Introduction:  

Today’s fast-paced and ever-changing ways of doing business mean a lot to bookkeepers. The business has transformed beyond the era of buying and selling goods and services with the motive of making a profit. Business interpretation is in the bookkeeping of day-to-day financial transactions to keep track of the business upward or downward performance in other to timely make strategic decisions on operating, investing, and financing activities. Traditional means of bookkeeping has resulted into wastage of valuable time on inefficient manual record-keeping with the use of excel spreadsheets or other accounting systems. Technology advancement is changing the way we do business and it has improved the technique bookkeepers and investors do interpret financial data more promptly and effectively in arriving at the best business decision. Small and big businesses have recognized the impact of integration of bookkeeping automation with the use of artificial intelligence for effectively service delivery to the business community. 

What is bookkeeping?

Bookkeeping entails the capturing of data into an accounting system. It is the act of recording, and classifying day-to-day financial transactions in a systematic way, entering them into the appropriate books as they occur so that the financial position of a business can be readily ascertained at any time. The routine tasks of a bookkeeper in ensuring accurate record keeping include: recording of invoices and receipts of customers, bank reconciliation, processing of payroll, payment of taxes, accounts payable and receivable, entry of other operational expenses among others. Bookkeeping is carried out by applying the double-entry principle of debits and credits to prepare financial reports.  

Artificial Intelligence for bookkeeping

 Bookkeeping automation is charming and friendly. The evolving technology has simplified the burdensome bookkeeping tasks through the elimination of manual mundane financial data processing for effective and efficient business decisions. It has brought a total change to the way we do business by eliminating human intervention around the world. The automation of bookkeeping has relaxed the nerves of bookkeepers and business owners to devote good economic time to business analysis and other managerial functions that will maximize their profit. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is defined as the advancement of computer systems to perform tasks that require human intelligence such as language conversion, visual insight, speech recognition, and decision making. Broadly, AI provides 3 (three) core business tasks: automating business functions, data analysis and interaction with the users. Bookkeeping artificial intelligence has to make the monotonous work of bookkeepers less boring by reducing the required time to record and track sales receipts, operating expenses entries, bank reconciliation, tax administration and prepare financial statements to situate the business financial performance for effective boardroom decisions. Beyond record-keeping, bookkeeping AI also enable auditors to detect inconsistently transactions, error, and fraud quicker and accurate than human efforts.  

How has bookkeeping AI changed the way you do business?

The business operates in a global village and all the stakeholders such as business owners, investors, employees, suppliers, creditors, government and the society at large connect to do business with the common objective of making a profit and maximizing the shareholders’ wealth. Bookkeeping AI has transformed the business environment through the automation of financial transactions which have facilitated smooth business operations. Bookkeeping automation allows timely and accurate decision making on both financing and investing activities of the organization than manual-based processing and it has also made the management have an undivided focus on achieving the corporate goals of the company at large without been tailored down on the problems created by manual bookkeeping. Business managers can leave the figures to bookkeeping AI and concentrate on strengthening their customer relationships. 

Below are few changes among others that bookkeeping AI has transformed the way we do business in this robotic era: 

Timely rendition of financial statements

 Manual bookkeeping record requires the effort of bookkeepers to input the figures, make entries into books of account, reconcile bank statements and using all the accounting entries to prepare monthly or yearly financial statements. This would require an additional one week-plus after the end of the financial period to have the final reports. Things have changed in nowadays business as Bookkeeping AI can promptly synchronize numbers to generate financial reports on time.   

Automatic financial data analysis

Traditionally, management would have to wait for the prepared financial reports to extract data that will be used to analyze the performance and trend analysis of the business for effective decision-making. The automation bookkeeping with AI has made it possible in real-time, to access data, interpret and provide insights into the organization’s position. The outcome of the analysis will assist the business owners to earnestly address the weaknesses that can be a threat or take advantage of the opportunities it possesses as a strength to the company at large. 

Drives business growth

Bookkeeping AI integration has improved the way a business is been managed. This is not business as usual. Using the up-to-date data produced from automation bookkeeping is enough to drive the business growth at any time instead of delaying till the end of the period to effect changes. Though human strategic decisions would still be required, the variables available from bookkeeping AI are great indicators to determine business growth from the dashboard. 

 Lessens human errors

Manual data entry of financial transactions is the core duty of a bookkeeper who might be prone to errors, mistakes, or intentionally, manipulate figures as fraud. Bookkeeping AI is a timely solution that has arrested human errors leading to financial embarrassment. The machine language features can scrutinize and classify data into various accounts heads before integrating the figures to generate financial statements for management’s timely decision making. 

Conclusion:

Bookkeeping AI has added beauty to the way we do business. It has eliminated time-consuming manual data entry and automatically performs major bookkeeper’s functions with less human support. However, its limitation is sighted on taking insightful interpretations of the financial data framework. This is where professional accountants’ skills and experience cannot be jettison in terms of understanding the business environment and culture. In addition, automation bookkeeping requires modern bookkeepers who are savvy to evolving technological trends.