Automated bookkeeping for accounting: tools to succeed

Bookkeeping is a key business function, but doing it manually puts businesses at a disadvantage. Automating bookkeeping helps businesses save time and money by handling repetitive tasks, reducing mistakes, and offering financial insights in real time.

The right automation scales with your company and integrates with the payroll and inventory systems you’re already using. That frees up your team members to concentrate on your business’s larger strategy rather than getting bogged down in manual drudgery.

What is automated bookkeeping?

Bookkeeping automation software optimizes tracking, processing, and other workflows, allowing your accounting team to spend less time in spreadsheets doing everything by hand. Automated bookkeeping eliminates the need for data entry and other manual tasks.

Automating bookkeeping and accounting reduces time spent creating templates and ledgers. Instead, built-in formulas allow finance teams to generate reports more quickly and efficiently.

Why to invest in accounting automation

Like the best tools for finance teams, bookkeeping and accounting automation can streamline your workflows. Key reasons for investing in it include:

Save time and money

Time and money go hand in hand, making automated bookkeeping a two-for-one in savings. Entering financial data and information, checking calculations, running reports, and other repetitive tasks can waste valuable time and pull you and your finance team away from higher priorities, such as data analysis.

Accounting automation software can reduce the amount of manual work for accounts payable and enable you to close out your books more quickly. Shafak Ilyas, Accounting Manager at Shortcut, recently told us that her team uses Ramp to close their books in just an hour each month, a process she says previously took a couple of days.

Improve efficiency

Automated accounting helps cut back on the human error that comes with manual data entry, such as tracking spend. Ramp’s automated expense management improved transaction review by 33%, in fact, giving managers time back to focus on more important objectives. That said, you’ll still need a good accountant to verify that the work is accurate and, if necessary, manipulate the data.

Beef up security

Most automated accounting offerings employ advanced encryption to protect sensitive data. They include access controls to keep out prying eyes, audit trails for easier detection and investigation, regular backups, and real-time monitoring and alerts. And business owners can customize them to ensure compliance with the latest financial standards and regulations.

Speed up cumbersome work

Accounting software is designed to centralize documents and ledger items, so categorizing, naming, and storing files is easier. That makes documents easy to find via secure cloud storage.

Automation also means employees can tackle their side of the business expense process more quickly. For example, because Ramp gives employees access to all their tasks on one page—inputting receipts, providing details on credit card charges and other expenses, and addressing questions or problems—users improve their expense submission rate by 30% thanks to expense automation.

What to look for in an automated bookkeeping tool

Your month-end close process is a necessary bookkeeping task. But doing it manually opens you up to a variety of issues and can take hours, if not days, to complete. When considering automation offerings, be sure to choose one that offers the following:

• Direct integrations with accounting tools: Managing a stack of disparate systems is one of an accountant’s biggest pain points. The right platform makes establishing connections a snap. Ramp, for instance, offers a large library of integrations with best-in-class applications such as QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, and Sage.
• Real-time transaction syncing: Manual bookkeeping’s major challenge is just that—it’s manual. No matter how hard you try to keep up, you’re always at least a few hours behind. Look for finance automation tools that sync in real time. That way, you know exactly what your business is spending as it happens.
• Automated category mapping: Whether you categorize by merchant or department, look for an accounting automation platform that allows you to easily and quickly create merchant rules that automatically sync to your general ledger
• Support for multiple subsidiaries: Larger businesses need to connect individual units to one another. An automation tool with multiple-subsidiary support provides a comprehensive view of your finances across the entire organization. It also simplifies inter-company transactions and standardizes compliance processes.

Top options for automated bookkeeping software

Narrowing down your choices for accounting automation tools will still leave you with a dozen to choose from. Here’s a quick comparison of the best three options based on features, user-friendliness, scalability, and ease of integration. For a more in-depth look, see our article on the best payroll systems for startups and small businesses.

Check out more bookkeeping automation platforms here.

Which accounting processes should you automate?

The key to automated bookkeeping is focusing on the tasks that help your business save time and reduce human error. Automation helps in these areas:

Expense tracking

Expense automation can make life easier for much of your company. For instance, a recent Morning Consult study found that businesses with automated credit card expense management are 11% more likely to say they’re satisfied with their expense policy than companies that handle it manually. And your accounting department can track business expenses faster.

Spend management

Purchasing and spend management includes tracking purchase orders, invoice verification, accounts payable and bank statement reconciliation, and budget oversight. Automating all that yields well-recognized benefits. Ramp research found that 87% of finance leaders see a greater need for automation that supports decentralized spending and maintains cost control.

Travel reimbursement

Travel expenses took up about 20% of companies’ annual spend on Ramp cards as of mid-2024, so tracking them is critical. But processing expense reporting and reimbursement by hand can mean a big hit to productivity while eating up time for all involved. Automate your T&E expense process’s reporting and reimbursement, and you’ll be more efficient and won’t keep employees waiting for money to land in their bank accounts.

Accounts payable and receivable

Supply orders, payments, and invoices can get tied up in AP, but implementing automation can make it easier to track all of that. Meanwhile, accounts receivable must make sure invoices are handled efficiently and disputes are resolved quickly. Automating your AP process can help save time and money and ensure that you have a consistent, predictable cash flow.

Payroll

Growing companies can be consumed with payroll if they don’t have automated software to help manage laborious tasks. Manually processing payroll every pay period can be a major time suck for someone who could be spending their time on other HR or operational tasks. Payroll automation, however, is more efficient, cost-effective, and reduces the risk of human error.

Financial closes

According to Ventana Research, just 43% of organizations say they can complete their quarterly close within six business days. That’s a drop from the 49% who said they could hit that mark when asked three years earlier. Automating this business process cuts time and can ensure your accounting department is providing you with the most accurate report possible.

How to automate bookkeeping with Ramp

Ramp’s accounting automation, expense management software, and corporate cards can help you and your team get a handle on your business finances and bookkeeping. Time is everything, and Ramp cuts close time by 22% on average.

In addition, it works with the tools you’re already using, offering integrations for more than 30 popular accounting tools, including QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, and Sage.

Accounting automation is just one part of finance automation as a whole. Choose the right tool for you, and automated finance can eliminate repetitive tasks and enable your accounting team to focus on the priorities most likely to help your business grow.