In my last blog entry, I referenced a dear bookkeeper with whom I worked many ages ago, whose challenges interpreting a changing payroll report from the external provider; her challenge with getting the appropriate journal entries into the accounting system was a catalyst to my wanting to develop XBRL GL. So, I would like to discuss how RPA is like that bookkeeper, the good news and the bad news.

A number of vendors have emerged in the RPA space. You will often hear of three names in particular for solution providers: Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism and UiPath. These “overnight successes” have been around since 2003, 2001 and 2005 respectively. (Again, support for my statement in my last entry that this nothing new, just receiving more attention.)

I am going to focus on UiPath for our RPA proxy. Your choice between these three or another depend on the users who will be involved, the back office or consulting support available, certain architectural issues, and other considerations.

Let’s look at the bookkeeper’s situation:

1. Get the summary report.

2. Look in some specific places for the Net, withholdings, garnishes and other adjustments.

3. Write the numbers onto the template I provided.

4. Calculate the gross-up amount.

5. Calculate the company matches and other additional entries.

6. Create the journal entries by putting the payroll template numbers into the journal entry template.

7. Post

Guess what RPA can do?

1. Recognize when a file (for example, an email with an Excel or image file attached or a link to a web report) is recognized by monitoring the email.

2. Perform optical character recognition on the image if necessary and look in specific places in the spreadsheet, image or web page for the relevant information.

3. Pull out that information and write it into the payroll template.

4. Take the resulting totals and additional calculations and write them into the journal entry template.

…and so on.

If, however, there are any changes to the input, calculations or outgoing system, RPA will fail miserably.

Is RPA something a savvy business person can do? Or do you need to bring in a programmer? That’s the topic of my next entry.