ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION (RPA) BOOSTS TREASURY EFFICIENCY
SAVE STAFF TIME, REDUCE ERROR POTENTIAL
IT ASSESSMENT & STRATEGIC POSITIONING
In Spring 2024, the Finance Department of Asbury Communities, Inc., engaged ThriveWell Tech to determine how robotic process automation could streamline certain labor-intensive processes and free up associate time for higher-level tasks. Asbury is the nation’s 14th largest not-for-profit system of continuing care retirement communities and integrated aging services, serving more than 2,700 residents in four states. The Finance Department's Treasury Team was expending unnecessary time and resources in its financial reporting and document management process, prompting the need for innovative solutions.
The Treasury Team identified three low-level, manual tasks that were utilizing 10.5 hours of associate time each month and engaged ThriveWell Tech to create a solution for:
- Generating monthly bank and analysis statements for more than 35 bank accounts
- Downloading 160 lease reports for all of Asbury’s entities and subsidiaries
- Segregating a singular corporate credit card statement into individual user statements for associates from more than 50 departments within the Asbury organization
Client Testimonial
“ThriveWell Tech has revolutionized our automation process seamlessly. From initial consultation to deploying bots, they simplified the journey without the need for extensive preparation, ensuring a smooth experience that saves us significant time.
Their intuitive interface and responsive support team swiftly handles change requests and troubleshooting with exceptional clarity and efficiency.
ThriveWell Tech keeps us at the forefront of technology with outstanding solutions.”
Jill Fristoe, Assistant Controller, Asbury Communities
RPA Project Timeline
» Bank statement bot 1.5 weeks
» TD Bank credit card bot 2 weeks
» Lease bot 1.5 weeks
RPA Project ROI
The Asbury Treasury Team engaged ThriveWell Tech to implement Robotic Process Automation (RPA) with the following primary objectives:
- Reviewing and streamlining the existing process
- Automating tedious, time-consuming tasks to free up time for new projects and priorities
- Reducing error rates and minimizing the time required to ensure statement accuracy
- Creating a scalable solution for other processes within Asbury
1
The first bot targets the task of generating monthly financial statements for over 35 bank accounts within the organization. Previously, this process demanded manual intervention, where an individual had to log in, select the site and date range, generate individual statements, and save them in a central network drive in PDF format, adhering to a specific naming convention. Additionally, the individual departmental statements were then emailed to individual departmental owners as attachments for review.
2 The second bot downloads lease reports and saves them to a LAN drive with appropriate renaming. It automates updates to an Excel file by inputting the entity names, formatting specific cells, and copying data from a master template to designated areas. Moreover, it prepares for future integrations with the NetSuite Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system by facilitating manual input of general ledger balances and ensuring consistent formatting and layout adjustments.
3 The third bot streamlines the process of handling Asbury’s corporate credit card statements. It downloads the single, monthly statement in PDF format, separating it to individual statements for each corporate credit card holder, and saving them into individual PDF files. It then emails the files to the respective email addresses of the individual card holders, reducing manual intervention and improving efficiency within the department’s workflow.
To give multiple users the ability to launch the bot, the source code to the bot implemented in UiPath was installed on a production virtual machine.
The implementation of all three bots took three months to develop, test, and deploy from start to finish.
Outcome - Building a Better System
Implementing RPA within the Asbury Treasury Team has significantly improved operational efficiency, accuracy, scalability and compliance. RPA bots swiftly retrieve and process data, eliminating delays from manual procedures, accelerating decision-making, and providing timely insights for strategic actions.
The implementation saves Asbury 125 hours of associate time per year, with individual tasks now completed in minutes rather than hours.
Problem-Solving
During the building process, ThriveWell Tech encountered issues that will be common to many organizations' operating systems, security processes, and servers. Their engineers quickly designed solutions for the following challenges:
- Failure of automated bot launch due to permissions, network connectivity, selector changes, and software updates
- One-Time Password (OTP) or Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) timeout
- Web server downtime
- Failure of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) Codes in Excel
About the Client
Asbury Communities, Inc. is the 14th-largest not-for-profit system of continuing care retirement communities as ranked in the LeadingAge Ziegler 200, and includes diversified senior living options and integrated services such as therapy management, pharmacy, and IT.
The Asbury Treasury Team is responsible for processing more than 34,000 invoices and 23,000 payments annually, providing financial reporting, and managing cash operations across more than 35 bank accounts. The Lease Team oversees more than 160 leases and a $16M lease portfolio in compliance with U.S. GAAP standards.
Technology Partner
ThriveWell Tech is a digital transformation agent and managed IT services provider focusing on security and innovation that offers complete, customized solutions to leverage emerging technologies. With direct experience in numerous markets, we expertly mitigate risks, manage timelines, stick to budgets, and maintain clear, effective communication during implementation and beyond.
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