RPA Continues to Accelerate Finance and Accounting Transformation

Procure to pay, order to cash, record to report, controllership processes, finance transformation. Do these sound familiar? And do these processes involve predictable manual work, as well as large data to be processed and collected? As the answer is likely to be yes to both these questions, you are probably aware of the headaches they produce. As for the solution? Robotic process automation (RPA) is estimated to have a global potential of 44% in Finance and Accounting (F&A). With proven results for many front runner companies, RPA is guaranteed to smoothen the way business operations are managed.

Approximately 70% of our customers start their automation journey in F&A processes

Approximately 70% of UiPath customers start their automation journey in F&A processes. With our RPA platform, companies are successfully leveraging RPA in their financial activities to scale their operations, deliver enhanced customer service, and achieve competitive footing in their industries.

One large customer alone implemented our enterprise RPA solution with rapid results: 650,000 annualized hours saved in 200 operations in just a few months from implementation in 2017. The Japanese company has already exceeded the expected outcomes, currently having automated 1.1 million hours and reduced costs by ¥10 billion out of the ¥20 billion targeted in their 3-year plan.

Optimize end-of-month accounting

A German-based accounting provider was overwhelmed by a back office process with a recurrence of 10 monthly transactions per customer and an average handling time of 30 minutes per transaction. Frequently generating exceptions, the structured, rules-based process was previously handled by three departments across five desktop applications.

0% error rate

75% manual effort saved

65% faster processing

In an implementation period of six weeks, UiPath helped create a process that included salary accounting, importing and exporting data between Datev, a leading accounting software used by accountants and tax advisors in Germany, and SAP. The automated process also checked different bookings across accounting systems. With a 75% degree of robotization and ROI within five months, the company reduced process errors to 0%, manual efforts to 25%, and processing time by 65%.

Streamline accounts payable

Another of our customers, a leading Swiss medical and pharmaceutical company, needed to manage 1,800 invoices per month. While the process involved predetermined rules and decisions, it also relied on unstructured information and paper documents. The process required the efforts of three full-time employees across three departments, using four desktop applications including MS Office and email.

ROI within 2 months

90% manual effort saved

0% error rate

90% faster processing time

With intelligent OCR, UiPath Robots now extract data from invoices incoming via email, validating invoice information (e.g., PO number, number of items, cost per item) against the purchase order and goods received. The company was able to fully automate the process within 4 weeks and achieve ROI within 2 months.

The outcomes were impressive: manual effort reduction to only 10%, a 0% error rate, and 90% faster processing time. The project's success allowed the company to shift operational focus to more critical processes and massively improve customer relations. See what else our robots can do.

Automate credit limit request underwriting

An AA-rated trade credit insurance customer active across Europe dealt with credit limit request underwriting, a key process for the organization. It required highly repetitive manual data processing at a great cost. The company’s team of underwriters collected the information from more than 20 screens and external sources before actually starting to assess it.

900 cases handled per day

2,440 hours saved every month

Today, UiPath Robots automatically collect, assemble and present the data on a dashboard for the underwriters to assess. The results improved dramatically, with processing times dropping from 4-18 minutes to 2-11 minutes, giving a 40% to 50% cycle time reduction. This allowed underwriters to dedicate more time to high-value customer interactions. What’s more, in 85% of the time UiPath Robots processed the data for credit limit requests within 1 hour of receipt. Our Robots were able to gather data for approximately 900 cases per day, saving 440 hours per month in the UK alone. The initial assessment led to a potential of more than 2000 hours saved per month across Northern Europe.

A case for RPA

Automation provides significant gains, delivering increased productivity, accuracy, and speed. Not only does RPA bring hard cost savings, but it also relieves companies of much of the time spent manually moving, collating and posting data between systems.

The UiPath Platform integrates intelligent optical character recognition (OCR) and NLP tools that supercharge robots with the ability to process structured and semi-structured content in invoices, and capture natural language from emails and other documents. Besides OCR and NLP, we are adding machine learning capabilities that will unlock new opportunities in F&A operations. Companies that have not yet taken advantage of the current benefits RPA delivers must speed up their plans.

Read more about what UiPath has to offer to companies wanting to start their automation journey with F&A processes.