processes are:

• Instruct payments, send reminders and check incoming funds and compare them with other data
• Incoming invoices and orders with transfer of data to the ERP system
• Payment approval after independently performing various checks across different sources of information
• Maintenance of master data
• Automatic reporting for analysis and as a basis for decisions

… 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

What is RPA in accounting not?

Without question, “office robots” offer enormous potential for efficiency, quality and compliance. In addition, there is an opportunity to bring more and more tasks back from offshore to onshore . Software robots are already established in many industries.

But honestly, the trees don’t grow into the sky. A major disadvantage of RPA solutions is that software robots can only be used for structured processes and routine activities. For semi- and unstructured processes,RPA offers little added value. Applications and processes must be stablefor RPA to function optimally. Robots are limited if the solution no longer has to be rule-based, but knowledge- and experience-based.

Our conclusion

RPA enriches us as a business process service provider in accounting and will make us better and faster in many processes. However, the basis for this is in-depth business knowledge and process clarity, for which our experienced experts and business people form the foundation.

Do you already have RPA in place for your back office, especially in accounting? What are your experiences? We look forward to your comments.

Image source: Adobe Stock, Photographer: sdecoret