Business Process Automation: Enhancing Accounting Department

This report investigates the automation of business processes within an accounting department to address inefficiencies and errors associated with manual systems. The study identifies issues such as human errors, communication breakdowns, and difficulties in generating real-time reports. It recommends adopting business software like MYOB, SAP Concur, and Cashflow Manager to automate accounting processes, with a particular emphasis on SAP Concur due to its user-friendliness, efficient payment processing, and reliable report generation. The report concludes that automating the accounting department improves data availability, reduces errors, and enhances overall organizational efficiency, despite the initial investment costs.

Running head: AUTOMATION OF BUSINESS PROCESSES 1
Automation of Business Processes
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Executive summary
Business transactions are the main activities in a business organization; therefore,
most companies invest a lot in business transactions. The gaps in the current manual
system have a negative impact on the production of quality goods and services. In the
manual system, we found a lot of problems, including lack of efficiency, the breakdown
in communication and unavailability of data when needed. The report drafted out some
recommendations that will provide solutions to business problems. This includes
automating all the business transactions and processes to improve availability and
authenticity of data. Automation of payroll system helps to maintain and improves the
payment processes and capturing of invoices in the system.
Introduction
The accounting department is one of the most sensitive departments in an
organization. The manual system operation in the accounting department is often
associated with a lot of human errors, lack of efficiency and breakdown in
communication. This errors usually cost a lot of money and resources, some of the
organizations have lost thousands of dollars due to this challenges. However, this
challenges can be avoided by automating the payroll system and accounting department.
This report has put out some recommendations that will help in solving problems
associated with the accounting department (Venkatraman, 2015). The research was
conducted, and all the business transactions related to the finance department was well
scrutinized to find out challenges in the system.
Findings
We found that the manual system has a negative impact on the productivity of the
company. The manual system is subject to a lot of human errors which can be quite
frequent and have a negative effect when generating financial statement for the company.
Supplier invoices and staff expenses are the most affected by human errors made by
accountants. Some suppliers will be underpaid or overpaid, and this usually brings a lot

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of imbalance of accounts receivables. We found out that the process of generating real-
time reports is time-consuming, especially during auditing of the companies' financial
statements. The lack of real-time reports has made the manuals system unreliable
(Parthasarthy & Sethi, 2012). We found that the companies which have automated
systems in the accounting departments have fewer errors compared to companies with the
manual system. The organizations with the manual system have recorded a loss, just
because of the human errors made during processing of payments.
Recommendations
After analyzing all the gaps and challenges associated with the manual system, we
recommend that the companies should adopt new business software to automate all the
processes in the accounting departments (Winter & Klesse, 2009). MYOB, SAP Concur
and Cashflow Manager are some of the business suites that can be used to automate the
accounting department. Mind Your Own Business (MYOB) provides all accounting and
business services to the business organization in a simplified manner. This software is
made especially for small and medium enterprises. The Cashflow Manager is the most
straightforward business software that has eliminated the use of manual books in keeping
track of cashflow in the organization. However, we recommend organizations to
implement the use of SAP Concur in automating accounting departments. SAP Concur
utilizes all the available information and produces clear reports. The process of payments
in this software is easy and faster. SAP Concur is user-friendly and easy to use.
Conclusion
In conclusion, automating the accounting department should be the main focus of
any company because it controls the cash flows in the organization. The business firm
should consider implementing the use of SAP Concur because it is reliable in generating
real-time reports and eradicates human errors. The processing of both supplier invoices
and capturing them in the system has improved the availability of information when
required for auditing. An organization using manual system has incurred a lot of expenses

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due to errors that could be avoided by using an automated system (Caswell & Nigam,
2003). Implementation SAP Concur can be quite expensive, however, companies that
have adopted this software enjoy maximum profits with zero errors from the system. The
system is efficient and accurate in generating reports. Therefore we recommend
companies to implement the use of SAP Concur in the finance departments.

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References
Caswell N. S. & Nigam, A. (2003). U.S. Patent No. 6,662,355. Washington, DC: U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office.
Parthasarthy, R., & Sethi, S. P. (2012). The impact of flexible automation on business
strategy and organizational structure. Academy of Management review, 17(1), 86-
111.
Venkatraman, N. (2015). IT-enabled business transformation: from automation to
business scope redefinition. Sloan management review, 35, 73-73.
Winter R., & Klesse, M. (2009). Aligning process automation and business intelligence
to support corporate performance management. Association for Information
Systems.