How to Improve Controls, Reduce Risk and Lower Costs with a System of Accounting Intelligence

Due to the lack of confidence around the accuracy of their financial reporting, finance organizations are undertaking Record to Report (R2R) transformations that target the goals of lowering cost, increasing operational support, reducing risk and improving controls. With the emergence of leading technologies such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in the office of finance, more businesses are looking for a framework to help drive a flexible implementation model that scales over the years as their R2R journey evolves.

At Trintech, in partnership with our customers, we have developed a Record to Report Automation Framework to help address this need. As you can see below, this framework is built on five pillars, which enables customers to start (or enhance) their R2R journey, achieve cost savings and reduce their risk – all while scaling with their business as they discover increasing value quarter after quarter and year after year.

Pillar 1: ERP Connectors

ERP Connectors are pre-built tools that enable you to extract GL balances, sub-ledgers, FX rates and additional information from your system/s of record (ERP, 3rd party systems, etc.) to feed into your system of controls. ERP connectors can also help you validate and post your journal entries back to your ERP, as needed. These can be prebuilt for certain ERPs, such as SAP® and Oracle®, but they can also be universal connectors* that enable you to work with any ERP, so you’re spared the effort of creating custom-built ERP file extracts. These are valuable for every R2R project as they lower the cost and time involved to get the solution operational.

Pillar 2: APIs

APIs are Cloud Services that enable customers to develop custom, fully automated integrations that are specific to their needs. One Trintech customer with an in-house Journal Entry system wanted to receive all the benefits of an integrated close management system, while still maintaining their unique JE process. After implementing Cadency®, they developed a custom API program that updated close tasks as various journal entries were completed, and triggered journal entries to occur as other close tasks started. Leveraging the bi-directional nature of the Close API to trigger activities and receive updates allowed them to solve their unique needs.

Pillar 3: ERP Bots

ERP Bots are software agents that run on the ERP systems and are triggered by activity in the R2R process via the ERP connector or Cadency API, such as the Close APR API. This pillar allows the company to trigger advanced, time-saving workflows on their ERP systems thereby reducing time and risk by eliminating the need for humans to remember to start them and eliminate manual errors which may occur. For example, during a posting of intercompany journal entries to an ERP system, you may want to post the AP and AR entries concurrently, validating they both occur, or roll-back the change.

This unique sequencing, validation and error-handling routine enables you to skip the human review and can be extended to trigger tax calculations or invoice creation on the AP/AR entries. ERP Bots are a high-value extension of ERP connectors that customers who are advanced in their R2R journey will value and implement to maximize continuous efficiency and risk-controls. ERP Bots can also run ERP-specific Bots based on when Close workflow activities occur, eliminating the need for humans to work in 2 systems and reducing the time to close.

Pillar 4: Risk Intelligent RPA™

Risk Intelligent RPA (RI RPA) is process-specific automation that is purpose-built for the use case, and then configurable in a way that drives deeper automation to reduce the risk of human error and identify key items that require human review. This is different from third-party RPA solutions such as UIPath or Blue Prism, which are process-unaware and designed to work across a variety of systems (ERP, CRM, Server Management, etc.). The RI RPA capability provides this benefit in all areas of the R2R system of controls by examining the customer’s risk documenting in the Cadency compliance framework for their controls and then driving automation where appropriate and directing activities for human inspection when required. For example, GL reconciliation controls benefit from the use of Risk Intelligent RPA, which looks at the risk profile of accounts in order to determine which can be reconciled without human interaction, which can be considered in a subsequent period and then those which require human review (or even additional levels of human review).

Pillar 5: Artificial Intelligence

Looking ahead, the future of R2R automation will leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) to scientifically determine risk and drive better outcomes. For example, as a journal entry is created, AI will determine the risk in real-time based on algorithms and enable humans to see this information as they process the journal entry. RI RPA will further leverage that information to automate the process. This technology also utilizes machine learning so that it improves over time. This powerful aspect of R2R AI, along with the other five pillars of the R2R Risk Intelligent RPA framework, works independently and together simultaneously to create value.

Check out our next blog as we dive deeper into Trintech’s Record to Report Automation Framework Pillar 1 – ERP Connectors.

Written by: Michael Ross, Chief Product Officer at Trintech

Explore the Full 8-Part Series on Trintech’s Record to Report Automation Framework

Part 1 – How a System of Controls Can Move Your Financial Reporting from Flipping a Coin to a Sure Investment
Part 3 – System of Integration: ERP Connectors
Part 4 – System of Integration: APIs
Part 5 – System of Automation: ERP Bots
Part 6 – System of Automation: Risk Intelligent RPA
Part 7 – Financial Controls AI: Artificial Intelligence