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Is your accounting team still transferring data between Excel files? When accounting software is available, there is no reason for your staff to waste their time entering expense data into a spreadsheet. Ever since the invention of Spreadsheet, technology has been constantly improving. It has reached a critical juncture where majority of the mundane accounting functions can be handled by the accounting systems freeing up the accounting professionals to focus on the high value work which makes accounting automation vital.

Just envision scanning a receipt into a digital file and letting software handle the rest-reading it, converting it to usable data, putting it into the books, and assigning it to the appropriate accounts.

With accounting automation, your staff will spend less time performing laborious calculations manually and more time providing insights into your financial situation. According to research, most finance directors think automation increases their functional efficiency and frees up workers’ time for higher-value duties.

We’ll discuss the financial and accounting tasks you can easily automate, how to do it, and what accounting automation is in more detail.

What is accounting automation?

There is no getting around the tediousness of accounting, whether you are a business founder, new to an accounting job or a seasoned head of an accounting department. Ever wished that all your company’s invoices could be approved automatically and without your involvement? Accounting automation software contributes to making that a reality.

Accounting automation entails setting up workflows to automate formulaic, rule-based, and manual accounting procedures so that your accounting team will not spend time carrying out these manual processes on Microsoft Excel. No longer need to manually enter countless rows of data or manage accounts payable and accounts receivable because these accounting operations are now automated.

What effects will this have on the accounting industry? Accounting automation lessens the workload of accounting experts, far from taking away jobs. Automation streamlines regular activities when human judgement isn’t required, giving accountants more time to concentrate on other business needs and work on strategic planning and analysis-based business decisions.

List of Accounting tasks one can automate

Payroll

A manual payroll procedure might not seem too bad for a small business just starting. However, as your small business expands, you might discover that after hiring employee number five, manually processing payroll at the end of the month consumes a sizable amount of time you could spend on expanding the company.

Thanks to payroll automation, business owners can quickly handle payslips and tax calculations automatically! Additionally, it saves time when determining employees’ monthly wages while accounting for elements like overtime, incentives, and commissions.

Purchasing

Purchasing is the process of purchasing products and services for your company. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably. These procedures require a lot of time, and human error can significantly affect the business. By eliminating bottlenecks like lengthy delays for various approvals, automation of these operations using accounting software improves efficiency and helps ensure correctness.

Expense Statements

An expense report is a document that lists all the expenses that your company incurs. It is possible to watch your company’s spending to find opportunities for cost reduction, manage employee expense reimbursements, and find tax deduction opportunities.

Small firms may decide to employ software-as-a-service expenditure automation software that interacts with corporate software and generates these expense reports automatically due to the extensive amount of information that must be included in an expense report.

Account Payable

In case you need a refresher, accounts payable (AP) is the term used to describe the money your business owes to vendors, creditors, or suppliers. Accountants track accounts payable by going through many invoices in a lengthy, laborious manner.

Automation of accounts payable entails using solutions that eliminate these manual processes, streamlining the billing and payment processes.

Additionally, tracking and analytics capabilities are frequently included with AP automation software, giving your finance staff access to a dashboard for AP activity and tools for monitoring invoice processing status.

Read More : Reasons why Cash Flow is Vital for your business 

How can automation improve your business?

Automation improves productivity and financial results.

Process simplification makes employees and the company more productive and effective. Then, this time can be used on the more valuable duties that will boost sales. Automation may improve workflow while also improving staff training and development, which can assist address the present skills crisis.

Automation provides accurate real-time reporting.

For your business to succeed, you must understand your figures. However, having your employees monitor each KPI (Key Performance Indicator) manually and go through all the data takes a lot of time and efforts. But with automation, you can always see how your firm performs together. You can then accurately prepare a budget, estimate your cash flow, and make wise business decisions based on real-time objective financial information.

Automation helps to achieve better credit control.

One of the largest sources of stress for business owners is late payments, which also have a terrible impact on cash flow. However, the incidence of late payments can be significantly decreased by using digital payment methods. Businesses can chase payments more quickly and efficiently thanks to automation, reducing the effort needed to conduct credit control and increasing the likelihood that invoices will be paid on time.

Automation decreases time spent on repetitive tasks and human error.

The process of submitting and processing expenses is infamously labour-intensive, time-consuming for employees and financial departments, and highly prone to human error—the same holds for processing purchase orders and billing. However, a streamlined and automated workflow connects the entire process through a single system from beginning to end. This makes it much quicker and cheaper, and skilled personnel may now devote more of their time to more valuable things.

How to automate the accounting process?

There is no doubting the time you and your team may save by automating your accounting operations. The most important question is how to apply it with your finance and accounting team. The steps are described below –

Pick a template – Decide which accounting procedures you wish to automate, then select the appropriate templates.

Pick the best software – Decide on a core accounting programme such as Xero, weighing factors including cost, security, potential integrations, and how well it satisfies your company’s requirements.

Find a trustworthy payment platform – Opt-in for a platform you can rely on that effortlessly interacts with software to enable trouble-free accounting. When used in conjunction with Xero accounting software, Plooto makes it simple to integrate records with accounting tools and assists your business in maintaining accurate financial records.

Establish the workflow – Finding a trigger, a pre-set event that initiates automation is the first step in this process. Action and result should then be established.

Making an expense report is one example of a procedure you may automate. The employee would first submit this report to the manager, who would then send it to the officer, who would approve it.

Conclusion

Within corporate enterprises, the pandemic has already expedited digital transitions. For small and mid-size organizations to be ready for the impact of digitization on finance processes, it is now crucial to select the appropriate automation software and payment systems.

How can you manage your business payments more effectively? To learn more, connect with us at Bronte Bay. We can assist you with that to make things better! You may compare our pricing packages at BronteBay in minutes. We offer webinars and one-on-one advisory meetings to suit every business. We can show you the ropes in the right direction. Start with our 30-day free trial to see how you can save!