How can RPA increase compliance?

As we were suggesting here, a wise selection of automatable processes is the most important step at the beginning of the automation journey. This step increases the likelihood to achieve the most beneficial results. Rule based, error-prone, low fault-tolerance, speed-sensitive, high volume processes with irregular labour requirements are among those to be considered.

Based on this trait list, many of the activities involved in compliance seem to be good candidates for automation. If you consider the repetitive, rule based, high volume nature of processes like employee compliance (e.g., licensing and registration, personal account dealings), surveillance (e.g., eCommunications and social media surveillance), or Know Your Customer (KYC), you have prima facie evidence at least for the utility of enterprise automation when it comes to compliance.

But there’s more. Assigning compliance tasks to software robots is a viable alternative to process externalisation by means of outsourcing and offshoring (which are also currently very popular). Since bots’ actions are saved in log files and can be reviewed at any time, use of RPA allows internal control of business operations; it streamlines your own employees’ proactive involvement in dealing with compliance issues (should they arise), and reviewing compliance statuses.

Workflow automation results in quasi-error free, consistent processing. This makes your business better prepared to go through external audits, with much less migraines for your workers. Since all information about process execution, encountered exceptions, and employees’ attempts to deal with the respective issues is recorded, it can be easily accessed whenever a regulatory audit happens.

What makes RPA a great fit for enterprise automation

Scaling up to enterprise level is a crucial step towards making the most out of robotic process automation. In fact, a Genpact white paper makes it clear that automation can serve well up to three quarters of enterprise processes. Improved compliance, alongside enhanced productivity or significant cost reductions, are among the top benefits that can be fully leveraged by expanding RPA use for the whole company.

If you decide to make this further step on the automation journey, it is very important to ensure that you choose a software provider which supports enterprise RPA. For instance, not requiring extensive coding and complex robot development are software traits that make it flexible and efficient when used at large scale. By ‘efficient’ we also mean that it is easily accessible even by employees who are less than experts when it comes to programming skills.

Equipping bots with queuing and scheduling features allows bulk processing of transactions, real-time oversight of bot actions, and demand- and priority-fit availability. Keeping comprehensive bot actions logs facilitates compliance with risk and security regulations, and audit preparedness.

Conclusion

The features of compliance processes such as document review, data consolidation, or invoice reconciliation, features like being high volume or rule based, recommend them for automation. Robotic process automation can increase compliance in several ways.

Detailed activity logs, for instance, make businesses ready for audit without relying on employees’ painstaking efforts and frustration tolerance. The scalability and flexibility of RPA makes it highly adaptable to the dynamics of work in business environments. Consequently, your business can adjust more easily to the high pace of change in compliance regulations, pace which is still on an ascending path. Also, it is a reasonable alternative to offshoring, thus providing an opportunity to capitalize on the internal control of business operations.

Last but certainly not least, leveraging RPA for compliance functions can be seen as a much needed way to practice, and get used to mixed teams composed of humans and machines. Assigning compliance tasks to bots is part and parcel of the way to scaling up to enterprise automation.