Percentage of Automated Journal Line Items

Is your accounting team doing too much manual work? 

To understand the answer to this question, one helpful metric to track, benchmark, and manage is the percentage of automated, recurring journal line items, as compared to those entered manually. 

The percentage of monthly journal entries that are automated is a useful metric for accounting leaders to manage as part of a strategy for streamlining work, particularly in environments with high transaction volume. Automated work still requires supervisory review and signoff, to ensure systems are working as intended. However, with automation, accounting teams can increase efficiency, improve workflows, decrease rework associated with human error, and mitigate the risk of errors on financial statements. 

This article reviews practices organizations can take to increase automation of journal entry line items and why doing so is important.