Every automation project—whether it’s small automation or a comprehensive finance transformation—needs to be rooted in a robust cost-benefit analysis. Often we get caught up in the time savings that automation may yield and lose sight of other, more important benefits.
One of the most critical benefits of automation is reducing risk.
Manual data wrangling has the potential to result in inconsistent approaches to data management, inadvertent errors in source data, miscalculations and difficult-to-review Excel spreadsheets.
What’s worse is that manual calculations are often carried over from one period to the next using the same Excel spreadsheet. If someone manually overrides a formula and adds +40 in cell AX39 of the sixth tab of the Excel spreadsheet because it made sense that one time, it might be five years before someone catches that error.
Automation allows for standardization of data and processes. It also removes manual manipulation of data and reduces the risk of manual override of calculations. Between standardization and reduction of manual overrides, the risk that your tax data is compromised can be significantly reduced.
If you’ve been through a difficult statutory or tax audit, you likely understand all too well the value of reducing risk. Let’s talk about how automation can help you reduce that risk.