Robotic Process Automation - Packaged Automations
Do you feel ready to begin your robotic process automation journey, but aren't sure where to start? Do you hear teammates talk about how much time they're wasting on mundane data entry tasks? Would you like to see the computer work for you, for once, rather than the other way around?
Robotic process automation looks like AI but it's not AI. However, it does do boring stuff for you. If you're interested in AI, try this first. If you're looking to get things done a different way, consider packaged automations.
Packaged automations are pre-defined workflows designed to carry out common, repetitive, (and boring) data entry tasks. Packaged automations can be implemented quickly with modest effort. No software development required! You simply specify the task to be run, provide parameters, and schedule it to run periodically at a pre-defined time. If needed to run the workflow, login credentials are stored in a secure password vault, accessed only at run time.
Financial Reporting
Generating financial reports in a consistent format each month is often challenging and time-consuming. The manual steps required are repetitive, prone to error, and mundane. This is especially true if the final destination of the financial reporting is an Excel workbook. We help clients focus their effort on higher-value tasks by automating the generation of:
- Financial statements
- Budgets and forecasts
- Budget versus actual reporting
Booking Credit Card Transactions
Downloading credit card transactions from a banking website, transforming the related data, and importing them into the accounting or ERP system requires some knowledge about the nature of the transactions and the G/L accounts to which they should be booked. In addition to getting the format right, assigning the correct vendors and G/L accounts is almost always time-consuming, tedious work, and error-prone. We provide clients with packaged automations to:
- Download credit card statements
- Download transactions in QBO or CSV format
- Assign vendor, department code, G/L account
- Transform the transaction data
- Load the transactions into accounting system
Operational Reporting
In addition to financial reporting, many organizations have a need to generate standard operational reports on a periodic basis. Most ERP and CRM systems built-in reporting to support the operation of your business. However, running these reports day after day, weekly after week, or month after month can be time-consuming and tedious and, in multi-system scenarios, error-prone. We provide packaged automations for:
- Gross profit analysis
- Utilization rate calculations
- Labor hours versus target
Collections Automation
Nearly every organization expends effort to collect its outstanding accounts receivable. This task often entails generating customer statements, identifying overdue invoices, and sending email requesting timely payment. This task is usually performed week in and week out as invoices are paid and new invoices are generated in the accounting or ERP system. To make the process more complex, it is not uncommon for the collections process to differ by customer or customer group. We help clients with packaged automations to:
- Generate customer statements
- Create A/R aging analysis reports
- Send email to customers with attached statements and invoice copies
Automated Downloads
Downloading statements and invoices from banking and vendor websites is another common, repetitive, and mundane task. While each only takes 5 minutes, downloading 150 per month represents 12.5 hours of low value work that could be focused elsewhere. We provide clients with packaged automations for downloading and securely storing:
- Bank statements
- Bank transactions
- Vendor invoices
Automated Email Management
Many organizations have general-purpose email addresses to capture communication from interested outside parties. For example the "Info@" email address is very common. "AccountsPayable@" and "Accounting@" are also commonly used. Managing email sent to these general purpose email addresses is tedious, time-consuming, and downright boring. We help clients process the email sent to general-purpose email address by providing packaged automations to:
- Delete non-relevant email messages
- Acknowledge the receipt of relevant email messages
- Forward relevant email to the appropriate team member for resolution