What is business process automation, and how can it help your business? If you scoured the internet, you’d run across dozens of articles singing the praises of BPA. What they don’t necessarily tell you is what it is and how you can implement it in your existing company. There’s a reason for that; business process automation should be individualized to fit your own specific industry and needs. It’s difficult to find a one-size-fits-all resource, as it covers a wide number of processes.
Breaking down the basics: Defining business process automation
In short, BPA is the automation of different tasks necessary to run your business.
Take your billing cycle, for example. Before technology, billing might have included typing up a bill for services and be delivering it to a client. The client would return payment for the bill. The bookkeeper would then update the client’s account by noting payment to a ledger or accounting system. Proof of payment might have been added to the client’s file and would have been added to the company’s profits ledger. All of this would have been accomplished on paper, sometimes by hand. And therefore, all of it was subject to human manipulation and error. You can see how it would be possible for a client to be double-billed or for a payment to never be collected in the first place.
Automating this task would include a document management system, where all of the information about the client, including specific projects, is organized and accessible. A system such as this would be able to automatically update payment information, send notifications and billing updates, and allow accounting professionals secure access to analytics on specific accounts, as well as overall company financial information.
BPA might be achieved with document management systems throughout your company. Benefits can be seen in every department, from human resources to legal to administrative.
How BPA improves your business
There are a number of ways that business process automation can positively impact your bottom line. Here are just a few:
Improves communication across various departments
If you’ve integrated the same technology across your entire company, there’s a benefit of communication and continuity across all of the departments. Rather than each department working separately, unaware of client dealings with other colleagues, there’s better communication and real-time data with a good BPA integration.
Eliminates human errors
Many errors can be made through human manipulation. This includes typos and mis-keying information as well as simply forgetting to accomplish each step in a process. With an automated process, human errors are caught and employees are notified of time to rectify any problems.
Saves employee hours
With the menial and mundane tasks automatically accounted for, employees can focus on more important and productive projects, saving time previously spent on actions like distributing and filing documents.
Business process automation delivers several benefits that keep your organization more efficient and more productive. It’s the way most companies are doing business, making it integral for your company to stay competitive and best serve your customer base.
