Automation and accounting were never thought to go hand-in-hand. Until they did.
And when they did, they worked out well together.
With extremely efficient bookkeeping tools, like EazyCapture, being curated, the concept of accounting automation doesn’t seem so alienating anymore.
And we will tell you exactly how to put it to use in the right way.
An *Essential* Overview
Firms that stick with manual data entry, matching, and journal drudgery are leaving margins and time on the table.
The keyword here is ‘time’.
You’d be surprised to know that:
- In 2023, AI was used by only 9% of UK firms (while adoption was much higher for cloud and specialized software).
- Up to 80% of a finance department’s transactional work could be automated, according to Accenture estimates cited in automation overviews.
- 47% of accounting firms report increased profitability after implementing automation tools.
When routine tasks like invoice capture, transaction matching, and reconciliation are handled by smart software, accountants can spend energy on interpretation, reporting, and advice.
6 Ways to Use Accounting Automation Software
1. Turn invoices and receipts into structured data
Manual data entry is still one of the most time-consuming parts of accounting.
Each invoice line has to be checked, typed, and coded.
This is one of those processes that’s repetitive, prone to mistakes, and resource-consuming.
Automation changes that by pulling details directly from the document and posting them into your ledger.
Instead of spending an hour on 20 invoices, you might spend ten minutes reviewing exceptions.
With EazyCapture, that workflow is seamless: drag-and-drop or email in the documents, and the system posts supplier info, totals, and VAT into Xero or QuickBooks, leaving only flagged items for human review.
2. Automated Invoicing and Accounts Receivable
Cash flow is the lifeline of any business. Yet most companies struggle with late payments.
Automation fixes this for your business. It does that by generating and sending invoices instantly, tracking due dates, and issuing reminders without requiring constant follow-up from staff.
Take a consulting firm, for instance. Instead of drafting each invoice manually, the system can generate invoices the moment a project milestone is completed, send it to the client, and follow up if payment isn’t received within 10 days.
Benefits include:
- Faster invoicing = faster cash inflow.
- Consistent reminders reduce overdue balances.
- Less administrative pressure on the finance team.
Some advanced systems even allow for automated payment links, enabling clients to pay directly through the invoice itself—further shortening the payment cycle.
3. Easy Expense Management
Small-ticket expenses are deceptively destructive when managed manually.
Receipts get lost, staff forget to submit claims, and accountants spend hours chasing missing documentation.
Even when receipts are collected, misclassification is common.
And misclassification involves travel coded as office supplies, or software subscriptions treated as one-off expenses instead of recurring costs. These errors create distorted spending reports and complicate tax filings.
Automation fixes that by a long shot.
Employees can forward receipts by email, snap a photo, or upload PDFs, and the system automatically captures the details.
Machine learning rules categorise expenses accurately and flag uncertain cases for review. Over time, the system learns, reducing the need for intervention and increasing classification accuracy.
The result is a complete, up-to-date view of company spending without the mess of missing documents or misapplied categories. For founders, this clarity is invaluable in controlling costs and planning budgets with confidence.
4. Quick Bank Reconciliation
Traditionally, bank reconciliation includes combing through pages of bank statements, line by line, matching deposits and withdrawals to invoices and expenses in the ledger.
Most accountants will tell you that bank reconciliation is one of the most tedious tasks in accounting.
For businesses with hundreds or thousands of monthly transactions, this can easily stretch into days of manual work. And even with diligence, mismatches and errors often slip through.
Automation transforms reconciliation by automatically matching bank transactions against invoices and expense entries already in the system. If a customer payment hits the bank, the system links it with the open invoice. If a supplier payment is recorded, it matches the bill.
This dramatically shortens the time needed to reconcile accounts, reduces errors, and enables near real-time visibility of financial health. Instead of waiting until month-end to see whether the books balance, businesses get continuous confirmation that their ledgers align with reality.
5. Real-Time Reporting and Compliance
The final and most strategic benefit of automation is the ability to generate real-time insights.
In manual systems, financial reports are always backward-looking, often weeks or months behind.
By the time the data is compiled, decisions have already been made without full visibility.
Automation changes this by keeping ledgers continuously updated. As invoices, expenses, payroll, and reconciliations are captured automatically, the reporting layer always has current information. Business owners can view dashboards that reflect today’s cash flow, receivables, and liabilities, not outdated figures.
This also means that compliance improves. Automated systems apply tax rules consistently, whether it’s VAT, sales tax, or other regulatory requirements, and every entry comes with a digital audit trail. This reduces risk during audits and filings, while also giving leadership confidence in the accuracy of their data.
6. Smarter Categorisation That Learns Over Time
One of the biggest challenges in accounting isn’t just capturing data – it’s classifying it correctly.
A receipt for a client dinner might be wrongly coded as office supplies.
A software subscription could get dumped under general expenses instead of recurring costs. Misclassifications distort reports, complicate tax filings, and create noise that finance teams have to clean up later.
Automation software reduces this friction by applying machine learning to categorisation.
Once invoices and receipts are captured, the system automatically assigns them to the right accounts – travel, utilities, subscriptions, assets, or cost of sales – based on learned patterns.
Making Accounting Automation Work for Your Business
Sure, automation may sound as the most obvious choice for accountants and finance departments.
But knowing the “what” isn’t enough.
To truly benefit, businesses need to think about the “how.”
Implementation, adoption, and strategy are where automation either delivers measurable ROI or becomes another underused tool.
And the first step is integration.
How To Choose An Accounting Automation Software?
Automation software should connect seamlessly with your existing accounting system.
Without direct integration, automation creates silos rather than solving them.
The second step is workflow alignment.
Businesses often try to automate broken processes, which only creates faster chaos. Instead, it’s worth mapping out how invoices, expenses, and bank transactions move through the business today, then designing automation rules to support that flow.
For example, who approves expenses? How should prepayments be recorded? Where do exceptions go? Answering these upfront prevents automation from becoming a black box.
Why EazyCapture Fits the Picture?
This is where choosing the right platform matters.
Many tools automate parts of the accounting process. Few handle the entire cycle with consistency.
EazyCapture is one of the rare exceptions.
It supports bulk invoice capture, handles multi-page PDFs and even handwritten text, applies smart categorisation rules that learn from corrections, and integrates seamlessly with Xero and QuickBooks.
The audit trail ensures compliance with VAT and MTD standards, while multilingual and multi-currency support make it fit for global operations.
Accounting automation isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about control, compliance, and making better decisions.
Businesses that adopt it early stay ahead of the curve.
And EazyCapture will let you do that right away.
