Automation in accounting is nothing new, despite the fact that it seems to be progressing more quickly these days. Although most of us don’t remember them, large paper ledgers and manual entries used to be the standard method of conducting business. Nowadays, we frequently enter a few figures and receive precise reports that flawlessly detail all of our transactions.

However, accounting automation is still growing. According to experts, automation will probably have an impact on the accounting profession.

This has caused some worry, but astute accountants understand that accounting is more than just entering numbers and printing reports—about it’s understanding the context in which those numbers were generated. When filing a tax return for a client, you might be able to scan in W2s and 1099s, but the artificial intelligence that fills in the proper fields on the form won’t tell your client what steps they should take to lower their future tax liability.

The same is true for reporting. Financial reporting is much more than simply pressing the computer’s “print” key. Even if the procedure is automated, only an experienced accountant or CPA can interpret the meaning of the reports.

Your first move should be to switch to a cloud-based accounting software program if your clients (or your company) are beginning to think about introducing automation. You will have greater freedom in the future and will be able to implement additional automation features later on if you do this. Once accounting software is in place, think about including a few of these features, which will cut down on the time spent matching items and entering data into your system while retaining full control over the accounting process.

• Expense management – expense management typically consists of keeping track of tedious things like receipts and mileage. Using an automated expense management system eliminates the need to spend hours matching receipts with bills, or calculating trip mileage from one location to the next. I don’t believe there is a person in existence that would miss stapling a receipt to a credit card bill.
• Document management – Having a document management application in place eliminates lost documents, and reduces the need to file documents, while making it easy to locate the documents you need in a hurry. A side bonus – no more stacks of papers on your desk.
• Bank reconciliation – The bank reconciliation process involves a lot of busy work, in some cases hours that can be better spent serving clients. If you’ve already updated your accounting software, chances are that you already have an automated bank reconciliation option in place.
• Payroll – Payroll is another area where automation is a proven time-saver. If you don’t have a lot of hourly employees, the entire payroll process from onboarding to paying your staff can be almost entirely automated. While some upfront work is required, once an employee is in your system, paying them takes minutes. Even changes to payroll, such as a salary increase, can be completed quickly.

Both accounts payable and accounts receivable tasks can be automated if you’re so inclined.

Despite the understandable reluctance of many accountants, deploying automation in your company or helping your clients automate their accounting department efficiently shifts the focus away from repetitive chores and frees up time for businesses to concentrate on their customers.

Automation in accounting is here to stay. It can be advantageous to use it to your benefit both now and in the near future.