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Journal Automation – RPA – Case Study

Challenge

The client processes were routine and data entry had major volume spikes during specific periods mostly period end. Data validation was one of the major roadblocks in Journal processing.

Solution

Automating the Manual Journal process is expected to provide benefits to accounting Services and for stakeholders within Finance. There is no change to the current process for submitting manual journals, email-box for submission, the journal template and added benefit of email notification of the status of your journal.

Outcomes

  • 50% reduction in processing time along with additional checks
  • 100% accuracy in data validation and upload
  • More than 400 journals processed on the period closing

About The Case Study

Download this case study to discover how a client manages its high volume data entry task with all Data Validations.
In this case study you will find valuable information including:
  • Client Profile
  • RPA Project Brief
  • Challenges the client faced
  • Auxiliobits’s RPA solution
  • Process before automation (Manual process)
  • Process after automation (Live in-production)
  • Outcomes achieved

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    The Client And Engagement
    Information

    The client is a corporation that provides Postal Services. The corporation serves more than a million customers in every business day. The Core Markets of Client are: letters and associated services; agency services and retail merchandise; and parcels and logistics that span both domestic and international markets..

    The Challange

    The client processes were routine and data entry had major volume spikes during specific periods mostly period end. Data validation was one of the major roadblocks in Journal processing.

    The amount in the journal excel was to be matched against the amount in SAP application, for each WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) element listed in excel, which was quite time consuming. Business used to skip this check because of time constraint, because of which there were many rejections of Journals at later stage.

    Key Information

    • Industry:
    • Postal And Digital Services
    • Geographies Implemented:
    • Brazil
    • Automation Tool Used:
    • UiPath (Studio, Robot and Orchestrator)
    • Department:
    • Finance
    • Sub-Department:
    • NA
    • Engagement Model:
    • Automation as a service - research, consulting, execution and training at a fixed price per process
    • Domains, Departments, Segments Covered:
    • Finance
    • Volumes:
    • Approx. 11,000 Requests for Journal processing per year
    • Resources required to complete the manual process:
    • 10 FTEs
    • Type of Process:
    • Journal Processing
    • Application:
    • SAP, Excel, SAP Fiori, Web Browser, Access Database, Outlook

    Solution: Our Approach

    Automating the Manual Journal process is expected to provide benefits to accounting Services and for stakeholders within Finance. There is no change to the current process for submitting manual journals, email-box for submission, the journal template and added benefit of email notification of the status of your journal.

    • RPA Maturity Assesment

      Getting our own Business Analyst (BA) on the job Auxiliobits assessed the business process to ascertain the feasibility of Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Each process step
      was analysed in detail to optimize the business process in a cost effective manner. The BA also created a business case using various metrics available from the client transaction volumes, average handling time and SLAs among others. Our BA analysed and proposed that this process was a fit for RPA to get the Return on Investment.

    • Proof Of Concept

      To demonstrate the RPA capabilities,
      a subset of the process was automated using UiPath that proved the feasibility for the process selected.

    • RPA Implementation

      With our BA assessing the process to be automated along with the Proof of
      Concept implemented proved that the process was viable for automation and got us an effective business
      case.

      Auxiliobits automated business process as per its RPA development LifeCycle. The Auxiliobits team performed user acceptance testing
      (UAT) and deployed the automated process into production.The clients accounting team was trained in Robot usage and exception handling as a part of supporting their routine operational activities.

    Manual Process (AS IS)

    The manual process followed was:

    • The manual Journal processing requests were sent by a wide variety of requestors.
    • Download and data-validate the journal file and save the email on share drive.
    • If the validation fails, notify the requestor via e-mail.
    • Login to SAP application and validate the amount for each WBS element in journal file against the SAP application amount. Reject the journal if the SAP amount is less than journal amount. (NB: Business used to skip this check because of time constraint.)
    • Save the journal and check for duplication of journal file by referring to the journal files previously sent in last 14 days.
    • If the journal file is duplicate, notify the requestor via e-mail.
    • Categorize journal types and login to the Active Directory Portal to lookup for the requestor’s employee ID
    • If the requestor is not found in the system, email requestor to send the journal from a valid email address
    • Upload the journal to the SAP Fiori application and select the appropriate approver to approve the journal file
    • Generate SM35 Report to check if there are any errors in journal approval.
    • Log on to the SAP application and generate the report, notifying the user if it’s a negative report.

    AUTOMATED PROCESS

    The BOT performs the following tasks as part of the automated process:

    • The Journal processing bot is triggered in 5 mins interval to download the journals files and save email to share drive
    • Data-validates the journal based upon the defined business rules and notifies the user if validation fails
    • Login to SAP application to validate the amount for each WBS element in journal file and then save the journal
    • Check for duplication of journal file by referring to the journal files using PowerShell.
    • Categorizes journal types viz; pre-approved, recurring, writeoff, confidential or other, based upon the defined business rules.
    • Login to the Active Directory Portal to lookup the email, and if not found raises the request to the original requestor.
    • Uploads the journal to the SAP Fiori application, attaches the saved email to send to the approver, with a generated reference number
    • Generates SM35 Report every 3 hours to check if there are any errors in journal approval.
    • Logs on to the SAP application and run the report for all users, raising notifications where errors are found.

    Benefits / Values Delivered

    The automation of the process resulted in the following qualitative and quantitative benefits:

    • Avoids duplication of journals.
    • Reduced exception rate.
    • Focuses on resolution of exceptions and value-added activities.
    • Removes repetitive tasks where team members manually validate and re-format requests.
    • Alleviates month-end pressure by increasing process capacity.
    • Auto notification to requestors advising file successfully submitted for upload.
    • Reduction in processing time for journals submitted in agreed format.
    • Additional validations to reduce journal errors and exceptions (invalid format, blocked or incorrect GL, WBS available funds and high values).
    • Automated and real-time feedback to requestors on upstream input errors driving a change in behaviour.
    • 50% reduction in processing time, along with additional checks that were not previously performed.
    • 100% accuracy in data validation and upload.
    • More than 400 journals processed on the period closing.

    Redeployment

    of staff to more value
    added tasks

    100%

    accuracy in transaction
    processing

    50%

    reduction in
    processing time