How tech might help accounting bridge the expertise hole

Within the early 2000s, Blockbuster’s failure to adapt to the digital period was additionally a symptom of one other difficulty: its heavy reliance on a human-centric, labor-intensive enterprise mannequin. Because the video rental large continued utilizing an enormous workforce shuffling bodily media in numerous bodily shops, others (like Netflix) have been shifting to digital streaming and on-line content material supply. By not embracing this shift, Blockbuster misjudged client traits but in addition stubbornly adhered to an outdated, extremely guide enterprise mannequin. In the end, it could not compete with media firms that supplied extra streamlined, tech-driven providers.

In fact, operating a DVD video empire isn’t the identical as operating a finance or accounting division. Nevertheless, Blockbuster would — like many finance organizations — have a fair larger downside right this moment: sustaining its workforce. Low unemployment and the exodus of employees from the workforce means it is robust to fill open slots. Blockbuster’s shops could be critically short-shifted. However so would its company departments reminiscent of know-how and (you guessed it) accounting. The truth is, with excessive turnover and fewer professionals coming into the sphere, 84% of CFOs battle to maintain their accounting groups staffed. 

Whereas the challenges of company accounting groups aren’t the identical as Blockbuster’s, they’ll nonetheless be taught a lesson or two from the latter’s resistance to adapting their companies to a extra digital period. How can making use of know-how assist handle the expertise hole dealing with right this moment’s CFOs and accounting managers? 

Automating routine duties: essentially the most seen “more-with-less” profit

Accounting departments have used software program for many years, so it is not like utilizing tech is completely overseas. Nevertheless, these groups have tended to be a latecomer to activity automation, a know-how more and more adopted in different departments and most industries. Maybe the obvious utility of know-how in finance could be to make use of software program to automate routine duties which might be repeatable but tedious and labor-intensive. By pulling individuals out of a course of the place many or the entire steps are guide and repetitive — for instance, digitally receiving invoices and inputting them into your inner techniques — you are able to do extra work with fewer individuals. 

Not solely do you get the work carried out extra precisely in a fraction of the time, however you take away the tedium and ache for the employees that in any other case must do it manually. Plus, it additionally advantages your suppliers (their invoices receives a commission on time routinely) and your prospects (by making certain the accuracy of their orders and fee processing). 

To get began, establish repetitive duties in your processes reminiscent of information entry, reconciliation and bill processing which might be appropriate for automation. Begin with a pilot program, choosing one course of to automate — say scanning vendor invoices into your techniques. It is best to fastidiously choose an RPA device that integrates effectively together with your current accounting software program. (What good is scanning bill information if you cannot push it into your payables system?) Now, run the take a look at pilot and establish any measurable enhancements earlier than increasing the scope. 

Going past bridging the apparent expertise hole

With respect to the expertise hole accounting groups face, essentially the most seen advantage of automation know-how is to easily cut back the time and sources required to perform repeatable duties. This lessens the necessity to discover and rent extra employees. Nevertheless, these and different applied sciences can immediately and not directly handle the expertise hole in different methods too.

Scaling for development with out including employees

Most if not all firms plan to develop over time. With guide accounting processes, including new prospects and distributors means you must develop your workforce accordingly to deal with that development. However, because the overwhelming majority of CFOs cannot discover or exchange the accounting professionals they should meet their present wants, that is a troublesome downside. You may both pay high greenback for AP and AR clerks or must outsource all of it, and both avenue shortly turns into costly. Automation applied sciences will let you scale operations alongside together with your development, so that you needn’t add employees proportional to assist that development. You do extra, with much less.

Conserving current employees engaged 

Leveraging automation know-how to cut back the time accountants spend on routine duties additionally addresses a key motive for turnover within the first place: lack of attention-grabbing work and restricted profession paths. Spending much less time on menial duties lets you interact the prevailing workforce in additional satisfying, strategic actions — actions that in any other case would require you to rent much more employees to carry out. Give it some thought: What AP clerk would not leap on the likelihood to be skilled in managing automated duties as a substitute of doing information entry all day?

Lowering overpayments and fraud (with out inflating the workforce)

Chasing down overpayments and double funds has all the time been painful and labor-intensive — to not point out attempting to retrieve the money that is already gone out of your account. It all the time prices you cash to trace down these inaccurate funds, and so they inevitably have an effect on your money move (since most distributors provide you with credit score however don’t ship you a refund examine). With accounts payable automation, duplicate entries of invoices and overpayments can all however vanish — and once more, you’ll be able to redeploy the employees that used to deal with these issues to different duties. And whereas overpayments are often unintentional, there’s all the time the prospect you will obtain a fraudulent bill. Nevertheless, with extra controls in place within the payables automation, each bill acquired could be in comparison with precise orders positioned, so detecting dangerous invoices needn’t be as time-consuming and labor-intensive as earlier than.

Eliminating the necessity to repeatedly take a look at the “cookbook”

If yours is like many accounting departments, you’ve got bought a cookbook — a course of and process guide so effectively documented a key workforce member may take off for 2 weeks and anybody else can merely step in of their absence. The issue with “cookbooks” that doc guide processes is that the interpretation and execution of them is by people. With automation dealing with all of the tedious duties (these the place errors can typically happen), the cookbook (and the employees) can cowl and execute the higher-level processes, not the menial ones. If errors occur, they’re at a degree that’s fast and simple to catch and proper. 

Only one much less tedious activity to do, leaving extra time for higher-value work.

Transferring accounting to the cloud

Lastly, whereas the expertise pool could also be shrinking and costly, it’s also getting youthful. The accountability for making IT selections — and operating departments like accounting that depend on these selections — is transferring into youthful arms. Not like their predecessors, newer generations have been raised with a pc and the cloud. This heightened acceptance of the cloud signifies that CIOs and CFOs and their management groups will now push for cloud-based options, together with these for procure-to-pay, order-to-cash and different accounting-related features. 

Does this handle the expertise hole for CFOs? In a phrase, sure. As a result of a lot of the infrastructure duties will probably be dealt with by cloud suppliers and Software program-as-a-Service distributors, the necessity to rent extra IT employees is decreased, permitting that workforce to do extra with much less, too. (Plus, for those who do have so as to add accounting employees, it will probably’t damage when one other division truly wants much less employees.)  

Accounting is “the final mile” for enterprise automation

The push to do “extra with much less” has been a company mantra for years. Nevertheless, engaging in this in an setting the place it is scarcely doable to fill even the minimal workforce you want, that is a fair taller order.  It is by no means too late to be taught from another person’s expertise — each their errors and triumphs — in terms of adopting automation know-how. That is definitely true in terms of accounting, which for my part has been one of many final areas within the enterprise to avail itself of the advantages of newer applied sciences.

Not like Blockbuster, firms like Amazon go all in on know-how and automation. The Amazon management workforce all the time talks about utilizing know-how to unravel that “closing mile” in offering their prospects with the most recent and best buyer expertise. Now it’s time for the accounting workforce to embrace know-how to automate features inside their area and to leverage it to do extra with much less — in order that they and their firms aren’t left behind.