A Generic Process Model for the Introduction of Robotic Process Automation in Financial Accounting

Abstract

Increasing pressure on costs requires companies to streamline and enhance the efficiency of main and support processes. The digital transformation with its various automation options offers great potential for this. In the area of process automation, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can be used to automate individual process steps as well as entire business processes using software robots without a change of existing systems across applications. In the support process finance, the focus of RPA is on accounting and controlling processes, whereby especially the repetitive processes of external accounting are suitable for the use of RPA. In this paper, the relevance of RPA for the main processes of external accounting will be analyzed. Based on an analysis of case studies on the use of RPA in external accounting, premises for a successful Robotic Process Automation are derived and combined in a generic process model for the introduction of RPA. Subsequently, the proposed generic model is verified in a company.