With technology advancing more rapidly than we could ever imagine, it’s time to take your business to the next level by taking full advantage of the ‘Financial Process Automation’ software options available. Financial process automation is delivering operational efficiency, enhanced compliance, and more streamlined workflows, among other amazing benefits.
What is Finance Automation?
Finance Automation refers to the use of technology to execute financial processes and operations. Automation helps you save time and money, that you would normally spend on your finance team, by completing transactional accounting tasks for you – automatically! By using finance automation technology, your human resources can be better allocated to high-level, strategic tasks rather than having to spend countless hours conducting repetitive tasks like data entry or bank reconciliations.
What are the benefits of Finance Automation?
Finance automation provides various advantages to businesses that utilise this technology, including:
1. Cost savings
According to a report from Ernst & Young, the addition of robotic process automation can result in cost savings between 20% to 60% of baseline FTE cost.
2. Error reduction
By lessening the amount of manual work, you naturally decrease the chance of human error from taking place. Human error can cause financial, regulatory, and even reputational consequences.
3. Employee satisfaction
As employees spend less time on manual and repetitive work, they can shift their focus to problem-solving and strategic endeavours, which will likely result in increased employee satisfaction.
4. Scalability
More and more data enters businesses each day, and it can become overwhelming to be able to utilise it for your needs if everything is disparate and manual. An automation solution can pull data from various sources, format it, and centralise it so that you can make the most out of your data without limits.
5. Transparency
Financial processes often go through multiple hands before being marked complete. However, executives and stakeholders alike may need to have an awareness of the finances at any given moment to be able to make decisions wisely.
What automation software do we recommend?
At Matovic Business Accountants, our accountants and bookkeepers are proficiently skilled in the use of Xero accounting software. Xero enables you, as a business owner, to:
- Send invoices online as soon as the job is done.
- Reconcile bank transactions each day using suggested matches.
- Pay bills on time and keep track of accounts payable and cash flow.
- Claim expenses by submitting and reimbursing expense claims.
- Stream your bank accounts so you can securely view your bank transactions.
- Accept payments online and get paid up to twice as fast by connecting additional apps like Stripe, GoCardless, Square and others.
- Track projects costs and profitability by using project and job tracking software.
- Calculate GST returns to speed up preparing business activity statements – you can also submit your BAS to the ATO from Xero.
- Pay staff (Payroll) and report details to the ATO with online payroll software – automate tax, pay and super calculations.
- Manage Xero contacts and see details of a customer’s or supplier’s sales, invoices and payments in one place.
- Capture data and get copies of documents and key data from Xero automatically.
- Online File Storage which manages and shares documents, contracts, bills and receipts safely from anywhere.
- Accurate accounting reports which track your finances.
- Inventory software to keep track of what’s in stock, as well as populate invoices and orders with items you sell and buy.
- Multi-currency accounting which uses instant currency conversions so you can get paid in over 160 currencies.
- Purchase order software to create and send purchase orders online.
- Create professional quotes using Xero software or the app – send quotes instantly from your phone or desktop.
- And so much more…
Xero accounting software is constantly being expanded by the creation of apps that are able to be connected to Xero in order to level up your business in a wide variety of ways. For example, some of the commonly used apps used by our clients are:
- Hubdoc – Hubdoc is Xero’s data capture tool which makes bookkeeping seamless.
- WorkflowMax – which allows you to manage leads, clients, create quotes, track time, send invoices, maximise business profitability, team productivity and performance.
- ServiceM8 – which integrates seamlessly with Xero, allowing you to manage any field service business from a client’s first call through to job completion, invoicing and final payment.
- Square – which helps businesses take payments any way you want (online or in-person).
- And many more… go to Xero’s app store to view their whole range of available apps.
Summary
In summary, the majority of finance leaders and accountants have already implemented finance automation processes, or are planning to. Along with all the benefits financial process automation will provide to your business as a whole, it’s becoming somewhat of a requirement to remain competitive in the marketplace.
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