Disruption Is Imminent: Automated Accounting

Accounting, at the end of the day, is about just one thing—accurate information. When accounting—and the bookkeeping that supports it—offers accurate information, it is doing its job. Businesses rely on accurate accounting in order to make smart decisions, pay the proper amount of tax, track progress, and much more. Simply put, it would be nearly impossible to run a successful business without an accurate and reliable accounting department.

With that said, the bar is quickly being raised in the modern world. In days gone by, it was good enough to have that accurate information—even if it took a while to get it. Most companies would work on a system where monthly reports were due well after a month had actually ended. It was this way because of the limits of technology and the speed with which human bookkeepers and accountants can work. Those limits are being stripped away, however, as more and more of the accounting cycle can be successfully automated.

Speed Matters

In business, speed is always going to be important. It isn’t enough to do something better than your competition, you have to do it faster as well. That applies to the products and services that you take to market, and it applies to decision making as well. When you can make smart choices faster than your competition, you will naturally have a competitive edge. In that vein, it is obvious that faster accounting provides a huge benefit to a company that is trying to get ahead.

If you can properly implement automation within your bookkeeping cycle, for example, you are going to be able to close your monthly books much faster. Human bookkeepers can only post so many payments within a day, or an hour, so you are always going to be limited by their speed if you stick with the traditional way of processing transactions. That is no longer necessary in the modern world, however, as machines can now do in a hurry what humans used to do by hand. Of course, mechanizing the process of bookkeeping is going to make it more accurate as well, so your business stands to benefit on all fronts.

In the end, automated accounting and bookkeeping processes means you can have reporting that happens nearly in real-time, and your decisions can be made as such. Rather than waiting days or even weeks to see how things are going, you can respond to developments in your day to day operations through the use of constantly updated financial information. A manager is only as good as the information that he or she has to work with, and automated bookkeeping leads to excellent, timely info. 

Service on Other Fronts

For the accountant, it might seem like injecting machines into the process would be a bad career move. That is not the case. When machines can take care of some of the basic, repetitive parts of accounting and bookkeeping, the human accountant can be more responsible for customer service and problem solving. In many ways, the accountant will actually have more opportunities to ‘show off’ his or her skills, because the easy work will take care of itself. Adding value for clients is what the service industry is all about, and accountants and accounting departments will be able to do just that thanks to the time that is saved via automation.

Ready to learn more about how your bookkeeping system can be automated? Botkeeper has the perfect solution. The proprietary machine learning and artificial intelligence of our platform will help you toward the goal of timely, accurate books in your business—with a lot less hassle. With frictionless online sign-up, you can be automating your books before you can say, "Wow, technology is really amazing, I had no idea how far it had come."

Which, admittedly, is a bit of a mouthful.