The pandemic and the current macroeconomic environment are accelerating the need for companies to go even faster in achieving their digital transformation in order to remain competitive. To achieve its goals, automation is now considered as a strategic imperative.

Indeed, while digital transformation has long been perceived as a solution to replace aging systems and applications, we are now seeing that an increasing number of businesses are adding a”automation layer“above their applications.

This automation layer is between employees and business systems and applications that they need to do their daily tasks. By creating connections between applications, systems, and software, robots enable organizations to rethinking their business processes. In this way, they reap the benefits without having to make expensive, risky and time-consuming replacements, as was the case before.

Years ago, the finance and accounting department (M&A) was one of the first areas where our partner UiPath started using its technology internally. Since then, its teams have continued to find new ways to innovate.

Software robots are currently unleashing more than 100,000 hours per year to the department. A look back at this internal revolution.

Cost reduction

Mihai Faur, Senior Vice President of Finance and Global Controller at UiPath, has maintained the same number of employees over the past three years. At the same time, the turnover has increased 350 to 900 million dollars, while operations grew and became more complex. It is the power of empowering employees through software robots.

When it comes to processing invoices, some businesses still require their employees to locate invoices in their ERP system and then upload them to customer portals. At UiPath, a robot nominated “Billy the Portal” takes care of this for the commercial finance team. Billy also makes sure that each customer receives the bill as soon as it's issued, and at the end of the day, he sends the team a report on all invoices sent.

Les savings achieved thanks to the robots performing the transactional tasks are easy to calculate. What was your cost per transaction prior to automation? How much did it cost to process an invoice? Compare this cost to the cost per transaction once the robots take care of these tasks - it's easy for any F&A team to be happy with the results.

Thanks to these time and cost savings, the UiPath F&A department created new revenue recognition operations teams.

By delegating tasks related to accounts receivable and accounts payable to robots, employees can focus on more complex tasks. This assignment offered them new career opportunities. Some of them are now in the process of becoming controllers.

Compliance management for audit reports

Here is a second example of the benefits of automation in the corporate financial sector. For many financial professionals, insure accuracy and compliance with the required deadlines by compliance regulations has become a real headache. And for good reason, mistakes can cost organizations millions.

So one of the first automations in the UiPath M&A department was created to facilitate a revenue recognition audit. The systems in place three years ago made this audit a slow and painful process. Automation has been created to help complete the audit within regulatory deadlines.

Indeed, American organizations must comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), a federal law that (among other things) established “audit reporting standards and rules” for publicly traded companies. The F&A department is now using automation for SOX controls. Thus, robots ensure greater precision for these integrated audits.

Improving accuracy and optimizing process execution

While this can take up to two weeks, the UiPath F&A department closes accounts within five days of each quarterly close.

This is a critical business process that is ideal to delegate to robots. Indeed, the tasks of the process are tedious and boring : two factors that can contribute to human error. Conversely, robots provide a 100% accuracy !

With robots taking care of these aspects at UiPath, finance employees were able to devote their time and attention to analyzing the data. The fact that team members are happier and more productive has also had the additional effect of increasing the retention rate.

A more recent example is the automation of the”Data collection for indirect tax compliance“. A robot gathers the documentation required by the indirect tax compliance provider. Next, the supplier prepares tax returns for all subsidiaries.

Before the robot, employees manually exported all necessary reports and supporting documents from a variety of sources. With the robot, there are no human input errors and the process is faster.

Learn how you can transform your finance department with our partner UiPath by downloading this e-book specially designed.

About StoryShaper:

StoryShaper is an innovative start-up that supports its customers in defining their digital strategy and the development of automation solutions tailor-made.

Sources: StoryShaper, UiPath