Automation Can Be Your Secret Weapon for Reducing Errors
The AP Journey…Part 2
🔎 In today’s accounting world, reducing errors while increasing accuracy is more crucial than ever. And accountants are expected to do exponentially more work in less time! 🛠️
💡 Scroll below as we discuss the significance of a modern tech stack and how automation can be your secret weapon for scaling your business without sacrificing data integrity.
Taking a deeper look into improving the workload for the AP (accounts payable) team. There are a lot of pieces to the AP puzzle, many documents that must match up for the right suppliers to be paid at the right time. These documents can be housed electronically (DASH DDX™) or in file cabinets. Here at DASH, the tools we’ve created are intended to speed up the rate at which you can search, find, and disseminate information.
In part 1 we addressed the fact that not all businesses can automate their workload. So many exceptions and special circumstances make it hard to fathom automation. We discussed taking small steps to begin extracting and reading data from incoming invoices to reduce the AP team workload.
This article focuses on how AP automation can positively impact the accuracy and reduction of errors.
Accuracy.
Part 2 of this series looks at the improvements in accuracy generated by the use of a robot (preferably, our DASH AP Robot™). Because the robot can read and extract data across an entire PDF document it can accurately input data into your ERP for you. We’ve touched on this topic in a blog post here https://dashdev.com/resources/accuracy-matters/ on improving data accuracy and the impact that has over time.
If your AP team could place the incoming Invoices into a folder and have the robot read and extract the data for them, they could concentrate on human-touch tasks and problem-solving for the organization. So, in this instance, the robot could free up your team to focus on new challenging tasks that would improve the whole organization.
Fewer Errors.
In studies done here at DASH, we found that regardless of the activity or task being conducted, humans can make between 3-6 errors per hour and on average 50 errors per day. And related to the business world, the average human error rate for data entry is 1% error rate. https://dashdev.com/resources/can-artificial-intelligence-reduce-errors-in-business/ So, if the robot could reduce these error numbers, even more, your business could see a dramatic decrease in errors and have less costly re-work to do.
Automation has its place differently for each team. Your team could begin with the automation of data entry. Automation can prevent or at least minimize human error. We humans can get complacent with data entry, but a robot does not. The robot doesn’t get tired, bored, or distracted. So, if you can’t see automating your entire AP process today, start small. Begin with using the robot to extract and read incoming Invoices so your team can take it from there. Then, you can begin to build a process that will enable your team to strategically add automation in more areas.
You can still benefit from the robot to increase data accuracy. And that benefit can start to be felt very quickly.
Small and medium-sized businesses can benefit from the DASH AP Robot™. We’ve built this tool specifically for SYSPRO users, so it’s directly integrated into your system and takes advantage of real-time data. We’d welcome the opportunity to learn more about your workflows in AP and see if we might be a good match for your team in today’s world and working together to build stronger businesses tomorrow. We’ve been here for 20+ years, we’re here for the long term.
Want to learn more? Click here. We’d be happy to share more information through a demo with you.
About the Author:
Stephanie is the marketing guru at DASH. For over 20 years, DASH has been authoring, delivering, and supporting DASH DDX™ and DASH AP Robot™, its ERP-integrated software to small and mid-sized manufacturing and distribution companies throughout the USA and beyond.