Implementing RPA in ERP for Systems Transformation

What is RPA in ERP?

An ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system unites business processes and automates them, such as extracting users' data, applying operations on that data, scheduling the operations, and keeping records of the data or user actions. In contrast, RPA is one of the most widely Explored areas by the industry because of its strength to transform traditional business processes on various parameters. This software bot replaces human efforts to perform repetitive tasks. So, Here below is how we can use RPA in ERP Systems.

RPA does not require the development of code, nor it needs direct access to the code or database of the applications. Click to explore about, Robotic Process Automation Architecture and Tools

Difference between RPA and ERP

The business world is a competitive one, and you'll need every advantage you can get to guarantee you're performing at your best. A strong ERP system and the incorporation of sophisticated technology such as robotic process automation are excellent ways to ensure your competitiveness. Consultation with professionals is the greatest approach to understanding how applicable these powerful technologies are to you and your business, as well as how they may be used to great success.

In ERP, the entire process may be completed in a single flow, while in RPA, different operations require different types and numbers of robots.

Why do we need RPA in ERP Systems?

RPA ( Robotic Process Automation) robots work the way a person completes the task. No necessary modifications in the process. RPA can fulfill the space between Cloud ERP and legacy applications, recalling the legacy operation's value and adding the cloud's capabilities. It helps to efficiently pass the Cloud ERP selection obstacles, unloading companies to benefit from the latest technology. RPA in ERP Systems helps businesses make these time-consuming projects less costly and less labor concentrated. This affects developers' workflows and saves developers' time to focus on other essential responsibilities. RPA is a perfect tool to assist as the middleman between legacy software and ERP applications, letting you maintain the traditional software's industry benefits while leveraging the performance additions completed by the RPA-implemented ERP.

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Steps to implement RPA in Enterprise Resource Planning Systems
While Automating the Business process using RPA with the ERP systems, we need to keep several things in mind:-

What to Automate?

First, we need to identify which operation we want to automate. First, automate the activities such as sending emails, creating consumer reports, and automatically running the process for a particular data/user. So, it can help reduce the time consumption of the operation. The RPA bots can understand the logic behind implementing such specific jobs and then automatically execute them without interruption.

Mapping and Optimization of Processes

Building a process plan is essential to ensure the concept is clear to you and each action that needs to follow to complete the process. This is an excellent opportunity to improve the process plan and remove disorganizations in the process or other steps that should be added.

What are the RPA solutions?
Given below are the Robotic Process Automation solutions for challenges in various Business Functions.

RPA in Supply Chain

In Supply Chain, RPA can automate the results' predictions and handle complicated decisions and help the employees by executing robotic tasks. By implementing RPA industry can automate several business processes in Supply Chain as:

Vendor Selection & Procurement

While implementing ERP in the Supply chain, this process needs human interaction or decision to finalize the vendor. Still, RPA and ERP can automate vendor selection and procurement by selecting and procuring vendors and transporting material, analyzing vendor documents, running a credit check, and finalizing vendor selection. RPA can improve the cycle time and the processing time by automating such tasks.

Status Communication

The other process that requires human interaction is status Communication, in which the employee needs to check the status of the process from the shipment record/Email and then fill that Status in the ERP. In contrast, RPA can process the shipment record and provide that Status to the customers.

HR Management

There is a need to implement RPA in HR Management to reduce the business function's time consumption to complete. So, the necessary automatic modules are:

Employee Management: While working with ERP, this task was manual and needed human interference to select an employee based on his/her skills or knowledge about the employee's experience. Still, the software robots can perform this process without any human interaction and decide whether the candidate is selected. It can process the documents and fill in the data by itself. This reduces the time consumption and human dependency on this process.
Payroll: Payroll requires the whole worked days of an team member and then calculates the total amount to be paid. ERP needs the whole working day to enter and calculate the amount. Still, in the case of RPA, it can work on verification of employee data consistency over various systems or platforms and get and process payments RPA can automate paycheck productions, performance, profits, and compensations. Profits can process payment-related activities from end to end to evade failures and delays.

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Benefits of RPA in ERP Systems?

Below given are the key benefits of RPA in ERP Systems.

RPA reflects human actions and the technology in which interactions come with various data types in the portrayal levels of applications and platforms. In this, enterprises will not require modifications to pre-existing legacy systems when executing RPA throughout. It is beneficial as it permits enterprises to implement RPA in or non-disruptive manner.
Enterprises with the ability to remotely schedule modern monitoring of RPA software robots' deployment serve considerably from the centralized management platform. It allows for analytics and auditing to occur concurrently and in one location. RPA will enable enterprises to achieve enhanced governance by fixing certain conditions within automation rules.
It isn't easy to achieve the benefits of automating back-office tasks. RPA uses its automation abilities by allowing businesses to give consumers immense quality assistance in a repetitive manner.
It allows for faster subjective reporting, onboarding, and other activities.

How is RPA transforming ERP Systems?

RPA produces profits like Less expense in developing, testing, and maintenance, faster delivery of the solutions, and many more. As RPA in Financial services, The RPA works in the following manner:

Economic Planning

It includes processing and merging financial reports from multiple functions in an Economic Planning & Analysis system that can be automated and make the process faster.

Bank Statement Reconciliation

Extraction of data from bank statements to reconcile records and compare them against the company's records was laborious via complex spreadsheets. The critical point to pay attention to is that rules-based automation could break when the company changes the banks it is working. It is best practice to test the bots' primary outcomes after the corporation changes its banking assistance providers.

Daily P&L Preparation

Financial service companies, especially those in the trading business, track P&L and risk exposures daily, as some companies have changed it by automating these processes. Some companies still rely on excel, other various tools, and manual effort to complete these reports.

RPA in Supply Chain allows supply chain businesses to scale up swiftly to meet supply chain business requirements as demand increases. Click to explore about, RPA in Supply Chain Industry

What are the challenges in RPA implementation?

Automation of a business process and plenty of benefits may attract organizations to adopt RPA for business processes. Still, there are several challenges that an organization has to face while its implementation, such as:

Restricted Application

If there is a handwritten document from which we need to get the data, it will be simple for ERP because an team member will enter the data, but in RPA, it can't extract the actual data from a handwritten document.

Unfit Unification and Dependent functions

In ERP, the whole process can be executed in a single flow, but in RPA, different processes require different processes requiring different types and numbers of robots. What if the job executed by robo1 triggers the job that needs to be executed by robo2? In some scenarios, implementations need more resources and execution time than expected, especially in large organizations.

Improvement in Process after Automation

If there is an improvement or any change is required in the Business process, make it before automation. Otherwise, it will not be feasible, and the automation won't be because it will need a lot of maintenance that will add up the cost.

Summary

In this blog, we discussed the need for RPA in ERP Systems, Why a business should Follow RPA steps to automate the business process in ERP, and the challenges occurring during the implementation of RPA in ERP. Handle the challenges properly to implement the RPA tool for better productivity. RPA is the solution for reducing the cost and time consumption of a process. Organizations are adopting this technology because it helps them survive and perform better in the Industry.