Finance Industry And RPA
Finance plays a crucial role in every bit of business operations. It’s not surprising that finance and accounting are early adopters of robotic process automation (RPA) since they manage enormous amounts of data, integrating it with other business functions. So majorly, they are the ones who understand the benefits of the robots.
With the evolvement of emerging technologies, the role of finance managers and accountants has also been transformed from number-crunching to various other higher-level duties within the firm such as strategic planning and improving customer relations.
Here’s a report based on the Capgemini survey- “41% of organizations declared that they have an enterprise-wide automation plan in place and that finance is heading the way and comprehending the potential for RPA tools.”
The newer buzzword RPA is now taking shape. It facilitates human activities, automating normal
tasks, and freeing finance teams from monotonous and repeated practices to shoulder other higher-value and strategic activities.
RPA also handles processes more swiftly and precisely as it conclusively saves time. The automated accounting software also helps businesses to cut costs as RPA eradicates the need to hire more employees.
"Employees have to see the value in using RPA tools to drive productivity and not see them as a
hindrance to their role. If they see no or little value, the implementation will be a waste of time and money." - Dean McGlone, Sales Director at V1
Adaptation Of Robotics In The Accounting Field
Superseding Legacy Systems
Earlier, accountants used to manage activities such as payroll or invoice processing in a company based on legacy systems. With the transition towards the digital era, legacy systems have been replaced by more sophisticated automated accounting software solutions that enable organizations to integrate the latest technologies, enhance their productivity and their capability, and manage the exceptionally voluminous data.
Cloud-Based Systems
Cloud-based accounting software has been gaining popularity since the last decade. Cloud-based computing is based on a SaaS (Software as a Service) model that allows users to access applications running on shared resources via the internet.
Cloud accounting software enables users to access their data remotely on the cloud rather than on any system. This new model benefits small and medium-sized businesses (SMB’s) as it provides complete accounting and finance solutions without a huge upfront expenditure on hardware. Moreover, it provides a platform that can smoothly scale business productivity with further growth in the business.
Workflow Automation
Workflow automation refers to a series of rules (in any business) for automating business processes. Traditional methods comprising paper documentation and manual processing are automated to generate error-free outputs that eventually streamline workflows.
Workflow automation with robots helps to automate both the front office and the back-office operations of the finance and accounting departments of organizations. This helps in improving processes and also helps to generate standardized processes.
Automation allows organizations to spend more time on the substantive work itself and more concise time on the other lengthy processes.
Dismantling The Confusion Around AI and RPA
One of the several illusions circulating these technologies is that both RPA and AI are interchangeable. However, assuming that both technologies are associated with business process automation, they both carry out tasks in different ways.
The RPA technology proves to be a robust tool for achieving higher quality outputs at a lower cost and lesser time. Implementation of bots (RPA) can boost productivity by cutting extra costs incurred on hiring full-time workers. It helps to automate various business functions like back-office and workflow processes
You might be thinking- “ Where, why, and how does AI come into the limelight?” Good question!
Even though RPA is a great tool to automate the human workload of doing multiple executions of the same processes for various industries like insurance, accounting, and banking that have high-voluminous data to manage, but factually, that’s all it can do. This is exactly where AI triumphs and enters the limelight.
AI integrated with other technologies like ML and NLP can do more than automating repetitive tasks. AI is now supporting more advanced features such as voice assistants, facial/voice recognition, and data analysis. Data captured with all these features can be used by AI-based software to trigger a smart and judgmental response.
Cognitive reasoning engines use apprehended data from experienced patterns to make functional suggestions. AI’s proficiency to aggregate, manage and comprehend formless data defines its smarter intellect compared to RPA.
Although both technologies- AI and RPA- seem identical to the majority of people, they are not in reality. Both technologies have few divergences that are crucial to understanding what exactly they both can deliver.
Interpreting RPA: The Doer, AI: The Thinker
Robotic Process Automation
In simple words, RPA is an exclusive technique in the form of software, called a robot, that is designed to automate human tasks. It is related to freeing up humans/employees from their repetitive jobs and mundane tasks and streamlines business processes.
RPA technique executes these tasks with much more efficiency, saving their precious time that can be devoted to other higher-level commitments. RPA may not equate human intelligence but it can replicate human efforts.
Robotic technology automates a task using a specific set of rules/algorithms and saves time and effort of white-collar workers.
The digital worker mimics human actions to automate constant routinized workflows to boost productivity. The rules are drafted/programmed and the robots can obtain structured inputs from various applications like Excel and enter it into SAP. The robotic software works on the user interface just as an individual would, seamlessly integrating with CRM and ERP systems.
The RPA is an agile software that has gained huge popularity and success because of its potential to work constantly without any failure and weariness. Some of the common examples of processes that can be automated using bots include forms processing, transferring data from one system to another, payroll processing, etc.
“The global Robotic Process Automation (RPA) market size was valued at USD 357.5 Million in 2017 and is expected to register at a CAGR of 31.1% over the forecast period. Increasing demand for Business Process Automation (BPA) through the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and software robots is anticipated to be the key growth-driving factor for the market”-Grand View Research
Artificial Intelligence
AI software is the ability of a computer to use programmed intelligence to simulate human intellects, like solving a problem, recognizing an image or certain patterns, learning and self-improving from past computations, decision-making based on previously processed data, and making future forecasts.
Regardless of these differences, both technologies may be coupled to produce exceptional automation and produce the maximum efficiency for financial services.
Role Of Artificial Intelligence In Financial Services
Chatbots are AI-based software programs that process human language, understand the customer's requests or queries, continue a conversation and respond to them based on the predefined organization’s business rules. AI software has the self-learning ability and can perform more sophisticatedly for a wider range of business systems and applications. AI chatbots are smarter than other AI-driven software as they enable customers to make online payments, check their balance, allow customers to find lucrative investment options, transfer funds, and more. Apart from these, some other benefits that AI chatbots offer in financial services are as follows:
- Cost efficiency
- Extended sales
- Scalability
- 24*7 assistance
- Quick response
- Easy communication
Smart Integration
Artificial Intelligence is an umbrella term for various latest technologies like RPA as it narrates a computer’s capability to copy human thinking. RPA is a rule-based software that automates repetitive tasks and has no intelligence of its own, thus AI supports robotic automation to work more smartly, resembling a human's capabilities.
Artificial Intelligence, the buzzword circulating the tech world, is making its way into the businesses. Although AI-supported technologies such as robotic process automation, machine learning (ML), and natural learning process (NLP) have been transforming the digital era to a great extent, it is also creating a great deal of confusion about the meaning and purpose of these tech terms.
RPA can use AI to control a complicated set of decision-based tasks, such as understanding, browsing, and reading data. RPA ensures that rules are correctly implied and the data meets the pre-set conditions, based on the claimed business process. If the data is not appropriate, RPA ‘discovers’ the expected data to facilitate the accomplishment of the task.
For example, in processing an insurance claim or a supplier invoice, data is generated, either by a person or a computer, which is processed by the receiving system. The inputted information is interpreted and checked to ensure its intactness and accuracy followed by identifying and correcting gaps or errors, which then leads to task completion.
If combined, the two tech-disruptions can take businesses to the next level. For example, take the case of scanning documents of a specific format through the automation continuum (AI coupled to RPA). Whereas RPA can do this with process automation, AI can filter out the unsuitable or poorly formatted documents. Therefore, the work of RPA becomes much easier.
Robotic process automation along with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities can manage high volumes of repetitive manual tasks. RPA and AI are the two state-of-art technologies that are constantly remodeling the financial and accounting sectors.
These emerging technologies flaunt a major impact on the present-day business environment by creating exceptional opportunities for accountancy companies, investment funds, insurance enterprises, banks, and financial services institutes. Some of the benefits that entrepreneurs leverage from RPA and AI software within their businesses are:
- Automated processing
- Accurate analytics
- Explicit financial forecasting
- Consumer data management
- Efficient fraud-detection and protection.
Summarizing Powerful Integration
RPA, being a process automator, a doer, and AI technology, being a machine intellect- a thinker, are independently great tools to streamline businesses but together their potency is immeasurable. When AI is integrated with RPA, it enables the automation function to commence much faster, formulating an automation continuum.
An entirely dominant process would stimulate a better cognitive response, disseminating it immediately to the RPA network that would then finish off the task. This automation continuum would result in even faster output.
Future Outlook For Automation Continuum
- The future of robotic process automation and artificial intelligence is shining brightly, as more and more businesses are demanding solutions to increase productivity and curtail expenditure.
- The other technologies that continue to arise from AI will shortly bring on the comprehensive automation continuum.
- Today, software companies design best accounting software solutions that propose scalable robotic process automation solutions to transact monotonous, physical processes with automatic rule-based engines.
- AI and RPA together is the best idea to leverage advancement. Integrating RPA with AI enables machines to possess the strength to constantly learn from past results and act accordingly, just as humans do.
- AI and RPA coupled together are ideal for the accounting field as today’s accounting solutions have progressed beyond merely automating the workflow.
- The best example here is cloud accounting software solutions, that allow accountants to manage payments and approvals more rapidly, efficiently, and error-freely.
- The accounting industry has been gearing up using robotic powers infused with smart intelligence. The coupled technologies have been making workplace-life easier by helping businesses to speed up processes, gain productivity and efficiency at reduced costs, and provide tools to customers for managing and tracking payments efficiently.
According to a report by Forbes- “Robots and AI are redefining the rules for business execution and organizational agility. Investment in new technology is driven foremost by the goals increasing execution capacity (scalability) and organizational agility. Seeking more, faster, and most often with less personnel, enterprises prioritize technology investments which can speed time to market, to empower workers to make better-informed decisions, as well as to reduce the overhead otherwise required with delivering products and services to market. The ability to adapt and respond according to both new events and consistent with existing rules and policies is critical to organizational agility.”
Conclusion
Artificial intelligence and robotic process automation are the two cutting-edge technologies that have been transforming the financial and accounting services. Both tech terms offer exceptional possibilities to speed up copious business processes and decrease time-consuming manual work. However, robotic process automation is without any real intelligence but still can perform the tasks with the instructed rules more effectively and efficiently.
AI and RPA capabilities, when integrated, possess a bountiful potential that can be leveraged by entrepreneurs to streamline accounting. The smart integration helps in efficient assembling and consolidating of data, diminishing the expenditures from diverse business branches, improving customer experience, providing round-the-clock assistance, and considerably reducing the probabilities of cyber fraud.
Besides, the combined benefits of AI and RPA can create an esteemed competitive power that can result in the unfailing growth, productivity, and profitability of your business.
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