RPA (Robotic Process Automation)
10 High-Impact RPA Use Cases Every Finance and Accounting Team Can Automate
Key Takeaways
- RPA automates repetitive finance tasks, reducing manual errors, improving compliance, and freeing staff for strategic work.
- Start with high-ROI, easy-to-implement use cases like invoice processing and expense auditing to achieve quick wins.
- Automating accounts payable and receivable accelerates invoice processing and collections, directly improving cash flow.
- Expand from simple tasks to complex processes like financial statement preparation and tax reporting for long-term value.
Finance and accounting teams spend countless hours on repetitive, rules-based tasks like invoice processing, bank reconciliation, and data entry. These tasks are time-consuming, prone to errors, and prevent teams from focusing on strategic work.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is transforming finance and accounting by automating these workflows. By implementing RPA, organizations can reduce manual errors, improve compliance, and free finance staff to focus on higher-value activities.
Here are the top 10 RPA use cases in finance and accounting, ranked by ease of implementation vs. expected ROI, to help your team prioritize quick wins and strategic projects.
To see how RPA can fit into your workflows, visit our RPA Overview Page.
1. Invoice Processing (Accounts Payable Automation)
Ease of Implementation: High
Expected ROI: High
Accounts payable teams often spend a large portion of their day manually entering and approving invoices. RPA can automatically capture invoice data, validate information against purchase orders, and post entries in ERP systems.
Automating invoice processing significantly reduces manual entry errors and speeds up approvals. Finance teams can process invoices up to 50% faster, freeing staff to focus on higher-value tasks and improving overall efficiency.
To learn more about how RPA can process invoices, visit our Invoice Processing Automation Page.
2. Expense Report Auditing
Ease of Implementation: High
Expected ROI: Medium-High
RPA can streamline employee expense report auditing by automatically checking receipts, flagging policy violations, and validating amounts against corporate rules.
Expense report auditing with RPA saves finance teams hours of manual review while reducing errors and policy breaches. Automating this process also increases employee satisfaction by speeding up approvals and reimbursements.
3. Journal Entry Creation and Posting
Ease of Implementation: High
Expected ROI: Medium
Recurring journal entries and adjustments can be automated using RPA. Bots can pull data from multiple systems and post entries accurately, freeing finance teams for analysis and reporting.
Automating journal entry creation reduces manual errors and increases efficiency and consistency across accounts. This ensures timely reporting and allows staff to focus on value-added financial analysis.
4. Purchase Order Creation and Validation
Ease of Implementation: Medium
Expected ROI: Medium
Generating and validating purchase orders (POs) can be tedious, especially for organizations processing hundreds or thousands of orders per month. RPA bots can automate PO creation, verify pricing and vendor details, and route approvals.
Automating purchase orders ensures accuracy and compliance while accelerating vendor payments. By reducing operational bottlenecks, teams can manage higher volumes of orders with minimal manual effort.
To learn more about how RPA can help with purchasing processes, visit our Order Processing and Fulfillment Page.
5. Accounts Receivable Automation
Ease of Implementation: Medium
Expected ROI: High
RPA can automate accounts receivable (AR) tasks such as sending invoice reminders, processing payments, and applying cash to open invoices.
Automating accounts receivable improves collection efficiency and reduces overdue invoices, helping organizations maintain better cash flow. Staff can focus on higher-value customer interactions rather than manual payment processing.
6. Bank Reconciliation
Ease of Implementation: Medium-Low
Expected ROI: Medium-High
Reconciling bank statements with internal accounting records is often repetitive and error-prone. RPA bots can automatically match transactions, flag discrepancies, and update records in real time.
Automating bank reconciliation shortens month-end closing cycles and reduces errors, improving cash visibility and accuracy of financial records. Finance teams spend less time on manual reconciliation and more time analyzing financial trends.
7. Financial Statement Preparation
Ease of Implementation: Medium-Low
Expected ROI: High
Preparing financial statements often requires consolidating data from multiple sources. RPA bots can gather and format this data automatically, ensuring accuracy and saving valuable time.
Automation of financial statement preparation reduces the risk of reporting errors and shortens reporting cycles. Finance teams can focus on deeper analysis rather than manually compiling data from multiple systems.
8. Vendor and Customer Master Data Updates
Ease of Implementation: Medium
Expected ROI: Medium
Maintaining accurate vendor and customer data is critical for compliance and operational efficiency. RPA can automate updates to ERP systems, ensuring consistent and up-to-date records.
Automating master data updates reduces compliance risks, improves data integrity, and saves hours of manual entry, allowing teams to focus on managing relationships rather than data cleanup.
9. Tax Calculation and Reporting
Ease of Implementation: Low
Expected ROI: High
Tax reporting involves complex rules and repetitive calculations. RPA can automatically calculate taxes, prepare reports, and ensure timely submission to regulatory authorities.
Automating tax calculation minimizes errors, ensures compliance, and speeds up reporting cycles. Finance teams can avoid manual mistakes while freeing time for strategic tax planning.
10. Compliance Reporting & Audit Trail Generation
Ease of Implementation: Low
Expected ROI: High
RPA can automatically generate compliance reports and maintain digital audit trails, helping organizations stay audit-ready without manual effort.
Automating compliance reporting improves regulatory adherence and provides transparent, easily accessible records for auditors. This reduces manual reporting workloads and enhances overall governance.
Turn RPA Use Cases Into Real Business Results
Finance and accounting teams need measurable results, not another tool in the toolbox. The use cases above show how RPA can deliver quick wins through high-impact automations like invoice processing and expense auditing, while also supporting long-term, strategic initiatives such as compliance reporting and tax automation.
By starting with easier, high-ROI workflows and gradually expanding into more complex processes, organizations can build an automation roadmap that reduces costs, improves accuracy, and scales with business growth.
KEYENCE RPA enables finance teams to deploy automation quickly without heavy IT involvement, making it easier to move from pilot projects to enterprise-wide automation. Request a demo today to see how your finance and accounting workflows can be automated and start turning RPA into a competitive advantage.
