Three Avoidable Roadblocks to Automating Accounting Tasks

I’ve been in the industry 30+ years, and time and again I hear the same old frustrations about mundane, time-consuming, manual-intensive, error-prone accounting processes…

“Flipping between spreadsheets stinks, but I guess it’s just a cost of doing business.”

“Exporting to Excel and THEN reformatting data seems like it will take a while…”

“Do we REALLY have to re-key this data into the other format?”

“There has GOT to be a way to automate this process.”

What’s most disappointing about hearing my accounting friends vent is that there is no excuse for these frustrations to be realities anymore.

No More Excuses

Accounting software has come a long way in the past decade. Providers like my partner, Sage Intacct, have developed extremely robust, cloud-based platforms that reduce the amount of time and effort that goes into accounting tasks like reporting, consolidations and billing. Beyond that, automation has hit the mainstream. Just the other day, the Controller at a mid-sized business told me they had discovered a way to automate electronic funds transfers to ANY bank in the world, which she said drastically reduced the manhours that went into managing billing and financials with overseas suppliers. 

Now more than ever, accounting professionals can leverage tools, technologies and talent to automate manual accounting tasks and perform complex system integrations in ways that should erase previously held frustrations from their days. But they’re not…and the real question is, WHY?

In my experience, accounting professionals usually run into three roadblocks to adopting software automation.

Roadblocks to Accounting Automation

1. “This is just ‘how we do things.’”

Over the years, many customers have told me they simply had no idea solutions existed that could automate processes like data export, transfer, funds processing and invoicing. They had been resigned to the status quo because they felt it would be too much of a hassle to find an alternative solution.

In my opinion, this is evidence of a dramatic mindset shift that needs to happen at the decision-making level of businesses. Leaders HAVE to be more open-minded and collaborative when it comes to ideas about streamlining accounting and operational processes, even if it means considering shiny and trendy solutions like automation. The tools, technologies and skillsets are out there, and they’re proven to work—businesses must be more willing to adopt? them!

2. “Great idea, but no. Here’s why…”

We’ve all had ideas or suggestions turned down by colleagues or superiors—often for extremely valid reasons. Maybe the business doesn’t have budget available to fund a new software application, or maybe the implementation timeline doesn’t jive with the rest of the corporate calendar. In the moment, it’s easy to take these excuses at face value and keep pushing off new investments in accounting.

But at what point do these inefficiencies and time- and budget-sinks become too costly to ignore?

The best way to overcome the “excuse machine” in the accounting process is to develop a rock-solid business case for an alternative solution, and this is where taking initiative at the operations level and working with a knowledgeable partner can do wonders. In a nutshell, establishing the business case involves articulating the cost of implementing the solution vs. the cost of NOT implementing it. If you can prove the latter will do nothing but continue to rise as time goes on, then you’re on your way to making a strong case. A solid business case trumps the excuse machine any day of the week.

3. “We tried that before, and it didn’t end well.”

In my experience, failed past projects are the most frequent barrier to taking the leap and considering a solution like automation. When I hear this excuse, I always try to get the person to look beyond the fact that the project failed and consider why it failed.

Technical issues are sometimes to blame. An automation solution’s effectiveness often hinges on integrating multiple operational systems—like payroll and inventory—with your accounting software. Building these integrations can be complex, and if it fails, it can sour decision makers on the idea of automation altogether.

However, more often than not, projects fall down due to a weak business case for the solution. It sounds obvious, but automation projects fail when the cost of implementing the solution outweighs the cost of doing nothing.

The good news is, a thorough and well-guided solution design should head off any issues with the business case. During solution design, stakeholders should be asking important questions about the project: Why are we implementing the solution in the first place? What objectives are we hoping to achieve? How are we measuring success? What challenges do we need to overcome for success to be possible?

There are a million reasons not to consider a “trendy” solution like automation. However, it only takes one good reason to make the leap. That’s why my team at BTerrell Group puts so much investment in helping organizations buy into automation, get comfortable with a new solution and build a business case for rolling it out.

I could talk about automation all day long, but I’m going to stop here for now. If you’d like to carry on a discussion about the benefits of automation and what frustrates you about manual accounting processes, shoot me an email!