Speed is crucial when running a business, whether making a decision, delivering orders, or processing payments. However, some tasks can become time-consuming and delay vital processes. This is especially true for repetitive data-driven tasks, such as accounting.
Thankfully, automation can help your business complete tedious tasks quickly and efficiently. In particular, accounting automation enables your company to perform accounting processes within a shorter time frame accurately. This capability lets you stay on top of your business finances and resolve urgent issues.
It may be time to automate your accounting processes if your company is experiencing operational roadblocks in finance. Here is a closer look at accounting process automation.
What is accounting process automation?
Accounting process automation refers to the use of technology to streamline accounting tasks—accounts reconciliation, payroll, invoicing, expense management, cash flow forecasting, and tax compliance, among others.
This strategy helps businesses reduce errors, perform consistent accounting processes, and boost operational efficiency and productivity.
Statistics say that 58% of accountants believe technology improves efficiency and productivity. Meanwhile, 65% suggest automating processes, workflows, and payments will be some of the most important considerations for accountants until 2025.
6 Steps to Automate Your Accounting Processes
More than just inputting financial data onto accounting software, automating accounting tasks involves a more thorough process. Here are tips on how to automate accounting processes.
1. Evaluate your existing processes and tools
Contrary to popular belief, not all accounting processes can be automated. As such, you must evaluate your existing processes and tools to determine the software that suits your business needs.
Consider these questions when evaluating your current processes and tools:
- Are you doing your accounting tasks frequently and repetitively?
- Do these tasks require human interaction or creativity?
- What tools are you currently using to perform your accounting tasks?
- How much time do you spend on each task?
- Do you often identify errors in your data?
For instance, payroll is often time-consuming because you have to compute each employee’s gross and net pay according to the number of hours worked, government contributions, and monthly taxes. An automated payroll management system can help you make accurate calculations, disburse paychecks, and organise employee data with just a few clicks.
2. Choose an accounting software
Suppose you’re in the market for an accounting software. It can be challenging to choose one for your company from the many options out in the market.
Look into these factors when selecting an accounting platform for your business:
- Accounting features your business needs
- Your company’s long-term needs
- Your company’s budget
- Your company’s existing technology or other applications you’re using
- Compatibility with other accounting or administrative systems
3. Create a migration plan
It’s time to migrate your data once you’ve chosen an accounting software. You may assign IT to oversee the migration process while preventing errors and protecting your data. Then, onboard your accountants on the use of the new accounting platform to familiarise them with its features.
4. Set up and test your automated workflow
An ideal automated workflow includes a trigger, action, and result. Let’s take overdue payments as an example. You can input payment due dates into the invoicing software to flag balances not paid on time. Some platforms automatically send reminder emails with a payment link when flagged.
Be sure to test the workflow before launching it and adjust the triggers and actions accordingly. This will help minimise potential issues in the future.
5. Integrate additional automation features
You may integrate more features into the accounting software to improve user experience and the process.
For instance, your accountants could be more efficient by using an expense tracking feature with more data variables to monitor your company’s financial health on a broader scale. They may also need to link your company’s attendance system to your accounting software for payroll computation purposes.
Here, getting your employees’ feedback about integrating add-ons into your automation system is essential since they are the primary users of the software.
6. Monitor and communicate process changes
You only need to monitor process changes once your automated workflow is in place. Observe how your employees feel about automated accounting processes.
Your accounting processes should also keep up with modern technologies. Ensure your accounting systems and workflows are well-equipped to handle changes in today’s business landscape. This responsiveness can help you streamline your operations and improve your organisational productivity.
Accounting Made Easier with Automation
Accounting can undoubtedly be a headache for businesses. However, it need not be. It only takes the right technology to support your processes, automate your accounting tasks, improve your workflows, boost your organisational efficiency, and conveniently monitor your company’s financial performance.
Consider using Spenmo to speed up and streamline your accounting processes. This end-to-end payables software brings internal spend management, automated bill payments, approval workflows, and accounting reconciliation into an integrated view.
Our vision is to create a seamless payables experience for fast-growing companies. Spenmo integrates with your accounting software to automate your accounts payable reconciliation process. Doing so can reduce the time spent reconciling your expenses by 90%.
Book a demo today to start automating your accounting processes!