How do you automate an accounting department?

When people think of automation, their minds are often taken to blasé images of mindless robots taking over jobs previously only completed by humans. To be fair, modern society is increasingly promoting innovation and sponsoring robotics and automation. Today’s world is more reliant than ever on technology that allows for self-service and convenience. With the globalization of businesses everywhere from manufacturing to marketing, automated services are essential for around-the-clock upkeep and management of data.

Automation in Accounting

Accounting is a valuable trade. It requires mental fortitude and financial literacy. Most basic accounting tasks, particularly repetitive and mundane tasks revolving around crunching numbers, can be completed by automated programs that perform more accurately and tirelessly than human employees.

More importantly, these programs complete mentally intensive labor without wages and are a cost-effective option for businesses to continue operations beyond scheduled hours and overnight.

How Can an Automated Accounting Service Benefit Your Business?

Automation fosters productivity. Improvements in data extraction, data management, and data transfer benefit not just businesses but the employees who work for them. Ease of access and flexibility are two factors that contribute to the convenience of automated services.

Software is capable of completing several business tasks for employees in the background behind the guise of a simplified dashboard, which ultimately saves time and money and frees up employees who no longer need to spend time manually managing data. Data can be stored securely and in large amounts, quickly scanned and searched through for keywords or numbers.

Integration of these practices happens in real-time and allows for the quick transfer of data during collaborative projects. Data visibility is imperative to operating a successful business to determine if practices are effective or not. 

How You Can Get Started Automating Accounting Processes

Thanks to downloadable software, taking advantage of automation in business practices and implementing it is simpler than one may think. Basil is one such example of a data management software that rounds all of your accounting management needs into one software.

Basil ensures secure data protection and encryption for both accountants and clients. In addition, Basil manages client databases, automatically encrypts data, organizes incomplete work into a task manager, and can be used to securely share data.

Businesses are often subscribed to multiple services that still do not handle all of their needs. The great thing about newer software products like Basil is that all of these tasks are completed under one subscription. Spending time on the organization of multiple subscriptions and integrating them into workflow takes away from labor that actually requires a person, not just an algorithm that makes decisions based on internal calculations. The integrity of data is not compromised and is likely to be more accurate than if it were to be manually updated.

Furthermore, sharing data with clients and employees is quicker when everything is stored in one cloud. Employees should think less of automation as replacing human workers and more of it as assisting them so that they may contribute to more valuable projects instead of manually managing data.

Which Tasks Can Be Automated?

• Payroll
• Software updates
• Expense reports
• Invoice processing

These are a few examples of accounting tasks that can now be completed automatically. Depending on the data management and storage processes of your practice, your needs may vary.

The good thing about automation on the whole is that it is often customizable and can be molded to suit your business needs, but there is also no shortage of new, innovative ways to make accounting easier. Hiring one or multiple people to handle forms and numbers such as payroll seems almost to be a waste of human potential when software can calculate wages instantly and store sensitive employee information.

Software updates can be set to be performed automatically without disrupting workflow or compromising data integrity. Expense reports can be automatically filled out, which further decreases time spent on manual data entry. Handwritten reports and spreadsheets are a thing of the past when considering automation for business practices. Why pay suppliers one at a time when a program can pay them for you? 

How Automation Can Affect Customer Experience

As previously stated, the world is, for the most part, leaning further and further into automated technology. Support for advancements in robotics and automation grows daily. Consumers can take advantage of these changes in our culture as well.

From a customer’s standpoint, automation of services, especially among a younger crowd, is preferred. Consumers are now able to access their data at any time, from any place, without having to worry about security. Most businesses provide their clients with an interactive dashboard on their website that allows them to easily manage their personal data, contact customer support for assistance, and more.

Services such as these bring businesses and their clients closer together and promote more effective problem-solving. Some businesses are even able to provide customer support via AI technology, which is programmed to answer frequently asked questions or provide general help with an account.

If the AI is unable to solve the problem, it can communicate with a human representative any necessary information about the customer and issue at hand. These numerous advantages should absolutely be considered when deciding whether or not to automate your accounting department.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the benefits of automation in accounting outweigh the costs by a vast margin. Businesses now serve a greater target group than before as global communication and collaboration become more prominent. Turning a greater profit for higher productivity with fewer employee costs is a financially competent choice that expands the time that employees have available to spend on valuable work. It is typical these days for any thriving business to have some type of automated service, whether it be beneficial for employees or consumers.

If you are not automating your accounting, there is no better time to start than now. Basil is a robust practice management software for accountants that checks all the right boxes. You can find more about the software here, or book a complimentary 1:1 demo with our experts. New users also get a 30-day free trial.