Artificial intelligence (AI) has arrived in the accounting profession in a big way. The good news is it’s helping to streamline accounting tasks, finding patterns in data on which you can take action, and generally, making things better. Here are just a few places we’re seeing AI and machine learning impact the accounting process.
Transaction Coding
Most systems have incorporated some form of machine learning into transaction coding. When bank feeds are imported, each transaction needs to be coded to add the account code in the chart of accounts. Class, tracking codes, and other custom data may need to be added as well. Rules can be set so that the accounting application can pre-code the transactions; in this case the accountant or business owner simply approves or corrects the entry.
Invoice Fetching
It starts with a picture of a receipt. Invoice fetching applications can turn pixels into data using sophisticated OCR (optical character recognition). The data is then turned into a business transaction that can be imported into an accounting system.
Auditing
The books of many government agencies, nonprofits, and large businesses need to be audited on a regular basis. Auditing can be an expensive process. Smart programs can review a company’s data and assess where the risks and anomalies are so that the audit program can be modified to focus on the more important parts. This reduces risk and cost for parties involved.
Accounts Payable
Artificial intelligence can help speed up the matching of purchase orders, packing slips, and invoices so that accounts payable tasks can benefit from both accuracy and efficiency. It can also automate approvals and search for duplicate invoices in order to avoid overpayments.
Accounting Tasks That Are Clerical
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a platform that allows users to create automation without involving the IT department. Think Excel macros or Zapier on steroids. Any workflow with an overwhelming number of clerical steps could be a candidate for RPA.
AI allows accountants to spend less time on routine tasks and leverage that freed up time on higher-level analysis work. As AI becomes more affordable, small businesses, accountants and bookkeepers will benefit from this transformative trend.
To learn how to leverage new technology to streamline your businesses’s accounting functions contact us.