5 Ways Business Process Automation Can Transform Your Professional Services Firm

Manual processes like maintaining spreadsheets and entering/reentering data multiple times can limit your business potential and keep you from capitalizing on valuable opportunities to increase revenue. With enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, you can begin to automate processes and optimize efficiency and profitability. But to truly optimize efficiency within your operations, you need to leverage business process automation (BPA) as part of your ERP system.

By leveraging business process automation,  you can take efficiency to the next level by replacing more manual processes and tasks. Together, ERP and BPA can help you save time and money, and improve quality and customer satisfaction, which could help you gain a competitive edge in your industry.

What Is Business Process Automation (BPA)?

Business process automation is the process of using software applications to connect and automate various business functions and workflows across different departments without human intervention. BPA focuses on the overall processes rather than the individual tasks. BPA can handle more complex and advanced business operations, such as managing payroll or inventory, that go beyond simple automation of tasks like filling forms or keeping records.

The Drawbacks and Inefficiencies of Manual Business Operations

Before we dive into the benefits of BPA, let’s first understand the drawbacks and inefficiencies of manual business operations. According to research from Upwork, 70% of leaders surveyed say the amount of time they spend on manual processes can consume up to three hours of an eight-hour business day. That is a painful waste of time spent on tasks like invoicing, reporting, approvals and data entry, that could be automated and streamlined.  And when time is money, these costly tasks can take a big hit on your bottom line. It can reduce your firm’s productivity, increase the risk of human errors and delays, and hinder your company's growth.

That's why many modern firms are taking steps to transform their business digitally by leveraging BPA to automate these tedious manual and recurring processes. Research shows that 97% of organizations believe that business process automation is crucial for digital transformation, yet 88% experience implementation challenges, and a substantial fraction (30%-50%) of automation projects fail.  

Automate Your Businesses Processes with Deltek Maconomy

So how can you ensure that your firm is set up for success?

You can start with a modern ERP solution with the inherent capabilities to automate tasks and streamline your business processes so you can focus on mission-critical work and increase profits. That's where Deltek Maconomy and its native business process automation capability comes in. 

Designed for professional services firms, Maconomy's BPA framework allows you to create and execute automated workflows to replace any operation that an end-user could conduct, such as:

• Generating and sending invoices based on project milestones, hours, or fixed fees.
• Updating project status and budgets based on real-time data.
• Sending notifications and reminders to stakeholders and clients.
• Routing and approving documents, such as contracts, proposals, and expense reports.

Maconomy's BPA framework offers: 

• Potentially code-free automation: It is easy to configure and requires no programming knowledge.
• Pre-built functionality: It is fully supported and maintained as part of the core solution: no integrations, extensions or additional software to purchase.
• Limitless options: You can automate any operation that a Maconomy End-User could conduct.
• Respect for all extensions: Extends to work with standard Deltek product integrations & potentially even your integrated applications.

5 Advantages of Automating with ERP Software

As mentioned above, BPA can provide a variety of benefits that will help you transform your business. By using Maconomy's native BPA capabilities, you can:

1. Save time, money and resources:  By automating processes, organizations can cut down on manual work and free up their employees to focus on the strategic tasks that require human skills and expertise. This way, they can make the best use of their resources and boost their productivity. Moreover, automation can help organizations reduce their operational costs by improving the efficiency of their human and digital resources. According to business leaders, automation can save them 360 hours per year and save their employees 240 hours to spend on more productive tasks.

2. Reduce errors and risks:  Automation can eliminate human errors, such as typos, miscalculations, and missed deadlines that cause customer dissatisfaction, revenue loss and potential legal penalties. Automation can also ensure compliance with industry standards and regulations, such as GDPR, ISO and SOX.

3. Improve customer service and satisfaction:  Automation can enhance customer experience by providing faster and more accurate responses, delivering consistent and high-quality services and offering personalized and proactive communication. Automation can also help you retain and upsell your existing customers and attract new ones by increasing your reputation and referrals.

4. Gain insights and visibility:  ERP automation can provide real-time data and analytics to help you monitor and measure your performance, identify and resolve issues and optimize your processes. Automation can also generate reports and dashboards to help you make better strategic decisions.

5. Scale effectively: For firms with a global footprint, BPA enables you to perform many operations in parallel across time zones, business units and geographies.