How to utilise automation during the journal entry process
This blogpost focuses on automating journal entries for improved efficiency and accuracy. It complements our webinar about how Aico assists accounting team leaders in achieving this by:
- increasing the efficiency of journals being posted
- reducing the volume of journals manually created each period
Enterprise finance teams are in a constant battle to complete the month-end quickly and accurately. Aico automates what you need and lets your team of financial professionals do the rest – with less stress and more time to investigate genuine anomalies.
But what triggers these inefficiencies? Our customers cite three major causes:
- Too many tools. Most of the large companies we speak to have multiple ERP systems. This can mean the same ERP system, different instances of the same ERP system or a different ERP system entirely. They may also be using additional tools or Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for uploading journals into their ERP systems.
- Manual uploads. The manual process of completing Excel spreadsheets and then uploading them into the ERP system can cause delays, especially if there are unexpected changes in the validation rules.
- Lack of standardisation. Multiple templates, created in different formats over time, are often used across large, complex companies. This results in a lack of process transparency and has an adverse impact on internal controls.
How does Aico tackle these inefficiencies? Head on!
- One seamlessly interconnected platform. With Aico, users can create a journal, or request journal creation, validate it and where necessary, pass it to the next person in the approval workflow, from within a single environment. They no longer need to worry about using multiple systems and multiple tools. Aico is a single solution that imports journals directly into your ERP system.
- Bulk uploading. Many enterprises are still working in large, unruly Excel spreadsheets. In Aico, you can upload a spreadsheet with thousands of lines of row data, which will then pre-populate all relevant journals.
- Hyper-configurability. Aico can be tailored to fit any process. Implementing standardisation across the process globally ensures internal controls are adhered to.
Watch how Aico makes journal entries fast, efficient and error-free
Watch our webinar to see how Aico is built to save finance professionals time and increase the efficiency and accuracy of their financial close through:- Pre-population: You can set up specific templates that pull through data on creation. For example, header data such as company code, approval level, or currency can be pre-populated if posting a journal directly from a closing task.
- Live validation: Accounts, cost centres, profit centres, tax codes or any other additional fields are validated live against your ERP system before submission and posting to ensure a right-first-time approach.
- Approval workflow: This can be set up to reflect the amount (postings over a certain amount may require additional approval, for example) or other metrics required.
- Supporting evidence: Generating and storing the relevant supporting evidence for the journal being posted. You can restrict the visibility of those attachments if it is sensitive.
Automation makes life easier for your team during the hectic financial close
Create, validate, approve and post journal entries directly into your ERP from Aico:- Dependent tasks automatically complete in line with your process.
- Automate recurring, reversal and accrual journal entries to save time each month.
- Follow the workflow in real time from your live dashboard for global and individual task oversight.
Watch the journal entries deep dive webinar now to discover how large enterprises like Essity and JDE Coffee use Aico journals to save time and reduce errors.
