Modernizing systems with RPA and Deltek Costpoint

Deltek is the leading provider of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for project-based businesses. With industry-specific modules that tie to project financials, Deltek Costpoint is the leading ERP software for government contractors of all sizes.

With the volumes of data in Costpoint, and the software’s broad range of capabilities, there are repetitive, high-volume, and structured tasks that consume the valuable time of your employees. With robotic process automation (RPA), you can offload these tasks to a digital co-worker, a “bot,” to enhance efficiency, reduce errors and optimize your overall operational performance. A bot performs transactional activities in Costpoint the same way a user would.

Modernizing operations with RPA

By simulating human actions, RPA can automate the tedious and manual tasks involved in data exchange and processing. It can enhance business processes by replacing the human effort needed for routine and boring, repetitive work. RPA can enter data, execute commands, follow processes and complete transactional activities within Costpoint. RPA effectively replicates how a human would interact with the system, duplicating the process they’re following to achieve the required the end result. Unlike common “automations” like scripts and macros, RPA can provide key capabilities including audit trails, centralized security, versioning, reporting and more.

Using RPA for process automation

The starting point for process improvement and innovation is often a process that is well-defined, repeatable, and rule based. This means there are clear guidelines and explicit decision-making based on standardized, predictive rules. Factors including a low number of variation scenarios leading to different handling procedures and a high volume of transactions are also indicators that your processes could benefit from RPA.

Which business functions are best for RPA? Often back-office tasks such as accounts receivable, accounts payable and human resources functions are a starting point. While automation can benefit your company’s IT, sales, legal and supply chain operations, common processes ripe for RPA include:

Accounting and finance

• AP invoice processing
• Accounts receivable
• Corporate real estate cost allocation basis
• Cash application and bank reconciliations
• Accruals processing
• Processing subcontractor timesheets

Project and vendor

• Project creation/startup
• New vendor creation
• Project closeout/inactive to dormant

Human resources

• On-boarding – new employees
• Off-boarding
• Pre-employment verification management

What about intelligent automation?

RPA and intelligent automation (IA) are two related but distinct concepts. Each uses software to automate tasks and processes. RPA is the foundational layer of IA, and IA builds on the capabilities of RPA by adding additional technologies such as machine learning, natural language processing, structured data interaction, and intelligent document processing.

IA can automate processes that involve unstructured data and more complex decision-making. For example, IA can extract and organize information from scanned documents and analyze more loosely structured data. With IA, RPA bots can replicate a wide range of decision-making traditionally done by people — which expands the types of tasks that can be automated, to address more complex business processes.

Getting started with RPA, IA and Costpoint

If you’re not sure where to start your RPA journey or want to learn more about how RPA and AI can help you, contact us today!