Replacing work that basic software alone can’t do and that humans would rather not do is the role that Robotic Process Automation (RPA) fulfils. Todd Immell, principal at EY, summed it up best by saying, “RPA does not take the human out of the process, it takes the robot out of the human.”

RPA is an application of technology that uses built-in rules-based logic to perform repetitive tasks. Unlike artificial intelligence and machine learning that use algorithms to continually learn and improve, RPA replicates existing business tasks without adding learned intelligence. Simple tasks such as creating automated email responses via a bot to more complex tasks such as extracting and uploading data to an accounting system, processing transactions, and communicating with other digital systems, are good candidates for RPA.

RPA can be implemented seamlessly and applied to any repetitive rules-based process so that family office staff simply see the workload “disappear” on their end. Mundane, rules-based operations previously requiring a human touch can now be automated, freeing up staff time to serve clients and centre attention on higher priorities. It is for these reasons that RPA has been gaining popularity.

With RPA, robots log in to each account, download and convert the data, save it to special destination folders and then import everything into the accounting system. Data that would need to be manually pulled in from multiple banks, brokers and other sources is automatically uploaded into the accounting system where it can be consolidated, analysed, and fed into a reporting engine. Read On: