Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has ceased to be a futuristic promise and has become a tangible reality in accounting consulting departments.
According to the McKinsey Global Institute, current automation technologies can Fully automate 77% of general accounting activities. But beyond the numbers, what really matters to companies is the return on investment: how long will it take to recover what I invested in RPA? In this article we present 8 specific use cases of RPA in accounting where the investment is recovered in less than 6 months, freeing your financial team from repetitive tasks so that they can focus on strategic analysis and decision making.
Automated bank reconciliation
The bank reconciliation It is one of the most repetitive and error-prone tasks in any accounting department. It consists of comparing the movements recorded in the ERP with the bank statements to identify discrepancies, unaccounted movements or imputation errors.
How automation works with RPA:
The software robots They automatically download bank statements from the portals of each financial institution, access the ERP, cross-check the information line by line, identifying coincidences and discrepancies, and generate a detailed report of the differences detected. The entire process that previously could take between 2 and 4 hours a day is completed in a matter of minutes.
Why the ROI is so fast:
If an accountant spends 3 hours a day on bank reconciliations (approximately 60 hours a month), automation frees up that time from day one. With an average cost of €25-30/hour, the monthly savings exceeds €1,500. Considering that a basic RPA implementation for bank reconciliation can cost between €5,000 and €8,000, The investment is recovered in 4-5 months.
Additional benefits:
- Elimination of manual transcription errors
- Immediate detection of suspicious or unauthorized movements
- Reconciliations available in real time, not just at the monthly close
- Complete traceability of each operation performed by the robot
Supplier invoice processing
The supplier invoice processing It involves multiple steps: reception, digitization, data extraction, validation against orders, verification of amounts, accounting imputation and sending to the approval circuit. It is a time-consuming process and where imputation errors are frequent.
How automation works with RPA:
The Robots can extract data from invoices received by email or scanned (using OCR), validate that the amounts match the orders or delivery notes registered in the system, verify that the supplier's tax data is correct, generate the corresponding accounting entry and automatically start the approval flow according to the company's policies.
Why the ROI is so fast:
A medium-sized company can process between 500 and 1,000 invoices per month. If each invoice requires 5-10 minutes of manual processing (validation, registration, sending), we are talking about 40-160 hours per month. Automation reduces this time by 70-80%, freeing up between 30-130 hours per month. With an implementation cost of €8,000-€12,000, return is achieved in 3-6 months.
Additional benefits:
- Drastic reduction of duplicate invoices
- Automatic detection of mismatches between order, delivery note and invoice
- Automatic compliance with payment deadlines (avoiding surcharges or loss of discounts for prompt payment)
- Organized and instantly accessible digital file
Monthly accounting closing
The monthly accounting closing It is one of the most critical and stressful processes for any financial department. It involves preparing data, making adjusting entries, reviewing balances, consolidating information from different centres or subsidiaries, and generating preliminary financial statements.
How automation works with RPA:
Robots can perform routine closing tasks such as the generation of recurring entries (amortizations, provisions, accruals), the extraction and consolidation of data from multiple systems, the execution of automatic balance reviews (general ledger vs. balance of sums and balances, intercompany balances), and the updating of reporting templates with the month's data.
Why the ROI is so fast:
The monthly close typically consumes 3-5 business days of the entire accounting team. If a team of 3 people spends 4 full days (96 total hours), automating 40-50% of repetitive tasks frees up 40-50 hours per month. This not only saves direct costs, but also allows the closing to be brought forward by 1-2 days, improving the timeliness of financial information. Typical ROI: 4-5 months.
Additional benefits:
- Reduction of team stress during closure periods
- Greater quality and reliability of financial statements
- Early detection of errors or inconsistencies
- Possibility of carrying out weekly or biweekly pre-closings to anticipate problems
Management and presentation of taxes (VAT, SII)
The management of periodic tax obligations such as the quarterly VAT, the Immediate Supply of Information (SII), or the withholdings of model 111 involves the collection of data, the validation of formal requirements, the calculation of quotas, the generation of declarations and their electronic presentation.
How automation works with RPA:
Robots automatically extract information on invoices issued and received from the ERP, validate that all invoices comply with the formal requirements of the SII (NIF of the client/supplier, description of operation, date, tax base, VAT type), calculate the amounts of input and output VAT, generate the XML files for the SII and forms 303/390, and can even present them electronically at the AEAT.
Why the ROI is so fast:
The preparation and presentation of tax returns consumes between 8-15 hours per month in a medium-sized company (monthly VAT, daily SII, quarterly form 111, etc.). Automation reduces this time by 60-70%, freeing up approximately 6-10 hours monthly. Considering that errors in tax returns can generate penalties of thousands of euros, the value of RPA goes beyond saving time. Typical ROI: 4-6 months.
Additional benefits:
- Automatic compliance with deadlines (avoiding late submission charges)
- Drastic reduction of formal errors that lead to Treasury requirements
- Complete record of all operations for audits
- Early warnings of invoices that do not meet SII requirements
Employee Expense Management (T&E)
The management of travel and representation expenses (Travel & Expenses) It is a process that involves multiple actors: employees who incur expenses, managers who approve, and the accounting department that validates, accounts, and reimburses. It is a fragmented, slow and error-prone process.
How automation works with RPA:
Robots can extract data from digitized tickets and invoices Through the employee's mobile app, automatically categorize the expense according to company policies (transportation, accommodation, meals, etc.), validate that the expense meets the established limits, initiate the corresponding approval flow, generate the accounting entry once approved, and synchronize all the information with the ERP for reimbursement to the employee.
Why the ROI is so fast:
In companies with 50+ employees who regularly incur expenses, the accounting department may spend 20-30 hours per month just reviewing, validating and accounting for employee expenses. Automation reduces this time by 70-80%, freeing up between 15-25 hours per month. Additionally, automatic detection of out-of-policy expenses prevents improper payments. Typical ROI: 3-5 months.
Additional benefits:
- Faster reimbursements to employees (improves satisfaction)
- Elimination of duplicate or fraudulent expenses
- Real-time visibility of spending by department, project or employee
- Automatic compliance with spending policies without manual intervention
Automatic generation of financial reporting
The preparation of periodic financial reports (balance sheets, income statements, variance analysis, reports by cost centres, dashboards for management) requires collecting data from multiple sources, applying calculations, updating templates and distributing the reports to the corresponding recipients.
How automation works with RPA:
Robots access all necessary systems (ERP, CRM, departmental spreadsheets, databases), extract the required data, perform the necessary calculations and consolidations, update the Excel or PowerBI templates with the period information, generate the reports in the required formats (PDF, Excel, PowerPoint), and distribute them automatically by email or publish them on the corporate platform.
Why the ROI is so fast:
The preparation of monthly reporting consumes between 15-25 hours in a medium-sized organisation (different reports for management, controllers, operational areas). Automating 60-70% of this process frees up between 10-18 hours per month. Additionally, automatic generation allows for more frequent (weekly) reports at no additional cost. Typical ROI: 4-6 months.
Additional benefits:
- Reports available within minutes of data closing
- Debugging formulas or copy-pasting between systems
- Ability to generate reports ad hoc instantly when management requests them
- Standardized and consistent format in all periods
Automation of collections and management of unpaid bills (AR)
The collection management (Accounts Receivable) It involves monitoring pending invoices, sending reminders, applying received collections to the corresponding invoices, managing claims, and analyzing late payments by client.
How automation works with RPA:
Robots monitor the status of invoices pending collection daily, identify those that are approaching or have passed due date, automatically send personalised email reminders to the customer based on the number of days late, record responses and payment promises, automatically apply collections received (through bank reconciliation) to the corresponding invoices, and generate balance aging reports and delinquency analysis.
Why the ROI is so fast:
Collection management consumes between 10-20 hours per week in companies with 100+ active clients. Automation reduces this time by 50-60%, freeing up between 20-40 hours per month. But the real impact goes much further: reducing DSO (Days Sales Outstanding) by 3-5 days significantly improves cash flow. In a company with €500,000 in monthly turnover, reducing the DSO by 5 days frees up approximately €83,000 in liquidity. Typical ROI: 2-4 months.
Additional benefits:
- Reduction in the percentage of unpaid bills due to proactive monitoring
- Improvement of the relationship with clients (automatic and professional reminders)
- Real-time visibility of the collection situation per client
- Early detection of clients at risk of non-payment
Control and internal audit of accounting compliance
Internal accounting controls are essential to ensure the reliability of financial information, prevent fraud and ensure regulatory compliance. However, manually executing controls is costly, inconsistent, and reactive.
How automation works with RPA:
Robots run entire batteries of accounting controls automatically and continuously: detection of duplicate entries, validation that all invoices have their corresponding accounting entry, verification that there are no mismatched entries, verification of segregation of duties (that the person who registers is not the one who approves), analysis of unusual or out-of-range transactions, validation that all the cost centres used exist in the catalog, and generation of exception reports for review by the controller or internal auditor.
Why the ROI is so fast:
Executing internal controls manually consumes between 8-12 hours per month in a medium-sized company, and are typically only carried out due to closure or external audits. Automation allows these controls to be executed daily, detecting problems immediately. In addition, each error or fraud detected early can save thousands of euros. Typical ROI: 3-5 months.
Additional benefits:
- Immediate detection of anomalies and errors (do not wait for closure or external audit)
- Reduction in the cost of external audits by presenting documented and continuously executed controls
- Improvement of the internal control environment and regulatory compliance
- Complete traceability of all controls executed for inspections
In Strengthen We are specialists in digital transformation of financial and accounting departments, and we offer you:
- Initial automation diagnosis: We analyse your current accounting processes and tell you which are the best candidates to automate according to your volume of operations, available resources and expected ROI
- Personalized cost-benefit analysis: We calculate the specific ROI of each use case in your company, considering not only time savings but also the reduction of errors, improvement of deadlines and release of liquidity.
- Redesign of pre-automation processes: Before automating, we optimise your accounting flows to ensure that you are automating efficient processes, not replicating inefficiencies
- Implementation project management: We accompany you in selecting the appropriate RPA provider, supervise the implementation and validate that the robots work correctly
- Training and change management: We prepare your accounting team to work with robots, managing resistance and ensuring successful adoption of the technology
- Monitoring and continuous improvement: Once implemented, we measure actual results, identify opportunities for improvement, and extend automation to new processes.
Our approach is not technological, but business: We do not sell robots, we help your accounting department be more efficient, precise and strategic. We work with the main RPA platforms on the market (UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism) and we adapt the solution to your current systems without the need for large integration projects.
Is your accounting department still spending hours on bank reconciliations, invoice processing or report preparation? Would you like your finance team to be able to spend more time on analysis and less on repetitive tasks? Do you want to implement RPA but don't know where to start? Contact Afianza and our team of consultants specialised in accounting automation will help you identify the most impactful opportunities and implement RPA solutions with demonstrable ROI in less than 6 months.
Frequently Asked Questions about RPA in Accounting
Is RPA the same as Artificial Intelligence?
No. RPA automates repetitive tasks based on fixed rules (for example, copying data from an invoice to an ERP always following the same pattern), while AI is intended for tasks that require interpretation, learning or non-predefined decision making. Many current solutions combine both: RPA to execute the action and AI (such as intelligent OCR) to interpret unstructured documents.
What happens if an accounting process changes after automating it with RPA?
Robots follow specific rules and interfaces, so a change in the ERP, a banking portal or tax regulations can "break" the automated flow if the robot is not updated accordingly. That is why it is important to have continuous maintenance and not treat the implementation of RPA as a closed project, but as a process that requires periodic review.
Do I need to have the accounting department digitized before implementing RPA?
It is not essential to have everything digitized from day one, but it does help: the more processes are already in digital format (electronic invoices, centralized ERP, online banking), the faster and easier it will be to implement automation. If you start from very manual or paper-based processes, a previous basic digitalization phase is normally recommended before automating, so as not to automate inefficiencies.
