In the digital transformation of enterprises, finance is an important entry point. With the continuous development of digital business and the continuous introduction of new systems, processes and data sources, the financial department is faced with a surge in daily tasks such as reconciliation, report processing, and auditing.
With such a large workload, even an experienced senior financial officer will inevitably compromise efficiency.
The emergence of RPA is changing the financial management model of enterprises.
As a reliable and efficient automation tool, RPA can replace the simple rules and repetitive time-consuming "basic functions" in financial management, such as order to collection, purchase to payment, and fund management. , to strongly support the digital transformation of finance.
In recent years, process automation (RPA and IPA) has been on the list for four consecutive years in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. The advantages of this technology in finance have been increasingly recognized by the industry.
Recently, at the "Smart Finance Forum" of the 2023 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, more than 20 household economics industry-university-research institutions, including the Ministry of Finance, Shanghai Congress, Yisaiqi, Aerospace Information, Deloitte China, Inspur, Kingdee, Minsheng Bank, and Hefei University of Technology, The "Smart Financial Open Ecological Alliance" was jointly established to build an open, cooperative and win-win smart financial ecosystem.
The great influence of the alliance will further promote the value creation of smart finance, and once again broaden the boundaries of domestic financial RPA.
Although RPA is developing in full swing in the financial field, enterprises will inevitably have doubts when actively embracing new technologies:
To what extent can RPA reduce costs and increase efficiency for the financial department? In what scenarios are financial RPA robots implemented? Can financial personnel really realize RPA freedom by themselves?
01
RPA+ERP changes the field of financial management
Looking back at the development of finance, we will find that the advancement of IT technology has always led the transformation of the financial field.
In the early days, the emergence of small databases and simple computer software replaced some manual accounting work, achieved a huge leap in computing power and storage capacity, and brought about the transformation of "accounting computerization".
Afterwards, the birth of ERP and the popularization of computer networks brought together closed and decentralized finance. Through process reengineering and professional division of labor, enterprises realized rapid processing and real-time sharing of financial information, and financial management gradually changed from accounting to management. .
Today, the birth of RPA has further revolutionized the technical tools of finance, providing a foundation for the automatic transformation of a large number of repetitive processes with clear rules in financial work, and the traditional finance is gradually transforming to automation, digitalization and intelligence.
This trend is spreading in the financial departments of major domestic industries, such as Sinopec, Pacific Insurance, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, China Guangfa Bank and other Top500 companies have adopted a large number of financial RPA robots to save manpower and improve efficiency.
According to Wu Xin, co-founder and co-CTO of Yisaiqi, the rapid rise of RPA in the financial field is precisely to solve some shortcomings in the traditional ERP system, such as:
A lot of manual work. ERP system business transactions still require manual input and export of a large amount of data, which not only makes it difficult to improve work efficiency, but also consumes a lot of manpower.
System application innovation is not flexible. ERP function expansion and system integration are headaches, and it is almost difficult to improve efficiency by changing ERP system functions.
If the tasks involving manual operations in the ERP system can be automated without changing the existing processes and functions of the ERP system, more costs will be saved for the enterprise and the efficiency will be significantly improved.
The emergence of RPA provides a "plug-in" solution for ERP system integration.
RPA automates repetitive, tedious or high-risk tasks by simulating human behavior. Compared with traditional automation methods, the biggest feature of RPA technology is non-invasiveness, which can replace or reduce manual tasks with automation technology without affecting existing systems and data.
When the RPA robot realizes cross-system and cross-platform automation in the ERP process, it can free financial personnel from a large number of repetitive and mechanized work, allowing them to engage in more valuable and creative work and promote corporate financial transformation .
In this regard, Wu Xin cited several typical examples:
a large enterprise has connected more than 100 banks in business payment, and each bank involves 5-10 accounts.
In the process of financial reconciliation, each bank statement needs to be in one-to-one correspondence with the voucher records in the ERP system, and this process requires financial personnel to manually download the bank statement and then import it into the ERP one by one. This kind of repetitive work A lot of time and effort wasted.
In order to solve this problem, Yisaiqi has launched the "Online Banking Flow Download Robot", which realizes the integrated process from online banking flow downloading to automatic entry into the ERP system.
Financial personnel only need to select the date range to download and upload the configuration form, the RPA robot will run on the designated bank and account according to the content of the configuration form, automatically download the online banking flow data, and enter the data into the designated ERP system The corresponding documents are generated in the bank to realize the connection of the data link between the bank and the ERP system.
At the same time, the RPA robot also supports a variety of hardware devices, can control multiple USB-KEYs, and simulates the mechanical action of pressing the OK button to achieve fully automatic operation, without manual intervention after startup, saving a lot of manpower.
Another example is pan-consumer industries such as catering and e-commerce, where there is a common need for reconciliation between sales orders and payment channels.
A catering/retail company with 200 stores needs to reconcile the order amount of each store with the actual income of online payment channels such as Alipay, WeChat, Meituan, and Douyin every day. This job requires at least 2 people every day to complete.
After adopting Yisaiqi's "multi-channel reconciliation robot", the RPA robot can realize automatic reconciliation between the sales order system and the payment channel. Faced with more than a dozen payment channels, the RPA robot can produce reconciliation results within a few hours and notify each store in real time, greatly releasing the manpower of the enterprise.
Wu Xin said that for a large number of repetitive and low-complexity tasks in the financial field, they are all parts that can be easily replaced by RPA robots.
Therefore, Yisaiqi has released many financial RPA applications in 2023, such as: online banking flow download machine, multi-channel reconciliation robot, invoice push robot, receipt robot, accounting document text summary review robot, financial arrival notification robot wait.
"In the future, RPA robots can do too many things for finance, and they will become more and more standardized. The seamless integration of RPA+ERP has brought lower cost and more efficient user experience to enterprise customers, leading the field of financial management changes," said Wu Xin.
02
Facing the challenges of financial RPA implementation
Nowadays, enterprises are increasingly under the pressure of efficiency improvement and operating costs, and there is a strong consensus on the expectation of RPA to achieve cost reduction and efficiency increase. But even so, RPA still faces challenges in the process of moving towards application landing.
First of all, how much work efficiency can be improved by financial RPA, and are the results really accurate?
Sinopec, as the largest supplier of refined oil and petrochemical products in China, has a large number of financial RPA practices. Its application provides industry references: Taking the auditing scenario of accounting document text summaries
as an example, the financial general ledger department has to check every day in the financial system. The project text submitted by the company is reviewed. Dozens of company codes contain thousands of pieces of project text data. The business department needs a lot of manpower to complete it in time.
After adopting the Yisaiqi RPA robot, it only needs to set up the rule library and subsequently modify the corresponding rules without any process modification, and can complete the review of 10,000 pieces of data in 5 minutes, which is extremely efficient; at the same time, the Yisaiqi RPA robot logs in to the financial The system, inputting different company codes, and reviewing the project text, the error rate is 0.
Secondly, how high is the learning threshold for RPA for financial personnel?
The learning threshold of a new technology directly determines the speed of technology popularization. For financial personnel, because they do not understand code technology, they are extremely dependent on manufacturers and IT departments; while some small and medium-sized enterprises do not even configure IT departments, even low-code has a certain threshold for financial personnel. Therefore, how to lower the threshold for learning and using financial RPA is a problem that every RPA manufacturer must solve.
In this regard, Yisaiqi's solution is to focus on the product strategy of "cloudification, standardization, and localization" and the core product concept of "easy to learn, easy to use and more stable", and put a lot of effort into the productization of RPA. It is possible to lower the threshold for users to learn and use RPA.
Based on various automation technologies such as UI+AI+API, Yisaiqi's RPA products have many features such as dialogue generation process, dialogue generation code, intelligent recommendation components, drag-and-drop interface, and low-code design. Users do not need specialized learning. The RPA process design can be completed, and it is truly "everyone can learn and everyone can use it".
At the same time, Yisaiqi also has supporting services such as training system certification, free trial of products, exhibition hall visits, customer success system, etc., to help financial personnel realize "self-delivery".
According to Wu Xin, based on Yisaiqi's standardized RPA products and training, financial personnel can create simple processes and run through RPA robots within 4-5 days.
Facing the vast number of small and medium-sized enterprise customers, Yisaiqi has implemented the product concept of "easy to learn and easy to use" to the end, and launched a series of standardized financial RPA products, allowing financial personnel to "use it out of the box".
Thirdly, can financial RPA change in real time following changes in ERP system processes?
After a certain enterprise department ran RPA smoothly for a period of time, it was suddenly complained by other departments that the business process was not smooth, and it did not complete a process for several days.
After verification, it turned out that the ERP process had been changed, but the RPA was stuck in the previous process action, causing business processing to encounter a blockage.
In response to this problem, it is currently difficult for the industry to realize that RPA can follow system process changes in real time, but Yisaiqi has created an original operation and maintenance mode to simulate the RPA process through element mirroring. When the system changes, it can go to the system immediately Detect and discover changes and their causes, so that RPA can follow up system process changes in real time, instead of discovering problems after they occur.
Finally, can the input costs and benefits of financial RPA be balanced?
For managers, any investment in new technology must be based on a positive input-output ratio. In addition to saving labor costs and improving accuracy, RPA also provides a higher return on investment in other aspects.
For example: RPA robots enable financial personnel to participate in higher-value businesses; RPA robots can work 24 hours a day, 365 days, greatly improving service availability and user satisfaction; RPA robots can provide fast and efficient solutions through early detection of problems. compliance and more.
03
Financial RPA needs to be "out of the box"
As a digital tool, RPA is a wedge in helping enterprises complete the digital transformation process, which directly makes the current market opportunities for RPA more obvious.
From the beginning of the first year of RPA in 2019, it can be seen everywhere in finance, government and enterprise, retail, manufacturing and other industries. It only took four years for RPA to develop rapidly in China.
In this fast-growing track, there is actually no shortage of players, whether it is ERP manufacturers such as Kingdee and UFIDA, or RPA professional manufacturers such as Yisaiqi and Shadow Knife, or Daguan Data, Inossem and other industries. Manufacturers are all participating in the competition in the domestic RPA market, and all kinds of players are facing considerable competitive pressure.
But focusing on the financial field, RPA competition is not as fierce as the outside world imagines.
An important reason is that the penetration rate of the domestic RPA industry is still very low. According to survey data, the industry penetration rate of RPA in China is 10%-13%, which is still in the early stage of development. Most manufacturers are concentrated in the supply chain operation scenarios of finance, e-commerce, retail, government and other industries.
For the financial scenario, the overall RPA market penetration rate is even lower, and the frontal competition among manufacturers has not really started, which contains huge development potential.
In addition, although finance is an ideal fertile ground for RPA applications, it is not easy to make financial RPA products well, which also prevents a large number of manufacturers from deeply cultivating in the field of financial RPA.
First of all, whether financial RPA products can be made well depends on the manufacturer's deep understanding of the industry and business.
Financial work has something in common in many industries, but the business characteristics and financial processes between different industries still have their uniqueness. For example, the financial scenarios of the financial and e-commerce industries are very different.
At the same time, the actual financial business is connected end-to-end. What financial personnel need is not just the RPA replacement of a certain link, but the RPA process of the whole chain. The above two points fully test the "knowledge" of RPA manufacturers.
As a leading RPA company in China, Yisaiqi has established a long-term industry-university-research cooperation relationship with the Shanghai Congress since 2019. With the training related to financial automation in the field, Yisaiqi can stand on the front line of the business to understand the pain points and needs of financial personnel, so as to make excellent financial RPA products.
For example, the financial RPA products of Yisaiqi are written and designed based on the existing knowledge of financial personnel. Financial personnel do not need to know abstract concepts such as If, variables, and constants. They only need to drag and drop the drawing board to generate RPA that matches the business process.
Faced with higher-level and complex needs, Yisaiqi also encapsulates corresponding financial business modules, such as flow download, account reconciliation and other components. Financial personnel only need to develop RPA for their own business. The whole process is like building Lego easy.
Because of this, Yisaiqi is considered by many financial personnel as "the most financial-savvy RPA manufacturer, and the most RPA-savvy manufacturer in the financial field."
Secondly, the strong regularity in the financial field also means that RPA manufacturers must compete for product standardization capabilities.
As the earliest RPA product company in China, Yisaiqi has been committed to creating highly productized RPA since 2017, focusing on the ease of use and stability of the product. Its standard scene robot standard is minimal and out-of-the-box. Greatly shorten the user's learning and delivery time.
In 2021, Kingdee strategically invested in Yisaiqi, which further promoted the implementation of RPA in the financial field. Through the deep coupling of Yisaiqi RPA and Kingdee ERP, the end-to-end automation of financial business processes was realized.
In 2022, Yisaiqi and Kingdee jointly released the public cloud version of KQ RPA, creating a standardized financial RPA product embedded in ERP, which is rare in China, and truly realizes the out-of-the-box financial RPA.
In order to better serve domestic SME customers, in 2023, Yisaiqi determined the strategic direction of focusing on the financial field, further upgraded its own public cloud platform, and launched a series of RPA standardized application products for the financial field.
Through the SaaS model, users do not need to worry about software installation and upgrades, and can access and manage financial RPA through the cloud anytime, anywhere.
This highly product-oriented capability has enabled Yisaiqi's financial RPA products to be verified by the market and recognized by customers. According to Wu Xin, the financial RPA product of Yisaiqi’s SaaS model has a renewal rate of 300% within 2 years of its launch, and a renewal rate of 100%. So far, no top customers have been lost.
Based on Kingdee's market foundation of millions of small and medium-sized enterprise users in the field of "personnel, finance and taxation", far surpassing its competitors, Yisaiqi, as its in-depth cooperation RPA manufacturer, will further build up competition barriers in the financial field in the future.
Finally, technology leadership determines the level of financial automation and intelligence, and RPA+AI has become the competition point for manufacturers.
With the increasing demand for digital transformation, the combined technology of RPA+AI is creating super-automated and intelligent process innovation.
According to the latest "China RPA+AI Market Share" report released by IDC, the market size of China's RPA+AI in 2022 will be 310 million US dollars, an increase of 19.2% compared to the previous year.
It is expected that in the next few years, due to the impact of large-scale models and AIGC, China's RPA+AI market will enter an explosive period, and the compound growth rate in the next three years will exceed 60%.
As far as the financial field is concerned, manufacturers' continuous in-depth cultivation of RPA+AI technology is bringing more room for imagination to the transformation of financial automation applications.
Wu Xin said that Yisaiqi, as one of the very few manufacturers in China that can simultaneously develop RPA and AI technologies, has always insisted on independent research and development, focusing on technological R&D and innovation.
Based on the technology development strategy of "R&D generation, pre-research generation, and reserve generation", its AI achievements have been applied in many fields such as process mining, business modeling, scenario modeling, recommendation, and automated process generation.
In the future, Yisaiqi will further apply RPA+AI technology in scenarios such as forecasting and decision-making of intelligent financial statements, automated audit and compliance, and process mining of intelligent finance, and broaden the application of RPA in the financial field by maintaining the leading position of industry technology Scenes.
At the same time, Yisaiqi has also started the exploration of the technical integration of RPA and AI large language models to further improve the ease of use and business efficiency of RPA products, allowing more enterprises to apply hyperautomation more simply, efficiently and at low cost.
It is foreseeable that this leading technology integration and exploration will usher in more market opportunities for Yisaiqi.
04
Conclusion
Nowadays, the digital transformation of enterprise finance has become the trend, and RPA, as an emerging technical tool, plays an important role in the digital transformation of finance.
As Brian Arthur writes in The Nature of Technology: "In the real world, technologies are highly reconfigurable, they are fluid things, never static, never finished, never It will be perfect."
RPA technology must be continuously verified and integrated with the industry, scenarios, and needs, and iterated repeatedly in actual application scenarios before it can become a tool that can be applied.
Therefore, the best financial RPA technology and products must come from RPA vendors who know the financial field best, which will also bring RPA freedom to more financial personnel and accelerate the pace of digital transformation of corporate finance.