How do you get the most out of no-hands accounting as a financial administrator?

Repetitive manual work: in most financial administrations, it takes a lot of time and generates a lot of frustration. After all, you’d rather spend your precious hours and expertise on more challenging tasks that make you happier. The solution: no-hands accounting. This umbrella term covers all automation solutions that perform accounting tasks for you, thus taking the manual work out of your hands. That’s a pretty general definition. In this blog post, we like to make it a little more specific! What’s important about no-hands accounting? What are the advantages? For which processes does this principle offer a solution? And which automation solutions can you use?

Reap the benefits? Choose standardization!

No-hands accounting offers a lot of relief, provided you approach it the right way. The underlying philosophy is, “To automate, you have to standardize. The more you standardize a process on the front end, the faster and more automated everything is on the back end. In practice, this means you want to take a critical look at your processes. It is also important to include employees and suppliers in the changes you make. Only when everyone is on board will no-hands accounting succeed. And you reap the benefits. How? We list the benefits for you!

Eliminate repetitive manual work

Importing and booking the same invoices every time? Typing invoice data over and over again? With no-hands accounting, that’s a thing of the past. The result: less frustration, more job happiness.

Work more efficiently and save time

When you automate repetitive tasks, you work more efficiently and you have more time for challenging work that makes you happier. That way you also add more value for the organization.

More insight and overview

With no-hands accounting, you standardize your processes. For example, an entry is always made in the same way. Very handy if you want to keep an overview, make reports or do analysis!

Fewer errors

The booking is presented in the same way everywhere and this happens automatically. There is no human error. In other words, the error rate goes down drastically.

Transferability of tasks

Is the employee responsible for purchase invoice processing going on vacation? Is a new employee joining the company? With no-hands accounting, you transfer tasks more easily. Because software takes an important part of the work off your hands, an employee does not have to learn all the details of the program.

No more piles of work after the vacations

Processes never sleep. Do you always find a bulk of work after your vacation? With no-hands accounting, that’s no longer the case. This is because an automation solution works 24/7. As a result, when you return, you find only the exceptions on your (virtual) desk.

Exactly what software do you need for no-hands accounting?

If you want to put no-hands accounting into practice, you need certain automation solutions. But for which processes does a solution really add value? And exactly what kind of software do you need? Let’s start at the beginning. When an invoice arrives in your invoice mailbox, you normally have to pre-sort and edit it manually. That takes quite a bit of time. This process can be handled by a smart tool, which does all this work for you automatically and prepares the invoice for processing. How do you fly the processing process next? You can retype invoice data by hand, but that’s a labor-intensive task. For this, you can use smart OCR software. This recognizes letters, words, amounts and other data on invoices automatically. Using a variety of algorithms and AI, the system then recognizes what goes where – from invoice date and number to creditor and amounts. It prepares the entry for you, so all you have to do is check that everything is correct.

Do you often deal with recurring invoices – for example, for rent, cleaning services or gas, water and electricity? Then you don’t really want to manually enter the amount in question every time. It’s the same amount every month (or every quarter). With the right OCR software, you only need to see the first invoice. You enter what conditions such expense invoices should meet and how the system should book them. Then, if any invoices come in where the software can put all the ‘check marks’, it processes them automatically. No more ‘no hands’ involved! Do you regularly receive order invoices with a purchase order attached? For example, do employees frequently order items or services? Then it is necessary to match orders and receipts. A time-consuming process if you handle it manually. There is an automation solution for this as well. With a matching module you ensure that the system checks whether there is a 100% match between the order and the delivered products or services. Is that the case and have you already approved the purchase order at the beginning of the process? Then the system can process the invoice immediately. You only get a signal in case of a discrepancy. That saves you a huge amount of hours and work.

And what about e-invoices?

Nowadays, more and more companies are dealing with them.
In theory, these can be processed immediately, but in practice it often turns out to be a bit more complicated.
Although the rules are already broken down, the e-invoice usually does not contain all the information the financial administration needs.
Administrative staff often still has to determine whether the invoice needs to be itemized and to which ledger they should book the invoice.
You can also make this process more efficient and easier with automation: the right recognition solution complements the data on the e-invoice with the missing information, so all you have to do is perform a check.
Moreover, such software can coordinate and unambiguously process the diverse flow of incoming invoices, regardless of the format in which you receive the documents and the channel through which you receive them.
Finally, of course, there is the approval process.
Manually approving invoices often causes delays and a lack of oversight.
Approvers forget to add their signatures, invoices get lost, payment deadlines are missed and the financial administration spends a lot of time researching.
With good workflow software, you solve such problems.
Do you receive invoices from a certain supplier that fall within a certain margin (between amount X and amount Y) in a specific period (for example, this year)?
Then you can set up the software to automatically approve these invoices.
Approval of other invoices also involves virtually no hands: approvers are presented with these documents and can approve or reject them at the touch of a button!