RPA: Leading the Digital Workforce

Organizations and accounting firms seek to increase productivity and reduce costly errors by replacing manual processes with automation, such as robotic process automation (RPA) solutions. As a result, bots are joining the workforce faster than ever, and today’s CPAs are increasingly expected to understand and evaluate the costs and benefits of adopting RPA.

Benefits of Robotic Process Automation

RPA is an approach to automation enabled by software that mimics computer activities performed by people. The approach can include things as simple as automating keystrokes and mouse clicks or as complex as a chain of sophisticated logic routines spanning large segments of an accounting cycle and using artificial intelligence technologies such as computer vision, fuzzy logic, and natural language processing. Either way, the automated routines act as virtual robots — or simply “bots” — or they can have significant impact on an organization’s productivity.

Bots are capable of performing tasks many times faster than humans when properly designed. Traditionally, they have been created for routine, rule-based processes, such as gathering records from database searches for accounts or transactions in various systems. Properly designed, a bot may help organizations minimize or eliminate human intervention in the execution of tasks. They can improve productivity by working around the clock, 365 days a year, and, improvements in efficiency can be found not only in the speed of activities performed but also in accuracy, as effective design can reduce the probability of typographical errors or overlooked information.

Some organizations are implementing large fleets of bots, which can be scheduled to optimize the order of routines performed, the use of software licenses, and consumption of computing resources. Teams of bots performing a large scope of activities act as a digital workforce. A digital workforce may be used to augment an existing workforce or relieve the overflow for a workforce operating at capacity. Some organizations may consider RPA when reviewing their hiring plans. Instead of augmenting their team with additional human capital, they may be able to augment with RPA.

Automation of routine tasks means that employees can focus their time on doing the more analytical parts of their jobs — the parts which typically are more stimulating and satisfying. In a recent Forbes survey 92% of employees were found to have increased workplace satisfaction after the implementation of intelligent automation and RPA.

Use Cases for Digital Workers

RPA is often used to automate repetitive, rules-based tasks, such as scanning electronic documents for needed information, comparing data from one spreadsheet to another, or scraping data from websites and entering it into an application. Because these are adaptable data entry activities, they may relate to a number of different functions in an organization. For example, RPA software can be a useful tool when it comes to tasks for accounts receivable, purchasing, account reconciliations, or compliance and due diligence requirements.

92% of employees found to have increased workplace satisfaction after the implementation of intelligent automation and RPA.

Kaufman Rossin is having success deploying bots internally and for clients. Internal projects include bots for manipulating, assembling, and storing PDF files of prepared tax returns as well as automating the electronic filing of those returns with the IRS and monitoring for responses. During peak tax compliance seasons, the automation is helping to relieve overtime hours for administrative staff and free up attention to address client requests. To assist with bank compliance audits, Kaufman Rossin created a screening bot that consumes large lists of parties and counterparties to transactions and performs searches on those parties for risk indicators. Overnight, the bot reads the listing of hundreds of entity names, performs searches against those names for indicators of risk, and prints hyperlinked PDFs that are available for the audit professionals to quickly review the next day.

Kaufman Rossin has also deployed bots into client environments. For a professional services firm, we designed, implemented, and maintain a bot that checks a log of jobs performed against cash deposits, identifies cash receipts for jobs performed, records the date, and signs off as “bot” in a subledger for review. When less cash was received than expected, the bot records the amount in the subledger and highlights it yellow for further inspection. For a jewelry retailer, we created a bot that checks invoices received against purchase orders and packing slips to validate unit prices and
quantities. Issues are flagged for review, and load files are created for import into the company’s point of sale system.

Banks and financial services organizations have been among the early adopters of RPA technology. Most banks perform due diligence screening when a new customer requests a service. Employees enter the potential customer into their database to calculate the risk, interest rates and other offerings for the customer. Well-deployed RPA can also screen multiple lists and sites, such as those in the Office of Foreign Assets Control, to detect those on sanctions lists or even identifying politically exposed persons.

Increasing adoption of RPA in several industries is expected. In December 2018, federal bank examiners urged banks to pursue new ways to meet BSA/AML obligations with the goal to “further strengthen the financial system against illicit financial activity.” The joint statement from financial watchdog and oversight agencies (which include the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, FinCEN, the OCC and the NCUA) encourages banks to consider, evaluate and, where appropriate, responsibly implement innovative approaches aimed at combating money laundering, terrorist activity and fraud. The statement noted that BSA/AML gaps exposed by pilot programs will not necessarily lead to supervisory action.

Designing, Implementing, and Operating a Digital Workforce

There are important steps to take to support successful implementation of an RPA solution. Align and incorporate your automation program with the business strategy. Today, most technology projects are also business projects, and RPA implementations are no exception. In addition to understanding the goal of the process you’re seeking to automate, it’s important to assess how the technology aligns with the organization’s overall business strategy and goals. That means that senior management must be committed to the approach from the beginning and their review and approval of the governance model is critical.

Identify your competencies. Are you going to build, buy, or borrow a team capable of implementing the talent? Managing a successful RPA program requires multiple types of knowledge and skill. In addition to the business managers and process owners, common roles for a successful program may include an automation program manager, business analysts, bot developers, automation architects, and infrastructure managers. Building would involve training multiple existing employees within your organization to assume the roles necessary to perform these functions. Buying suggests hiring the experienced personnel. Borrowing means using consultants. Many organizations use a blend of all three.

…it’s important to assess how the technology aligns with the organization’s overall business strategy and goals. That means that senior management must be committed to the approach from the beginning and their review and approval of the governance model is critical.

Examine your processes. The rule of thumb is that RPA will amplify and accelerate existing processes. An organization that already has good governance will amplify it through RPA. But robotic process automation may also highlight less-than-sound processes. Don’t just aim to automate the current process, take advantage of the opportunity to re-engineer and optimize the process. Some organizations have personnel whose role includes process optimization. Other organizations may choose to automate and optimize through an iterative process.

Develop an automation roadmap. To maximize the benefits of RPA while controlling the risk related to change, it’s often a good idea to start as small as possible with your pilots. People may want to start off with a big win and demonstrate high return on investment as quickly as possible; however, limiting the number of variables changed in a process helps to manage the risk of unintended consequences. You are less likely to break interfaces and create incompatibilities by decomposing from programs into projects, projects into routines, routines into tasks, and tasks into steps.

Test your automation. Follow sound change management practices not only for the technology but also for the business process being automated. Criticality of processes and sensitivity of data should be identified before beginning so that proper business continuity and information security planning can be incorporated into development, testing, and deployment. Proper authorization of changes should be obtained. Development and testing should be performed in segregated environments with test data in robust test cases. Staging environments should be provided for user acceptance testing. Approval of changes should be obtained prior to deployment. Post-implementation testing and monitoring of automated process is key.

Measure results. Comparing the time required for RPA to complete a task versus the time required for manual completion of the same task will help you start to quantify efficiency gains. Successful use of RPA often requires a significant investment in software licensing, staff training, new employees and/or consultants. There will be a learning curve, most likely errors to fix and tweaks to make. Be wary of vendors who promise an unrealistic return on investment (ROI) in six months or a year.

Conclusion

The use of artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotic process automation in the industry will undoubtedly continue to grow in the coming years. As the technology evolves and becomes more available, it will also become more sophisticated and enable professionals to focus their time on analysis, judgment, strategic thinking and innovation, rather than on routine processes — we’ll have bots for that.