Automation Potential in: Accounts Reconciliation
today's Challenges
The process involves multiple steps in which an accountant must verify and certify information including; submission confirmations, due date reminders, approvals, rejections and completions. Most companies still manually reconcile their balance sheet accounts using Microsoft Excel which has been an accepted method for many years. However, this means that reconciliations are labour-intensive and come under pressure during month-end.
Automation Impact Evaluation
As with any manual process, human errors can occur during account reconciliation.These can be as simple as typos, unsaved drafts or even simple miscalculations.These small mistakes can reduce the integrity of financial statements and forecasts. They are often difficult to uncover as they are caused by erroneous data entry or issues with formulas.
In addition to this, as spreadsheets are not linked to an organisation’s general ledger system, any changes to account balances that are made after the reconciliation is complete, will likely make the reconciliation invalid.
Even where businesses are using online accounting tools, time spent on account reconciliation can be dramatically reduced through the use of Robotic Process Automation.