The overarching purpose of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is to automate manual, repetitive, and low-value tasks. Implementing RPA software and systems can streamline a business’s day-today operations, giving back valuable hours to business owners, and enable key staff to work on more high-priority initiatives that are frequently put on hold due to the inability of resources to keep up with the pace of manual work. Some examples how RPA is used by SMBs:

• Entering sales orders,
• Account reconciliation
• Managing vendors,
• Generating purchase orders,
• Creating and following-up invoices,
• Generating financial reports, and much more

Promote Financial Data Accuracy

There are a lot of monotonous tasks in an accounting or finance function (such copying and pasting data across spreadsheets), and plethora of financial reports to create which – if done incorrectly – can lead to potentially huge impacts on the financial position of a business with massive consequences. Companies lose millions annually due to poor data quality because workers must adjust to inaccurate information and create workarounds. The effects of poor data quality may be felt throughout an organisation, forcing systems that rely on that data to change as a result. When a vendor’s information is not entered in a standard format, it can lead to extra work in other areas, such as purchasing, invoicing, payments, and reporting. Data quality may be ensured at the time of data gathering by using RPA to standardise data entry and check data.

Improve Productivity and Reducing Operating Costs

Virtual CFOs continually seeking to streamline and improve the efficiency of finance and accounting activities for small businesses, so that business owners can focus more on growth opportunities and gaining a competitive advantage in the market. Streamlining operations increases a business’s responsiveness to change, allowing it to quickly spot competitive disruptions and market changes, then respond and navigate to meet customer needs and profit target.

RPA for Growth and Scale

RPA implementations and optimisations of growing businesses typically start in the financial and accounting teams – where automating routine tasks frees up finance departments to focus on strategic initiatives and gives a CFO the operational flexibility to scale or pivot as needed. The CFO is elevated to the role of strategic business partner than a traditional accountant – this is why a Virtual CFO is a critical role for small businesses without an in-house finance team.

Improving the Value of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

The lack of numbers to support where staff spend their time, processing times, and volumes is a common problem we encounter when automating finance and accounting departments. With RPA in place, businesses can examine employee time utilisation in great detail. Because of the many flaws inherent in manual business processes, we reengineer them for automation in order to make them more effective and efficient.

RPA also offers monitoring of process metrics such as throughput, cycle time, cost, and exceptions. However, knowing how well processes are being conducted through operational data is necessary for isolating and evaluating exceptions, which may lead to additional improvements in process efficiency.

Speak with Philip Khao from Solve Accounting on 0412651779 or at philip@solveaccounting.com.au to find out more about your potential business opportunity.

Philip Khao is a Chartered Accountant (CA), Virtual CFO professional and Director at Solve Accounting with many years of accounting and business services experience at global accounting firms and multinational corporations.