When Xero meets Power Bi

Back to a couple years ago we talked about using excel to build a dynamic dashboard to show the financial results, then we talked about how those business intelligence tools such as Qlikview or Tableau change the way of the accountants representing the figures.

Now translating troves of financial data into accessible visual analytics is even getting so much easier. You don’t need to export data into the excel spreadsheet to manipulate it anymore, as it can’t be drilled down to show the real figures behind the scene; you also don’t need to hire someone to implement BI tools and build templates for you either, it is costly.

How?

Xero and Microsoft Power BI enabled interaction between their software. They aim to give businesses a freedom to get insight of their business.

      *The amounts shown are for demonstration purposes only 

Xero is one of the well-known cloud accounting systems in the Australian market, and Microsoft Power BI is a widely used tool for analysing and visualizing data.

Xero’s free integration gives Xero users the ability to create reports with pre-configured information and graphs, to customise those reports and to write their own. Power BI graphs can also be shared very easily (compared to Excel) by embedding them in websites, blogs or Powerpoint slides, or printed.

Power BI’s strength lies in its ability to visualise metrics that businesses expect answers about their cash position(first of the first in SME), profit/loss, revenues vs. expenses, trend, and return on investment.... here is the list of reports so far:

• Closing Balance
• Daily Cash Flow
• Action Items
• Closing Balance
• Cash In
• Cash Out
• Outstanding Receivables
• Overdue Receivables
• Invoices Due
• Revenue % Growth Revenue
• Invoiced Sales by Customer
• Outstanding Payables
• Overdue Payables
• Bills Due
• Expense & Growth
• Expenses
• Billed purchases by Supplier
• Monthly Sales
• Net Profit
• Monthly Profit & Loss
• Top Expense Accounts
• Total Assets
• Total Liabilities
• Equity
• Current Ratio
• Total Liabilities to Equity Ratio
• Return on total assets
• Gross profit percentage

       *The amounts shown are for demonstration purposes only 

To many SMEs, those metrics are good enough to give you a brief about business status in term of the finance. Although it looks a lot information inside but fortunately the layout is designed to be neat and smooth by using bar charts and purely numbers, especially when it is browsed on the mobile phone, and you are even able to move the tabs to the position wherever you want.

The dashboard is the hub for Power BI. Users can delve into their data to gain greater insights and discover actionable solutions. Plus dashboards can be shared quickly with those who need them most inside the business.

Action items offer a ‘to-do list’ approach to keep your business day up-to-date each day. Direct links to Xero and live-data transforms managing cashflow into a step-by-step process.

Inventory reports get your business looking forward. They offer insights into your best customers and which products or services are popular. Where business improvement analytics were once cost and time prohibitive, inventory reports offer actionable results in minutes.


Learn more about how Xero and Power Bi work together, please contact New E



Tom Yang

财务都智能化了，而你却原地不动？

财务都智能化了，而你却原地不动？

去年和今年受邀参加两次由一家美国财务自动化公司在悉尼举办的产品介绍会，这家公司创立于2001年，几年前还没有听说过，不过这两年迅猛发展，其核心业务RPA (Robotic Process Automation) --机器人流程自动化就是帮助企业实现财务办公自动化，把财务人员从繁重枯燥的数据输入和操作工作中解放出来，去创造更高的价值。举个例子，一个公司在月末报表中有很多折旧摊销去记录，传统上是财务人员通过Excel表格来计算并手工输入到系统，如果科目众多，需要很多时间来录入，而且难免会有错误产生，他们则将这一过程自动化，一次性设置好，月末自动产生。还有银行对账，过去是财务人员要花大量时间，人工核对账务，耗时耗力，系统也能够这一过程自动化，自动核对。 一句话， 这个财务自动化帮助企业减少人工成本，提高效率。

每次介绍会都有介绍客户成功的案例，去年的是一个大学财务部门，今年的例子讲的是一家设备服务公司， 演讲的老哥是个印度人，在演讲的时候，说到由于有了这个系统整个财务团队由原来七八个人最后只留下他一个人来维护系统，脸上露出那种劫后余生的尴尬的微笑，这时全场议论纷纷，很多人面不改色心却突突的跳，心中暗道“OMG，下一个会不会是我“。

现在这个系统服务的是大型企业，它接入的系统包括SAP，Oracle，Microsoft 等，全球客户2000多个， 基本都是大型跨国公司，包括可口可乐， Under Armour，eBay， Philips，澳洲本土企业有BHP，银行等等，可见其实力。

不光是这一家，现在德勤，普华永道等四大咨询会计事务所以及IBM，埃森哲等，都进入到财务机器人流程自动化这一领域。根据普华永道2017年调查，有43%的公司高管计划在1，2年内向这一部分投资，用于提高企业效率。

由此可见，科技的迅猛发展，已将财务领域的技术革新也推动到了前所未有的新阶段。讲到这里，说个基本问题，很多谈及财务未来的文章总要说到智能化和自动化，区别是什么？

简单的说，智能化比自动化更高级，自动化多用于重复性工作，按照固定的程序来执行。智能化是一种有判断能力的程序，一般能根据不同的变量，不同的情况作出不同判断，简单的说有点像excel公式里的if语句。

在财务或金融的工作中，像数据的输入和输出这类重复，耗时的过程，可以用自动化操作来进行，近几年澳洲四大银行投入资金开发RPA，就是把银行财务业务里大量的重复性手工输入用系统来取代，很多传统意义的外包已经被这种新技术而取代，所以说从总量上来说，企业对这类工作的人工投入会越来越小。而财务分析，数据整合，报表等这类需要作出判断来产生结果的，则为智能化。二者之间的界限会随着技术发展而变的模糊，或者有人干脆用人工智能这一笼统的名词来涵盖。

究竟RPA能够做什么工作，澳大利亚商务智能咨询公司Think Forward Consulting Group列出了在目前财务机器人RPA能够涉及的领域，相信随着人工智能的发展，这个趋势会更加深入到各个领域

同时针对企业高管就财务机器人究竟能够做些什么及其局限性的问题，这家咨询公司也比较了现阶段财务机器人能做的和不能做的。

在企业部署了RPA后有什么效果，德勤会计师事务所曾经有份统计报告，目前正在测试和已经运行RPA的企业，100%的认为有了RPA后，企业为此收益。持怀疑及保留态度的多为没有真正接触过RPA的企业

在这里讲个小插曲，很多文章(包括本文)在提到财务自动化时总要要插入类似下面的图，一个类似Ai电影里的机器人在你旁边，似乎很形象的让你联系到智能化及未来。其实讲到财务智能化，其本身就是个软件或是一段电脑程序，它也许存放在公司的某个电脑里或者干脆就在云里，看不见摸不着，所以RPA并不是一个真的机器人，会走进办公室和每个人握手，跟你说hello。

提到财务的未来，大公司会更有优势，他们拥有更多的资源，会投入巨大的人力物力来推动智能化普及，面临同样的问题，那么澳洲的中小企业如何面对，在财务工作中，那些高重复性，低价值的部分，会有什么解决办法来解决。

首先讲讲两个在澳大利亚中小企业使用最多的财务软件MYOB，Xero，前者已经很多年了，很多在澳洲学会计的童鞋都知道这个，因为在工作简历上的第一必填财务软件工具就是MYOB，在澳洲中小企业财务软件市场上，MYOB曾经是独霸江山，可惜在近几年的竞争转弯道上，就是从桌面系统转换到在线服务上，MYOB墨守成规，被后起之秀Xero超越，下图是澳洲金融回顾时报列出的2016财务年市场份额，足以证明了。很多企业都纷纷换成了Xero，Xero为了方便接纳这些转换的客户，特意设计了一个功能，几乎是一键转换就可以把财务数据从MYOB转换成Xero，非常方便。Xero最大的好处是在线，建立在SaaS上的，客户随时随地通过电脑或移动设备可以进入系统，查阅信息，其本身的安卓和iOS App，也比MYOB对应版本版本的更完善。更重要的是在2016年，Xero和微软结盟，它的系统可直接商务智能软件Power BI运行，，可以说基本不用人工运行报表，企业财务的数据均可通过dashboard 以各种图表来展现，功能非常强大，我会在以后的文章详细介绍。

根据统计，现代企业财务在数据输入上花费的时间最长，以应付账款为例，账单票据的输入被财务人员普遍认为最为枯燥的工作，干过这类工作的人知道，每天需要把堆成小山似的账单输入系统，实在很枯燥，更不要说人工输入所产生的错误。

有了问题就有解决办法，这就是财务自动化的产生， Xero在这方面科技研发投入很大，革新是最先进的，如果交易的双方都用的是Xero会计系统，那么可以直接做到数据内部传输，相当于微信里的转账，交易在它的平台上进行，通过电子邮件把账单发给付款方先看一下，付款方同意并点击附带的确认键，这个应付账款交易会自动出现在系统里，付款方把相应的账户科目选好，交易完成。中间几乎没有手动输入。可以想像如果每天处理大量的应付账款，比如零售业，这是一种革命性的进步。在市场推广上Xero也很巧妙的通过客户体验来为其打广告，打造生态环境。

那问题来了，假设交易的另一方用的是其他软件比如MYOB或者其他的，那怎么办？ 澳洲有两个新创公司分别提出了解决办法，也看出他们思路的不同

第一家公司的办法就是创立第三方平台，所有的应付账款都要通过他们的平台，然后通过接口与各个财务软件进行数据传输，当然这中间要经过授权，接受的过程。 有两点需要完成，首先要与各个软件公司谈判，让其开放API接口；第二交易双方都要使用它的平台，相当于双方都要付费，才能完成数据传送过程，有点难度。

另一个家公司的思路不同，它也是一个第三方平台，但和账单的发送方没有直接往来，付款方在收到账单以后，通常把PDF附件，发送到这个平台上，这个平台会是把账单自动转化成付款方财务软件接受的模式，再通过授权，接受来自动输入进系统。但也有过程需要完成，第一，账单的格式千奇百怪，需要运用人工智能，甚至人工去辨别，第二，如果账单是扫描过来的，那就需要OCR图像字符识别技术在配合第一点来完成操作。这个解决办法也需要政府和行业对账单的模式进行标准化。

比较起来第一种办法会彻底一些，但需要时间去创造一个生态环境，就是每个软件提供商，使用者都要参与才能更有效率，最后很可能是软件提供商达成协议，让数据在之间互通有无，甚至在未来，云服务器提供者比如亚马逊，微软等也会进入这个市场分一杯羹。

由此可见， 随着人工智能技术的推进，很多我们所熟悉的工作或多或少的一些职能都将被人工智能所取代，财务工作也不例外，摆在面前的是企业，员工及社会如何面对这一趋势迎接挑战。

作者  Tom Yang

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect the view of  the blogger owner and associate parties

Robotic Process Automation in Finance & Accounting

Background

Recently Australian media has reported that some financial services giants are exploring the possibility of automating back office and finance functions. It heralds the beginning of a trend that is expected to affect white-collar jobs in much the same way that machines displaced blue-collar workers on assembly lines in 1950s.

It comes after one of big four banks revealed that it had been refining over the last 12 months a program in the emerging field of robotics process automation(RPA) which will change the composition of its workforce. Bank of America Merrill Lynch also predicts 47 per cent of American jobs could be automated by 2020 - including white collar finance jobs.

Software is going to take a bigger share of the corporate-finance workload. As it does the finance profession is bracing for a wave of technology-driven change greater than that bought about by outsourcing and offshoring over the last decade.

"It’s time to move beyond redundant practices and modernize the way finance wants to work. "

 Finance and accounting(F&A) automation

In many large organizations, there are astonishingly large numbers of inefficient processes based on outdated or outgrown systems,  in particular in the F&A area, Financial processes are constantly challenged with manual processing and the need for controls and improved visibility. 

From invoice data, sales orders, payment process to the payroll running and the month end reporting,  financial process automation can cover most of processes in F&A. Automation tools offer a broad range of functionality and solutions, coupled with a deep understanding of financial process best practises, to open up the possibilities of what efficient, mature and fully automated processes will bring to the business.

F&A is an attractive target for RPA utilisation based on these processes have some attributes that lend themselves to the technology.

•   Efficiency and time saving 

Few F&A employees enjoy the tedium of repetitious work, all of which can be done by finance automation, in particular in the areas of accounts payable, payroll and financial reporting, software robots are quickly configured to gain rapid access to data across multiple application and databases – then configured to consolidate and manipulate the data. This capability is often very useful for quick, customized and accurate consolidation data for month end, quarter end and year end financial reporting.

•   Error free

With the automation software, data can be transferred and processed seamlessly within the system or between the systems. It will invariably execute a process as configured – without deviations or risk of fraudulent actions or inappropriate data use. As the software robot run through the workflow processes as being programmed it creates audit trails and logs as needed for regulatory compliance.

•   Scalable

Software robots can be cloned and deployed within hours or even minutes.  This highly flexible scalability allows for easy accommodation of work peaks such as end of month, quarter and year activity levels.

•   Cloud technology

From small accounting softwares to ERP like SAP or Oracle, powerful cloud-based technology and real-time automation to give accounting and finance teams power over their processes. They truly modernize processes and empower real productivity gains.

Automation of those processes delivers quick wins as it improves day-to-day visibility of financial status and provides a better basis for business decisions. It’s about saving money, gaining control of the business processes, and recouping a significant amount of valuable time for the organisation.

by Chen Yang