In March, 2021, Roger officially became Corpay One. To learn more and understand the change, read this blog post.
Are you letting these common concerns hold you back from adopting automation in your finance department?
On a high level, you probably already know that accounting automation is the process of making day-to-day accounting tasks run automatically, like magic. Most accounting firms or finance teams turn to automation when they want to run their business more efficiently, scale more quickly, or spend the majority of their working hours on strategic planning rather than tedious tasks.
The concept has been around since the early 2000s and adoption of digital accounting tools has sharply increased over the last couple of years. But, true accounting automation is something elusive in the marketplace.
Since co-founding Roger, I have worked with hundreds of companies to help them adopt accounting automation. But some CFOs and finance team leaders are still on the fence.
If that’s you, let me address the common misconceptions and concerns I often hear, including:
But first, let’s dive a bit deeper in how we define accounting automation.
The term ‘accounting automation’ has been used very loosely for the past 10-15 years to define all kinds of tools and semi-automated improvements to everyday processes. The tools of the past were not built to transform into artificial intelligence companies. But what they’ve done is introduce incremental improvements and gotten accounting professionals used to the idea of workflow automation. With new capabilities around deep learning and artificial intelligence, now is the time where we’ll truly see automation take shape.
I see it as a complete transformation in how you can run your business.
All your bills can magically be paid on time.
Potentially fraudulent transactions can be flagged in real-time.
And the reports you need are always ready to go.
A heartwarming story that always sticks with me is of one client who told us that he’s been able to free up so much time in his business that he could confidently tell his wife that he was ready for baby number two.
That’s really what accounting automation is all about—making a significant improvement in the quality of life of financial professionals.
On a more technical level, with Roger, we’ve taken the approach of automating from A to Z, step by step.
That means starting with the data entry portion of transcribing all the documents that flow through the financial workflow and putting all that information straight into the accounting system. Those could be all the actions that happen in a finance department or in an accounting firm such as performing bill payments, doing expense reimbursements, matching receipts to transactions in a bank statement. Then, we can use that data as a basis to build automated workflows and dig up insights about your business, vendors, spending and compliance.
We believe there is an opportunity to go much deeper than accounting automation has in the past while solving each task intelligently.
Accountants and bookkeepers are the people who make up our customer base and our user base. They’re the ones we serve.
We have never come across an accounting firm or a finance team that said they want to implement Roger to get rid of all their accountants. Their motivation (and ours) is about setting up the business for future success and improving their team’s job satisfaction. Accountants, CPAs, and bookkeepers are highly educated professionals who don’t want to spend all their time on tedious tasks that could easily be handled by a machine.
Accounting automation is not without its limitations. The software does get smarter over time and can surface more and more relevant data to finance teams. But there will always be a human on the other side that takes that insight and turns it into a business strategy.
We’re augmenting the essential skills of accountants and bookkeepers, not replacing them.
The biggest mistake I see companies make is saying that they don’t have time to introduce automation into their existing processes. I get it.
We all get used to the way we do our jobs and get into a particular groove that works.
I used to think I was too busy to take the time away from my work to implement new workflows. But I’ve completely changed my mind after finally getting on board and seeing the difference that it makes. I would rather spend two hours today to introduce a better process so that I can save one hour every week for the next year (or 52 hours!).
As the age-old saying goes, work smarter not harder.
One common misconception I see around accounting automation is that it’s a daunting task to transform your workflows. Many people don’t realize that you can get started in a lightweight way. You don’t have to do everything all at once. It can be as simple as replacing one manual process with an automated one and then you can add on more and more over time. It’s not a complete overhaul overnight or a 3-month long project. It’s a gradual process that can go at whatever pace you want.
In terms of where to start, I recommend you first take an audit of your existing processes and then determine where you want to automate based on your goals.
For instance, we talk to a lot of CFOs and financial controllers who want to spend less time on the data entry aspect so that they can focus more on the reporting and analysis side. In their case, they might start with invoice and receipt scanning to automatically enter that data into the system.
Make a list of all your existing processes, such as for bill payments or reimbursements.
Then map out every single step in that process similar to a flow chart. Involve your teammates in this exercise to make sure you’re not missing any steps that you might not be aware of. I find it extremely helpful to visualize your workflows so that you can see which processes are too long or complicated.
Then, you can begin to tackle one manual task or process at a time. We’ve created a workflow builder that you can use almost in the same way that you would use Zapier. You can start with one straightforward automation. Then, build every team process into Roger.
Although I want you to jump in and start automating right away, I also want to help you choose the right automation software that will serve you for years to come. Here are four things to look for in an accounting or finance automation software:
If there’s only one thing I hope you take away from this article, it’s that the time is now. Not next year, not in two years. So, are you ready to jump over the fence and start automating your accounting?
I’m clearly biased in this opinion, but Roger is the best software for finance professionals that are new to this whole automation thing, but are ready to get serious about it.
We integrate with the rest of your tech stack, empowering your organization to scale and grow while Roger takes care of the heavy lifting and eliminates manual tasks that slow you down.
