As business becomes increasingly global, HR service providers struggle to address rapid expansion, manage the global and local concerns of their customers, and make sure their internal processes are efficient and helping the bottom line.
Many companies still use the manual copy/paste method of document and records processing. Not only is this slow and monotonous for employees, but expensive and error-prone for the companies themselves.
Unfortunately, advanced software solutions and web services are often more expensive than they’re worth, slightly streamlining the process time while negligibly---or negatively---affecting the overall budget.
But with UiPath’s RPA platform, HR service providers around the world have found a cost-effective way to automate their internal processes and often see ROI within six months of implementation.
Here are five ways that our Robots have helped make HR service providers more efficient and better serve their growing customers.
1. Automation of Invoice Processing
At the core of any business is a complex and important system surrounding the processing of invoices. And while it may seem like the only important part at the end of the day is that invoices are sent in a timely, accurate way to correct customers, the financial and logistical impact of the process greatly affects a company’s bottom line as well.
According to Certify’s Winter AP invoicing report, only 7% of companies use an automated invoice solution, while 15% still use paper-based processes and 46% use account software.
For companies that receive their invoices and related documents electronically---approximately 44% of businesses---one of the most time-intensive processes is the exporting and processing of documents.
To streamline invoice document processing for special customers, a German HR service provider turned to UiPath’s enterprise RPA platform. The company had an overloaded back-office process that handled 100 invoice events per month at an average of five minutes per voucher.
Four departments worked with two applications---an internal portal and SAP---on both web and desktop to process the invoices. The process was structured with predetermined rules and conditions and had an exception rate of 15%.
Using UiPath’s RPA solution, the company was able to reduce the overall effort the process took by 70% and the manual effort by 10%.
Within four weeks, the Robot the company built handled the high-volume creation of invoices with data from SAP for a specific customer of the HR provider. Afterward, the Robot uploaded the invoices to a procurement portal and entered the data in the appropriate value fields.
1. The ROI of automated labour
The successful implementation of the UiPath Robot allowed it to bridge communications between the SAP system and the web.
The automation of these processes resulted in:
- A 70% automation of operations
- ROI in three months
- A 0% error rate
- Manual effort reduction to 10%
- Reduction of processing time by 75%
- 60% cost savings
2. Streamlining of Booking Voucher Posting
Equally important in the accounts payable operations for HR services providers is the processing and posting of booking vouchers. The process of collecting and sorting booking voucher documents and timesheets can take considerable manual time and result in a high rate of exceptions and errors when done without automation.
For many companies, two main pressures on their processes are a high cost associated with invoicing and AP, and higher exception percentages. Additionally, more than a third of companies list faster processing times as a key motivator to improve and a quarter feel similarly about increasing the ability to manage large volumes, according to Certify.
A German HR service provider needed to automate a back-office process responsible for handling 2,000 booking voucher postings per month. Four departments used two web and desktop applications for the process, aided by predetermined rules and conditions. The process had a 15% rate of exceptions.
At an average handling time of 400 seconds per voucher and three full-time employees, they needed a way to speed up the process and reduce effort. So they turned to UiPath’s RPA platform.
They built their Robot to communicate between the SAP system and web by exporting documents from SAP and processing them in the web portal. This resulted in a dramatic 70% reduction of effort and a 0% error rate in processing.
2. The ROI of automated Labour
Within four weeks, the company was able to automate the processing of timesheet and booking voucher documents in their SAP and web systems.
This automation resulted in:
- A 70% automation of effort
- ROI in five months
- A 0% error rate
- A 15% reduction in manual effort
- An 85% reduction in processing time
- Cost savings of 60%
3. Automation of Working Sick Certificate Creation
One of the key roles of HR service providers is gathering and entering documents required by employers from their employees, such as working sick certificates, and entering it into customers’ SAP systems.
For those companies that offer paid sick leave, verifying an employee’s illness can be vital to the bottom line. Especially since poor health costs the U.S. economy $576 billion a year, with nearly 40% of that cost coming from lost productivity while employees are out.
Continuing their SAP-related process automation, a German HR service provider turned to the UiPath platform to handle the creation of working sick certificates and their entry into customers' systems.
Before RPA, the back-office process handled a volume of 2,500 certificates per month with an average handling time of four minutes each. The process involved one department using desktop and SAP applications, as well as paper, and a structured, conditional workflow. Overall, the process had a 10% exception rate. Within three weeks, the company had implemented a Robot that automatically extracted the data in SAP, inserted it in the company’s customers’ SAP systems, and printed it.
3. The ROI of automated Labour
The company’s UiPath Robot automated the data extraction in their process, inserted it into the correct customers’ SAP system, and printed it.
This process automation resulted in:
- A 90% reduction of effort
- ROI in six months
- Massive improvement in customer relationships
- A 0% error rate
- A 5% reduction in manual effort
- An 80% reduction in processing time
- Improved employee efficiency
4. More Efficient Creation of Reports in SAP Web Portal
HR service providers handle a large amount of data on behalf of their customers, everything from payroll records to timesheets to sick leave records. So it stands to reason that being able to pull together and analyse the kind of data they handle most often is of value to both their customers and the providers overall.
However, aggregating this data and pulling SAP reports manually can be a cumbersome process of human employees. But with RPA, this process is dramatically streamlined and can be automatically extracted from applications as needed with minimal employee effort.
A German HR service provider who turned to RPA experienced this firsthand when they turned to UiPath’s platform to streamline the creation of reporting in SAP web portal. The company’s back-office process handled 50 reports per month at 30 seconds per report. One department used paper and two applications on desktop---a SAP and web portal---to process the reports with a structured set of rules. The process has a 10% exception rate.
Using the Robot built on UiPath’s platform, the company was able to automate the extraction and processing of data from SAP and the web portal, heavily reducing the manned effort involved.
4. The ROI of automated Labour
Within four weeks, the company’s Robot handled SAP web portal data extraction, prepared it in Excel, and printed it.
This automation resulted in:
- A 100% reduction of effort
- ROI in seven months
- Massive improvement of customer relationships
- A 0% error rate
- Manual effort reduced to 20%
- A 75% reduction in processing time
- Improved employee efficiency
5. Automation of Payroll Mutations
While it may seem like payroll services should be a standard, recurring process every month, payroll mutations make handling the process with desktop and web applications cumbersome, time consuming, and error prone.
For companies that outsource payroll to HR service providers, they’re entrusting these businesses to carry out payroll accurately and within compliance of government regulation. However, manual processing of mutations can balloon error rates and exposure to penalties.
Additionally, it costs approximately $7,500 per employee to adhere to payroll regulations and more than $150,000 per year to correct errors in payroll. Given the high cost and high risk of processing payroll and the changes that come from employee record and status updates, many HR companies have begun to look to automation to cut down on error rates and time spent.
To that end, a Swiss HR service provider turned to UiPath’s Enterprise RPA platform to automate a back-office process that handled changes to their payroll.
Before RPA, the process took 60 hours per month and six full-time employees to handle the 100,000 events it saw each month. A number of departments were involved in staying on top of the workload with two desktop applications and a structured workflow. The process had 10% of exception to the main logic.
With the help of the UiPath Robot, the company was able to significantly reduce the effort and costs involved in the process and implement automation within seven weeks.
5. The ROI of automated Labour
The company’s UiPath Robot handled payroll changes received via email from customers and automatically entered them into the SAP system.
This automation resulted in:
- A 90% reduction of effort
- ROI in four months
- A 60% reduction in staff costs
- A 0% error rate
- Faster customer response times
- The cost-effective expansion of capacity
- An 85% reduction in processing time
- A 25% reduction in manual effort
Join HR service providers in making business more efficient with RPA
By embracing RPA, you join HR service providers—and companies in other industries—around the world in creating a competitive edge for your business that is faster and with zero mistakes. Recognised repeatedly as an RPA technology leader, industry leader, and top performer, UiPath will enable you and your team to focus on the high-return work that sets you apart by automating the time-consuming, routine work of your day-to-day business.
Inpute are authorised UiPath partners and our team of professional services consultants are ready to assist your organisation in delivering robotic process automation projects.
This article, by Mena Deckard, originally appeared on UiPath.com.
