5 Processes to Streamline with Automated Accounting Software

What to automate in your accounting software, and why?

Automation is the key to eliminating pressure. It isn’t about replacing people; it’s about ensuring the right information goes to the right places and the right people with minimal friction and manual effort.

With automated workflows, including invoicing, bank reconciliation, accounts payable and receivable, and many others, you can save time, reduce human error, and stay compliant with auditing and regulatory requirements.

1. Bank processes

One of the most important areas to automate is the reconciliation between bank statements and cashbook journals. Not only does the automatic posting of payments save time, but it also ensures a level of accuracy that manual checks can’t reliably achieve. Fortunately, bank integrations mean you no longer need to upload a BACS file to your bank.

There are numerous other areas related to the cashbook that are worth automating:

• Routine reallocations
• Automated remittance advice
• Identification of intercompany transactions

It’s also helpful to set automated posting rules for routine transactions.

2. Expense management processes

Expenses can be a hassle for employees as well as accountants, so it’s helpful if your expense system doesn’t rely on heavy employee input. If employees can simply upload a photo of a receipt for your system to categorise and auto-populate key fields with, it’ll take a lot of the friction out of the process.

Let’s take travel expense claims as an example:

1. With Xlegder’s mobile app, employees can instantly add their mileage as soon as they park their car, which streamlines expense and helps carbon reporting.
2. With ticketed transport claims, our software uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) that scans an employee’s receipt and automatically uploads it to the system, creating evidence for auditing and efficient expense workflow.

4. Supplier management processes

Naturally, your invoice process should be automated in the other direction, too, for the invoices you receive and pay.

With Xledger, you can build this automation from the start of your supplier relationship. Xledger can scan the company registration number on an invoice and set up the supplier automatically using an integration with Companies House.

But the system goes further to make accounts payable far easier. Xledger can:

• Match transactions to invoices to ensure bills are only paid once
• Prepay invoices when you post a transaction
• Create purchase order accruals as soon as your organisation receives goods

5. Reconciliation across platforms

Integration is the enabler behind a lot of automation. We’ve already mentioned bank accounts and Companies House integrations – but there’s no real limit for how many integrations your system can or should have. Any further integrations will simply give you more opportunities to place automation in the driver’s seat.

Your accounting software can integrate with your CRM, HR, ticketing systems, or specialised financial technology like smart credit cards. All of this can help your team see the big picture of what’s going on in your organisation, and it can really reduce the pressure when it comes to providing reports.

Automation is paving the way for accountants

Accountants are overloaded in the current climate, but automation can help them produce more value-adding work. To leverage Xledger’s automated accounting solution and learn more about our accountancy-trained implementation and support team, book your free demo today.

References 

[1] Gartner (2024), Gartner Survey Shows That a Third of Accountants Make Several Financial Errors Per Week due to Capacity Constraints, Gartner.com.