Saving time and costs, whilst improving productivity is a standard and key objective of most organisations and a benefit used by many businesses when promoting their products and services - but what exactly does that mean though in the real world?
At Enterprise RPA, we know that we can help businesses save time and money by automating processes that will remove unnecessary administrative tasks that are currently tying up valuable people time.
We have been working with several Housing Associations (and talking to many more), about how Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can be applied within their organisations. Here are some Housing Association application examples;
Automated Housing Benefit Payment Processing – Every month local authorities need to send Housing benefit payment files to the Housing Association. Typically, these are in different formats and manipulation is required before they can be uploaded to the Housing Management System. Payments are then reconciled against the banking records. RPA automatically re-formats the files, uploads the information into the relevant systems and performs a reconciliation
Universal Credit Claim Verification – The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) adds properties to the landlord portal whenever a Universal Credit application is made or whenever a resident’s rent increases (Natural Migration). The relevant Housing Association must then verify the application via a portal to check the resident’s details against the Housing Management database. Income Officers currently undertake this work manually. A robot can interact with the portal and the Housing Management system to check and confirm tenancy details automatically.
Incoming Contact Management - A customer care team would distribute emails from clients to the relevant departments to answer or handle a query. A robot could be used to automate this task by reading the email, identifying its purpose and sending it to the correct CRM queue. In addition, it could perform back-office tasks to complete requests and reply to emails attaching the correct information.
Compliance – Where there isn’t already processes in place, compliance is a key area where the benefits could include a fully audited activity, creation of a repeatable and managed set of tasks that organise the compliance process, a decrease with indirect administrative compliance costs and will proactively manage compliance evidence in one place; including log files and documents.
Reply to FAQ Emails – A high volume of emails come in daily from prospective customers into the inbox via the external sales websites. These emails could be related to a scheme that hasn’t been launched yet, one currently on sale or be a general enquiry. A robot could automate this process by reading the emails to identify keywords and intentions and classify them. These could then be responded to automatically or sent to the individual scheme sales officer to follow up.
Bank Reconciliation – The process of matching the total balance in the bank account to the accounting records held for what has been paid and paid out can be a very manual process of checking off balances and recording the difference. A robot could automate this task by identifying and solving inconsistencies, freeing staff to solve the complicated cases only.
Process and Validate Invoices – Incoming hard copy (paper) invoices must be scanned and matched to a Purchase Order (PO) using the information contained on the paperwork. Invoices arriving by email have a similar route. A robot could scan the invoice, pick up the relevant content (PO number, date, invoice number etc) and validate the email for payment.
This list is by no way exhaustive, so if this sparks an idea of how RPA can work within your business, then give us a call on 0333 987 3938 and we’d be happy to discuss
