Key Takeaways
Workflow automation in accounting can shift finance teams from tedious, error-prone manual work to strategic decision-making, this post argues, citing a Deloitte finding that two-thirds of CFOs believe their departments could become autonomous by 2028. It walks through the top five high-impact use cases: data entry and reconciliation, where an AI platform inputs and matches transactions and flags discrepancies in seconds; financial reporting, pulling from many sources to generate reports with little manual effort; accounts payable and receivable, scanning invoices, routing approvals, sending reminders, and applying cash receipts; budgeting and forecasting, combining historical data with predictive analytics; and compliance and audit management, continuously monitoring requirements and generating audit trails. The throughline is that automation eliminates human error and frees staff for analysis and growth. The takeaway: an AI automation platform like Kognitos can scale across accounting and beyond, see related account reconciliation automation.
Finance and accounting teams regularly deal with complex documents and processes that can have a significant negative impact on the business if they are not accurately processed. It’s often time-consuming, tedious work. Workflow automation can improve efficiency and reduce or eliminate the risk of human error, so team members can focus on strategic decision-making rather than mundane tasks. In fact, a Deloitte report cited that two-thirds of CFOs surveyed believed their departments could reach an autonomous state by 2028. Curious how your team could get there?
Here are the top five ways we’ve seen accounting benefit from AI-driven workflow automation.
1. Data Entry and Reconciliation
Accounting teams at large organizations often include team members dedicated to manually entering data from invoices and cross-referencing transactions. These types of activities are an excellent way to incorporate automation into your accounting processes. An AI automation platform like Kognitos can input and reconcile financial data, match transactions, and flag discrepancies within seconds. This effectively eliminates human error while also allowing for reallocation of resources to more strategic tasks, or even reduction in full-time headcount.
2. Financial Reporting
Preparing quarterly financial reports for leadership teams can be labor-intensive and often takes days or even weeks to complete. This reporting pulls from a variety of sources to paint a full picture of financial performance and health for executives, board members, and stakeholders. Kognitos can transform this process by integrating data from each source with little to no human intervention, allowing accounting teams to generate comprehensive reports with just a few clicks. Rather than spending their time compiling reports and auditing data to ensure it’s consistent and reliable, the accounting team can spend their time analyzing the reports to make strategic business decisions.
3. Accounts Payable and Receivable
There is often a subset of the accounting team responsible for handling accounts payable and accounts receivable. These team members manually process each incoming and outgoing invoice, which can lead to delays, mistakes, or even missed payments as a result of simple human error. With Kognitos, workflows accounts payable invoices can be automatically scanned, recorded, and sent for approval, so payments are processed on time, every time. For accounts receivable, automation is capable of generating invoices, sending payment reminders, applying cash receipts, and updating customer accounts, all without a team member lifting a finger.
4. Budgeting and Forecasting
Another area where automation can help accounting teams gain huge efficiencies is in the budgeting and forecasting process. Workflow automation allows teams to integrate historical data with predictive analytics to generate budget forecasts. The team can quickly analyze the output, adjust scenarios, and explore financial models. This leads to more accurate forecasts, better resource allocation, and more informed decisions.
5. Compliance and Audit Management
Manual compliance checks are overwhelming and labor-intensive for accountants and auditors. Automating the process allows for a more hands-off approach where the team can still be confident in the data. Kognitos can continuously monitor compliance requirements and generate audit trails. The can also distribute reports to key stakeholders and even regulatory bodies. Each step of the way, saves time on routine tasks so team members can instead analyze data for potential risks to the business.
The Impact of Automating Accounting Processes
Workflow automation is more than just a productivity enhancer. It can completely transform accounting departments at large companies. Using an AI automation platform like Kognitos allows finance leaders to reallocate resources to the most impactful activities that will drive growth and innovation for the organization. In the event that cost-cutting measures need to be enacted, automation can even help reduce full-time employee headcount.
As more and more accounting teams implement automation in their organizations, Kognitos provides a solution that can scale to support accounting and finance teams, as well as various other departments struggling with tedious, manual work that distracts from strategic initiatives. If you’re interested in a personalized demo, reach out to a member of our team today!
How Accounting Teams Can Leverage Workflow Automation
- Identify the accounting workflows consuming the most manual effort. The accounting workflows with the highest manual burden in most organizations are: accounts payable processing, month-end reconciliations, intercompany transaction management, expense report processing, and financial report preparation.
- Deploy workflow automation for accounts payable first. AP automation typically delivers the fastest accounting workflow automation ROI. Deploy invoice extraction, 3-way match, and exception routing automation. AP automation is well-understood, quickly configured, and the ROI is immediately measurable.
- Automate month-end reconciliation with AI matching. Month-end reconciliation is a high-effort, deadline-driven accounting task. Configure AI to match transactions against subledger records automatically and flag unmatched items for accountant review. Automated matching reduces reconciliation cycle time.
- Configure automated financial close task tracking. Month-end close involves dozens of tasks across the accounting team with dependencies and deadlines. Configure workflow automation to track close task completion, send reminders as deadlines approach, and escalate when tasks fall behind.
- Measure accounting cycle time and error rate before and after automation. Accounting cycle time (days to close each month) and error rate (journal entry corrections, restatements) are the primary accounting workflow automation metrics. Track both before and after deployment.
