13 Best Tools for Robotic Accounting Automation

Consider this: You’re an accountant stuck in the endless cycle of data entry and reconciliations. The hours are long, the work is repetitive, and the monotony is draining. Sound familiar? You’re not alone. This is the reality for many finance professionals today. But what if there were a way to automate these tasks? To free yourself from the drudgery and focus on more meaningful work? Enter robotic accounting automation. This technology is transforming the world of finance, and it’s something every accountant should be aware of.

In this Financial LLM guide, we’ll explore what robotic accounting automation is, how it works, and why it matters. We’ll also examine the role of AI and machine learning in this space, as well as what the future holds for automation in finance. So if you’re ready to learn how to work smarter, not harder, keep reading — with insights from our Otio AI research and writing partner.

Table Of Contents

• Challenges of Manual Accounting

• What Accounting Tasks Can be Automated?

• Benefits of Robotic Accounting Automation

• 13 Best Tools for Robotic Accounting Automation

• Supercharge Your Researching Ability With Otio — Try Otio for Free Today

Challenges of Manual Accounting

The Slow Grind of Manual Accounting

Manual accounting is a time-consuming process. Recording and verifying transactions manually takes a significant amount of time, especially during peak financial periods, such as the month-end close. It is a meticulous process that requires close attention to detail. This can be a significant drain on resources, especially if you have a large volume of transactions to process.

The Human Factor: Errors in Accounting

Humans make mistakes. It’s a fact of life. But when it comes to accounting, those mistakes can have serious consequences. Incorrect entries or missed transactions can lead to inaccurate financial statements. This can result in regulatory and legal issues. It can also impact stakeholder and investor confidence in the organization.

The Real-Time Data Dilemma

With manual accounting, there is a delay in updating financial records. This means that you don’t have access to real-time financial information. This is crucial for decision-making. If you’re relying on outdated information, you could be making poor decisions that could harm your business.

The Scalability Problem

As your business grows, so does the volume of transactions. This makes manual accounting increasingly inefficient and prone to errors. Manual processes simply can’t handle the increased volume, and the probability of mistakes goes up significantly.

Security Risks of Manual Accounting

Physical records are vulnerable to theft, loss, or damage. There is no encryption to protect sensitive data. This is a significant security risk. However, when you use automated accounting solutions, these risks are minimized. Advanced encryption and access controls help keep your financial data secure and protected. Compliance with industry standards such as GDPR, ISO, PCI DSS, HIPAA, and SOC ensures that your data is both private and compliant.

Compliance: A Moving Target

Regulations are constantly changing. Keeping up with these changes is difficult enough with automated systems. With manual accounting, it’s even harder. This increases the risk of non-compliance, which can have serious consequences for your business.

Auditing Can Be a Nightmare

Manual systems often lack clear audit trails. This makes the auditing process much more difficult. Tracking financial history can be a nightmare. Automated solutions can provide clear, easy-to-follow audit trails. This makes it much easier to find the information you need when you need it.

The Hidden Costs of Manual Accounting

Manual accounting is the cheaper option. But the hidden costs from errors and inefficiencies make it more expensive over time. Automated accounting solutions can help you save money by reducing errors and improving efficiency.

Related Reading

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• Financial Data Extraction
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• How to Forecast Budget
• Market Research Challenges
• How to Do a Cost Analysis
• AI Financial Modeling

What Accounting Tasks Can be Automated?

1. Accounts Payable Automation

Consider a world where you no longer have to sift through piles of paper to find invoices. With the potential of document scanning and digital storage, that world becomes your reality. This technology not only eliminates the need for paper but also dramatically reduces manual processing. The result? Managing your invoices becomes a faster and more accurate task, freeing you up to focus on more important things.  

2. Expense Management on the Move

Gone are the days of filling out endless forms to claim your expenses. A mobile expenses app streamlines the entire process, allowing you to submit and track your expenses on the go. This reduces the administrative burden on your shoulders and lets you get back to work (or life) much sooner.  

3. Smooth Data Integration and Accuracy

When your accounting system is cloud-based and integrated with other business systems, magic happens. Well, not actual magic, but something just as impressive. It minimises data re-entry and errors, creating a smooth flow of accurate information that keeps your business running smoothly.  

4. Reconciliation Made Easy with Automated Bank Feeds

Manual data entry is not only tedious, it’s also prone to errors. Automated bank feeds eliminate both issues by synchronizing your transactions with your accounting system in real-time. This speeds up the reconciliation process, allowing your finance team to focus on higher-value tasks that contribute to your company’s success.  

5. Targeted Management Reporting

Advanced analysis tools and customizable dashboards enable you to generate tailored reports that meet your specific needs. Whether you want to filter data by projects, departments, or any other criteria, this automation has you covered. It enhances decision-making by making it easier to identify trends and reducing the time spent on manual data sorting.  

6. Simplifying Consolidated Group Reporting

Month-end reporting can be a challenge, especially when managing group financial statements. Automated consolidation reporting software takes the pain out of this process, saving you time and effort while ensuring accuracy.  

7. Streamlined Payroll Processing

Integrate your payroll software with your accounting system to enjoy timely and accurate salary disbursements. Say goodbye to manual errors and hello to compliance with local regulations, tax calculations, and much more. Your HR team will thank you.

Benefits of Robotic Accounting Automation

Fewer Costs, More Revenue 

Robotic process automation enables a business to speed up transactions with fewer errors. Automating repetitive tasks eliminates unnecessary expenses for your business. RPA also allows you to shift your focus from time-consuming and remedial tasks to more productive and valuable ones. This will allow you to provide services to markets you may not have been able to reach or could not enter due to logistics. 

Example

Coca-Cola Bottlers’ Sales & Services used RPA to automate their cash application process. Instead of manually processing remittances from multiple sources, bots were deployed to extract remittance data and match it against invoices. This resulted in a 75% reduction in manual effort and a significant decrease in errors, thereby saving costs and enabling the finance team to handle growing volumes without adding headcount, which directly impacted the bottom line. 

Non-invasive Integration 

Robotic accounting is one of the new technologies in finance that is non-invasive. It integrates with existing infrastructure and streamlines business processes. The ability to customize workflows means RPA is not limited to one part of accounting or finance. It can be applied to multiple use cases, like: 

• Accounts payable or accounts receivable 

• Controller work 

• Financial close 

• Expense management 

• Taxes, Financial planning, and analysis 

• And more… 

Example

Siemens integrated RPA into their existing SAP ERP system without requiring an overhaul of their infrastructure. They utilized bots for processes such as vendor invoice management, accounts receivable, and compliance checks. The non-invasive layering enabled them to scale automation across global finance teams without disrupting core operations, resulting in faster processing and improved compliance, all without requiring significant system changes. 

24/7 With Zero Error 

Robotic accounting works non-stop, around-the-clock. There are no working-hour boundaries because no humans are involved. Programs can run 24/7/365. This increases productivity to levels manual laborers can’t reach and leaves zero room for human error. It excels at error-free data transfer with reduced output inconsistency. 

Example

AT&T implemented bots in their financial close process, which previously required a large number of finance employees working overtime during month-end. Now, bots run critical close processes overnight, error-free, and without the limitations of human working hours. This reduced the close time by 30% and eliminated common errors from manual reconciliation, ensuring compliance and data integrity around the clock. 

Value Creation 

Employees are free to focus on high-value work when an RPA project takes over manual tasks, such as data entry or invoice processing. Although you wouldn’t assume, robots can make humans happier and more satisfied with work. Robotic process automation allows accountants to shift from mundane and repetitive tasks to more meaningful work. Your staff now has the freedom to excel in their craft and deliver high-level solutions to clients. It provides employees with the opportunity to learn and develop their skills, while driving business growth and enhancing customer engagement. These types of moves help retain talent in a firm and give people the opportunity to shine within an organization. 

Example

Ernst & Young (EY) adopted RPA to automate audit support tasks such as extracting data from client systems and reconciling financial records. This freed up their auditors to focus on high-value analytical work and client consulting. As a result, employee satisfaction increased, turnover decreased, and clients received more strategic insights. RPA didn’t just boost productivity — it transformed the nature of work for EY’s staff. 

Easy Installation

RPA technology can be installed in under a week. However, you need to do the research first to determine where in the accounting department it would work best. 

Example

A mid-sized US accounting firm installed an RPA tool to automate client expense categorization and receipt matching. Within a week, they had bots up and running, tagging thousands of transactions daily from client bank feeds and credit cards. The firm didn’t require deep IT involvement and saw an immediate reduction in time spent per client file — proof that small firms can benefit just as much from RPA with a fast deployment cycle.

13 Best Tools for Robotic Accounting Automation

1. Otio: Transforming Research with AI Content Overload 

Knowledge workers, researchers, and students today suffer from content overload and are left to deal with it using fragmented, complex, and manual tooling. Too many of them settle for stitching together complicated bookmarking, read-it-later, and note-taking apps to get through their workflows. Now that anyone can create content with the click of a button, this problem is only likely to worsen. Otio solves this problem by providing one AI-native workspace for researchers. It helps them: 

1. Collect: a wide range of data sources, from bookmarks, tweets, and extensive books to YouTube videos. 

2. Extract key takeaways: with detailed AI-generated notes and source-grounded Q&A chat. 

3. Create: draft outputs using the sources you’ve collected. 

Otio helps you transition from reading list to first draft more quickly. Additionally, Otio enables you to write research papers and essays more efficiently. Here are our top features that researchers love: 

• AI-generated notes on all bookmarks (YouTube videos, PDFs, articles, etc.), 

• Otio enables you to chat with individual links or entire knowledge bases, just like you chat with ChatGPT, as well as AI-assisted writing. 

• Our tool features web scraping capabilities, enabling you to access a broad range of data sources beyond traditional academic papers and search engines. 

This feature enables researchers to collect diverse information from sources like bookmarks, tweets, books, and YouTube videos, streamlining the process of curating and analyzing data for research purposes. Let Otio be your AI research and writing partner — try Otio for free today!

2. QuickBooks: Comprehensive Accounting Software with Exceptional Onboarding. 

Intuit has been in the game for a long time, and it shows: QuickBooks is one of the strongest and most complete accounting apps on the market. Its greatest strength lies in how it supports you from step one of onboarding to running complex payroll automation, with simple and direct help content. When creating a new account, QuickBooks will help you customize all the features you'll use.

Enter your company type, indicate whether you have employees, and specify any other work apps you use—this will enable you to connect them later. The onboarding process is long, true. It's not a bad thing, though: it'll take you through all the steps of customizing your account, and the work gets done as you do. When choosing the look and feel of your invoices, you can create the first one and send it to yourself to see how it'll look in the inbox. Want to offer online payments? You can integrate PayPal or GoCardless. Want to connect your bank accounts? Set up a secure connection to get that data into QuickBooks. What about receipts? You get the idea: the onboarding track does nearly everything here. 

QuickBooks pros

• Plenty of help and setup support. 

• Lots of extras to grow your app, if you need the.m 

QuickBooks cons

• As you activate more features, it becomes more challenging to use 

3. Xero: Streamlined Financial Operations for Small Businesses 

Xero helps small businesses and SMEs manage their financial operations, including invoicing, expense tracking, payroll, and financial reporting. 

Key Automation Features: Invoicing Automation

• Xero enables users to create and send invoices quickly, utilizing customizable templates and automated payment reminders. 

• Bank Reconciliation: Smoothly connects with bank accounts to automate transaction imports and reconciliation. 

• Expense Management: Digitizes receipts and facilitates expense categorization and approval workflows. 

Pros

• All plans support unlimited users, making it cost-effective for growing teams.

• A well-designed dashboard that understandably presents complex accounting data. 

Cons

• The lowest-tier plan has caps on invoicing and bills, so users must upgrade if they need more than the limit. 

• Mastering more complex functions (like report customizations or advanced integrations) may require time or additional training. 

4. Wave: Free Core Features with Payment Processing Integration. 

Wave makes accounting look easy. Moreover, it has a business model that's ideal if you don't want to add an extra subscription to your monthly bill: most of the core features are entirely free. So, how does Wave keep the lights on? The app processes your online payments and, as it does so, retains a percentage of the invoice amount, just as platforms like Stripe or PayPal do. At the time of writing, this fee is 2.9% + $0.60 for credit card transactions and 1% for each bank transaction, with a minimum fee of $1.

If you receive most of your payments via other means, Wave is a cost-effective option for you. There are different ways Wave generates revenue, as well. There's a paid plan that removes the $0.60 fee of each transaction and adds automation features. You can also subscribe to the automated payroll plugin, which allows you to pay yourself and your team while keeping all the paperwork up to date. Lastly, you can book time with bookkeeping experts and access accounting coaching, so you'll reach the tax season feeling confident and ready. To boost this feeling, you can invite your accountant into your account, and they'll be pleased to see that Wave handles details like 1099s. 

Wave pros

• Plenty of features for the (lack of) price tag. 

• Native credit card payment processing.

Wave cons

• Customer support is only available if you pay for any of the services (payment processing included) 

5. Dext: AI-Powered Expense Management 

Dext is a leading expense management automation tool designed to simplify the capture, categorization, and management of financial data from receipts, invoices, and bills. Formerly known as Receipt Bank, Dext offers features to enhance bookkeeping efficiency and accuracy. 

Key Automation Features: Data Capture

• Allows users to upload receipts, invoices, and bank statements via mobile app, email, or auto-invoice fetch, converting them into digital data. 

• Data Extraction: Utilizes AI to extract relevant information from financial documents with over 99% accuracy, reducing manual data entry. 

• Expense Categorization: Automatically categorizes expenses based on historical data for streamlined financial reporting and analysis. 

Pros

• Allows users to upload receipts and manage expenses on the go via a mobile app. 

• Offers real-time insights through custom dashboards and predictive analytics. 

Cons

• It can be expensive for small businesses with a limited budget. 

• It sometimes takes too long to read and process the document uploads. 

6. Puzzle: Startup-Specific Accounting 

Puzzle is a unique tool designed for startups. It focuses on tracking metrics that matter specifically for startup businesses. It checks your current burn rate against your cash balance, helping you see how monthly costs align with your reserves. It also gives you an estimated runway length, so you can see how long you have to reach net zero or cross into profit. This can help you determine whether to cut costs, seek additional funding, or focus on revenue optimization. 

Puzzle pros

• Purpose-built for startups. 

• Accountants are available via chat.

Puzzle cons

• A little too niche for many businesses 

7. Expensify: Simplified Expense Tracking 

Expensify simplifies business expense tracking, reporting, and reimbursement. It leverages AI and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to automate receipt scanning and expense categorization. 

Key Automation Features: Receipt Scanning

• Expensify’s SmartScan technology allows users to capture receipts using mobile devices, automatically extracting and categorizing pertinent information to minimize manual data entry. 

• Bill pay app: Automate payments online and set up recurring payments for most services you pay for in one app instead of multiple apps. 

• Corporate Card Reconciliation: Expensify integrates with corporate credit cards, automatically matching expenses to transactions, simplifying reconciliation processes.

Pros: 

• Integrates with major accounting software like QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, and Sage Intacct. 

• Mobile app for easy and instant scanning, tracking, categorization, etc. 

Cons 

• The interface and initial setup are confusing for some new users. 

• Currency conversion rates may not always be up-to-date for certain countries. 

8. OneUp: Integrated Business Management 

OneUp is an appealing tool, with a fresh and uncluttered interface. Its features are split into a series of "apps": a CRM, invoicing, projects, expenses, purchasing, inventory, and accounting. I activated all the apps OneUp had to offer (but you can leave out the ones you don't need, so the platform can be as lean or as full-featured as you want). I liked how the CRM feature integrates well with all the others—after all, it makes sense to track leads, calls, offers, and opportunities along with invoices in the same platform.

This CRM works particularly well with the projects feature, which allows you to track not only billables (such as invoices, estimates, and so on) but also client calls and other contact data. This is great for combining your sales team with accounting, helping you track everything that's happening at each stage of each deal with your clients.

There's manual time tracking support—by that, I mean you have to add billable hours without a stopwatch, which makes sense if you're running a bigger operation. The tax preparation features align with the basics for this category. If you handle inventory, OneUp has an interesting feature as well: in addition to tracking what you have and what you're selling, you can also set up automatic inventory ordering, so you'll never run out of key products you sell frequently. 

OneUp pros

• Broad, well-integrated feature set, 

• Good value for available features.

OneUp cons

• Limited payment gateway integrations 

9. Gusto: Automated Payroll for Businesses of All Sizes 

Gusto is a payroll and human resources platform that runs and automates payroll processes for businesses of all sizes. Founded in 2012 as ZenPayroll, Gusto has evolved to offer a comprehensive suite of tools that manage payroll, benefits, and compliance, serving over 400,000 businesses. 

Key Automation Features: Automated Payroll Processing

• Gusto enables businesses to run payroll in minutes with its AutoPilot feature, which automatically calculates and pays employees according to set schedules. 

• Tax Compliance: Automatically calculates, files, and pays federal, state, and local payroll taxes. 

• Time Tracking: Integrates with time tracking tools to sync employee hours, paid time off (PTO), and holidays with payroll. 

Pros 

• Employees can access pay stubs, update personal details, and manage benefits through a secure portal. No extra charges to calculate and file your taxes. 

Cons 

• Primarily focused on the United States, which may not be suitable for businesses with international operations. 

• There are numerous helpful features, but it can be overwhelming at first. 

10. Sage Accounting: Professional and Corporate-Grade Accounting

Like Intuit, Sage has been around since the '80s. It's a giant company offering accounting software for every part of the business spectrum, from small operations to corporate behemoths. It's no wonder that everything in the app has a distinctly professional and corporate vibe, a no-nonsense approach to your accounting needs. The reports are the best part about it. Audit trails and cash flow statements, two examples from the 23 available, can be customized to your liking by applying filters or date ranges.

But if you want even more insight into your data, you can send it to Sage Business Cloud Intelligence, a report-building platform that will give you lots of new angles to play around with. There's a learning curve here, but if you're dealing with lots of data, getting acquainted with it may help you make sharper decisions in the long run. The dashboard is very detailed, introducing cash flow statements, forecasting, and views into the balances of your bank accounts.

Integrating your bank accounts is easy, and you can set up automation to categorize transactions. You can identify transactions by source, name, or value, and then set Sage to apply the categories automatically. The tax features are also in line with the category. In addition to sales tax tracking, there are also 1099 vendor reports, which can simplify your accountant's life (you can invite them in, by the way).

Unlike other tools that offer mobile apps to capture receipts for free, this feature is paid in Sage (called AutoEntry). But it doesn't only take care of receipts: once you set up rules to import data, you can upload any relevant documents, and Sage will take care of sorting it out, extracting data, and having it available for you when you need it. It's a step up from the classic capture receipts feature, so if you're handling a lot of paperwork, this could cut the sweat from the blood and tears equation. 

Sage Accounting pros

• Plenty of add-ons and tools are available when you grow 

• Bigger business feel and functionality. 

Sage Accounting cons

• Pricing packages are confusing 

11. ADP Run: Cloud-Based Payroll and HR Platform 

RUN Powered by ADP is a cloud-based payroll and human resources (HR) platform tailored for small businesses. It improves payroll processing and offers additional HR functionalities to optimize workforce management. 

Key Automation Features: Automated Payroll

• RUN automates recurring payroll on autopilot, so you don’t have to worry about manually running payroll monthly. 

• Automated Time Tracking: Time management tools to automate time entry and ensure accurate payroll processing. 

• Tax Compliance: Automatic updates on the latest state and federal tax laws and HR regulations, and filing  W-2 and 1099 forms with the IRS. 

Pros 

• Beyond payroll, RUN offers HR tools, compliance updates, and employee management resources. 

• As businesses grow, ADP offers advanced solutions that can accommodate expanding HR and payroll needs. 

Cons 

• Lack of pricing transparency. 

• You have to speak with a rep first. 

• No one customer rep. 

• You may have to deal with multiple contacts, which can make it harder to resolve issues. 

12. Zoho Books: Professional and Feature-Rich 

Zoho has a robust software suite. From app-building to project management, there's a tool for every corporate task, and accounting is no exception. I've used Zoho Books, tested Zoho Creator in the past, and have also tried Zoho Invoices. The company values quality as much as it does quantity. Zoho Books focuses on the professional side of things. The interface can be cluttered at times (especially the further away you move from the dashboard into creating invoices, or when you find yourself in the maze of the settings section), but there's a lot of potential here. All the core bookkeeping features are there, including projects, time, and inventory tracking.

These are easy to use once you get used to the amount of information and input fields on each page. There's a budgeting feature that allows you to set limits for the accounts you choose, and even include asset, liability, and equity accounts in the mix. It's not the intuitive personal finance approach, but it makes sense for business budgets. The reports section offers a wide variety, allowing you to mark your favorites and configure report layouts. The accounting features are great, both for your accountant (whom you can invite) and for you. There's a whole section dedicated to tracking tax payments and tax adjustments over time, as well as a journal section to record all other accounting events. 

Zoho Books pros

• Wide feature set, 

• Good platform, and account customization 

Zoho Books cons

• Has a bit of a learning curve 

13. Less Accounting: User-Friendly and Help-Focused 

LessAccounting lands you on a cute, colorful dashboard for the first time, displaying basic information about your business. The design promises what the app's name implies: accounting will get easier, and we'll have to do less of it. In addition to design, LessAccounting provides extensive written help throughout most of the app's pages. This is particularly useful if you have features that you'll only use occasionally, or if you need a refresher on specific tax rules or accounting techniques.

If you need extra help, you can chat with customer service on the bottom right and search for help topics there. The bookkeeping features align with the category standards, including recurring invoices and proposals. Unlike other options, you can add the company's vehicles to the app and then pin mileage to each one, an interesting feature if you have a whole fleet at your disposal. I added some fictional cars to test, and you can either add the total distance of the trip or the start and end values of the odometer.

You can create budgets for each spending category, much like the classic personal finance experience. This budgeting feature is the easiest to use out of all the options on this list, so you'll have less trouble planning your spending. In line with this, LessAccounting sends you "Monday emails," an automated email that you get every (you guessed it) Monday with some stats about your business, as well as reminders in case you're coming dangerously close to breaking your budget. 

LessAccounting pros

• Simple to use, Great visibility of business status via the dashboard and email updates 

LessAccounting cons

• The support team is inconsistent

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Supercharge Your Researching Ability With Otio — Try Otio for Free Today

Knowledge workers, researchers, and students today face content overload and are left to manage it using fragmented, complex, and manual tools. Too many of them settle for stitching together complicated bookmarking, read-it-later, and note-taking apps to get through their workflows. Now that anyone can create content with the click of a button, this problem is only likely to worsen. Otio solves this problem by providing one AI-native workspace for researchers. It helps them: 

1. Collect: a wide range of data sources, from bookmarks, tweets, and extensive books to YouTube videos. 

2. Extract key takeaways: with detailed AI-generated notes and source-grounded Q&A chat. 

3. Create: draft outputs using the sources you’ve collected. 

Otio helps you transition from reading list to first draft more quickly. Additionally, Otio enables you to write research papers and essays more efficiently. Here are our top features that researchers love: 

• AI-generated notes on all bookmarks (YouTube videos, PDFs, articles, etc.), 

• Otio enables you to chat with individual links or entire knowledge bases, just like you chat with ChatGPT, as well as AI-assisted writing. 

• Our tool features web scraping capabilities, enabling you to access a broad range of data sources beyond traditional academic papers and search engines. 

This feature enables researchers to collect diverse information from sources like bookmarks, tweets, books, and YouTube videos, streamlining the process of curating and analyzing data for research purposes. Let Otio be your AI research and writing partner — try Otio for free today!

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