We do not want to stereotype accountants. Yet somewhere our archived memory picturizes them as bespectacled individuals drowned in a heap of papers. They are always on their toes and facing acute shortage of time. Their labour-intensive work is multi-faceted and involves:

• Reporting - to the management with various financial data
• Coordinating- with the various supporting divisions
• Cooperating - by building a strong customer / client relationship

Arithmetic and numericals are their forte, yet they are flawed due to deficiency in accuracy, indisciplined towards meeting their month end closings and unable to satisfy the starved customer queries.

Further, there is a popular opinion against accounting firms that the accountants fail to read even their enquiry emails. The main reasons why they are constantly seem to be behind are:

• They lack time and energy to entertain new clients
• Already have enough work load and tired with fixes needed for current clients
• Not interested in accepting new challenges

Whatever may be the reason, it is an apparent ‘recipe of disaster’ for any aspiring accounting firm. This apparent recipe of disaster can now be avoided using robotic automation.

Also read : Why is Human Resources a pivotal division to adopt Robotic Automation?

How can robotic automation work for the accounting firm/department?

Much of the accounting work is routine recurring, high volume of transactions and time consuming data entry tasks. While performing these tasks manually it becomes monotonous and tedious due to the excess amount of data entries. Once the input information is recorded in ERP or accounting software, it follows a standardized workflow pattern.

Robotic automation is a software bot device to imitate human process ignoring thinking capabilities. It is programmed to follow a rule based pathway without any obvious deviations. When it is given an input through a structured format, it produces the results with efficiency, accuracy and speed. With time regained, the disposal time is now invested for customer support (one of the core skill competencies).

As an innovative tool, humans can delegate with confidence their daily / monthly closing procedures to the bot. It consolidates all the data and makes it easier for the accountants to run real time reports and analysis. The sophistication it brings to the process makes it a vital contributing member of the accounting team. The accountants can now easily say goodbye to paperwork and the confidentiality of filing.

Will accountants become redundant due to robotic automation?

Every advancement in technology brings forth a challenging question too. Is this going to replace humans or will they become redundant. Humans have predominantly migrated from agrarian driven economies to industrial economies but neither is their participation diluted in any of them. Definitely, their role shifted and they started taking diversified and challenging tasks comparatively.

Robotic automation evolves with time and adds artificial intelligence or machine learning in its features. Yet, it can never dissect the human complex thinking and decision making process. It is very much involved in the rudimentary tasks of invoice processing, financial statement producing etc, or simply those tasks that are mundane in nature.

On the contrary, critical tasks or thinking are still at the hands of the human, where it is impossible to delegate to machines. Today the volume of work has increased and accounting firms need as many complementary tools as possible to deal with the increasing workload. Automation is one such tool that helps accounting firms to relieve them of mundane time consuming tasks and instead helps them take on more challenging roles fit for human intelligence.

Also read : How critical processes in health care is channelised through robotic automation:

Finally, the accountants can do more advisory role

With automation making room for accountants to analyze reports they are now capable of handling clients in advisory services. With small sized firms lacking financial background accountants act as a caveat to the owners. They generate real time reports and provide them useful information of their firms’ short & long term forecasts, regulatory role, tax compliance etc. This role generates additional revenue to the firm. Furthermore, they are able to develop emotional intelligence (compassion) with the client for fostering a long term relationship with the firm.

Based on all this evidence we can now conclude that robotic process automation is the right tool that can be easily integrated with the present set-up of your accounting firm. At Integra, we have ready to use accounting bots or software bots that can easily integrate to your accounting software like quickbooks and xero.