HFMA 2020: potential RPA efficiencies highlighted

Simon Perks (pictured), head of robotics and AI at Agilisys Limited, said RPA could deliver significant benefits to finance departments. He said RPA was not about a ‘walking, talking robot’, nor was it artificial intelligence. 'It’s software that’s fantastic at replacing repetitive and rule-based activities that are high volume and require minimal human intervention. The person doing that job isn’t asked to be creative – they are being asked to follow a playbook.’

This made elements of finance, HR and IT best placed to take advantage of the benefits of RPA.

RPA was about buying capacity, Mr Perks said. ‘When we came into lockdown, the demand for RPA increased, partly because it can operate 24 hours a day, free of errors and omission. It doesn’t get bored looking at the thousandth invoice of the day, nor will it be distracted by a phone call.’

RPA increases productivity, he told delegates at the virtual conference. ‘Even if I am 100% efficient all the time, which unfortunately I’m not, I will operate for eight hours a day – studies show it’s typically anywhere between two and four hours. Bots will work for 24 hours a day.’

Straight away this delivered benefits of 4:1 (RPA works 24 hours a day compared with a human’s eight hours), but this could rise to 8:1 when other gains are factored in, he said. ‘If you just automate your processes, that’s a 4:1 benefit before you do anything else. The more things you can do to fill up the robots’ time, the more you add value,’ he added.

RPA could be applied in areas such as compliance, reporting, payroll and, perhaps most obviously, in accounts payable and receivable. ‘The higher the volume or if a higher number of colleagues are running the process, that’s an indication that it’s worth investigating RPA,’ he said.

Many delegates were concerned OCR (optical character recognition) might limit the effectiveness of robotic process automation, for example when scanning invoices. Mr Perks said scanning technology had advanced significantly over the last two or three years, and, though there were some limitations, scanning engines could be ‘trained’ to recognise invoices from particular suppliers.

He was also asked about the typical timescale for implementing RPA. He said this depended on the extent of the venture – a process to identify mismatched cash could probably be done in a couple of weeks, whereas a project to automate accounts payable and receivable could take a month or two.

In the latter case, trusts may wish to start with a narrower project and build from there. ‘You could start with the top 10 suppliers, which could account for 75% of your total invoices. That’s where you get the most bang for your buck.’