While people are generally aware that robotic process automation is faster than manual work, a
The Indonesian study from the Universitas Padjadjaran came to this conclusion by developing some RPA software of its own. Researchers used UiPath software, specifically a UiPath tool called UiPath Studio, to develop a set of RPA solutions with drag-and-drop features. The tools (eight robots in total) were developed to process invoices for a hypothetical telecommunications company based on a major provider in that country. They then pitted these solutions against humans to see who could process an invoice the fastest, from the moment the vendor sends the payment application to when they ultimately receive payments and all the steps in between.
The specific tasks were to:
- Record a payable;
- Extract invoice data and store it in a payables table;
- Send a rejection notification based on an incomplete document;
- Make the journal entry based on the invoice data;
- Send an email to the tax department about the event;
- Prepare a transfer letter and send it;
- Create a postponed payment report;
- Print a payment receipt; and,
- Prepare the cash realization report.
The results found it wasn't even a contest. Humans, on average, completed the task in two minutes and 41 seconds. By contrast, the robots did it all in 19 seconds, over seven times, or 745%, faster. What's more, the robotic processes produced no errors versus the humans' "occasional" ones.
The study's conclusion said the research contains important information about the accounting profession, namely that automation can bring great gains in efficiency and productivity by doing routine tasks much faster.
"It can be said that implementing RPA in the accounting domain is an important breakthrough," said the study. "The instantiation developed in this research is successful, with the robot running in an efficient way and no error. Therefore, we are confident that RPA is showing a promising future for the user to be more automated."
