Buying, selling and trading on any stock exchange is a highly-charged environment: brokers live life on the edge and have to take rapid decisions throughout the day.
This translates to a complex environment on the backend, where the stock exchange has to keep track of transactions, payments and any other activities by its stable of stockbrokers.
When the Saucecode team first met up with a large stock exchange to discuss the opportunities for automation, a number of processes that would benefit from the Roboteur technology were identified.
But the most complicated process was the one that made its way to the top of the pile, and it’s helping to streamline operations on the back-end.
Barry Buck, chief technology officer of Saucecode
Barry Buck, chief technology officer of Saucecode, explains that the project was to automate reconciliation of the broker deal accounting system.
“It used to be a very manual – and extremely time-consuming – process,” he says. “The investor services department has about 1 500 client accounts, and they need to manage the cash balance for trading accounts, using a variety of source files from different financial and investment banks.”
Not only is this extremely resource-heavy and difficult to do, it is fraught with opportunities for errors.
“And these are highly skilled people who have to do these reconciliations every day,” Buck says. “Freeing them from doing this has given them back hours in every day, and let them focus on the high-value work they do best.”
Put simply – although it’s by no means a simple process – the Roboteur system collects the data from all the different sources on the one hand, and collects the balances on the other side. It then interrogates each
transaction, trade, payment, tax payment and sundries, based on key indicators and fuzzy matching, puts them into the matching account and pushes the lot into the reconciliation system.”
Because the process is so complex, and there are so many variables, Buck also created a dashboard that not only displays the data, but allows users to check where it came from. And they can also check historical data, which they weren’t able to do before.
“The people using these systems are not technical, so to dashboard is critical.”
And this is key to the service that Saucecode offers: it starts out by identifying the process that can be automated, then workshops to map out the process, the design and deployment of the bot, and then ongoing tweaking and improvements.
“With any automation project, once users start getting their hands dirty, they come up with new opportunities and refinements – and adding those refinements is part of the service we offer,” Buck says.
The next two processes to be automated have already been identified, and Buck is confident that this particular client has many more processes that can be successfully automated with Roboteur.
Saucecode
Brian Little, chief operating officer at Saucecode
Saucecode endeavors to maximize efficiency, minimise costs, and drive innovation for our customer partners. The company’s mission is to empower businesses through innovative software solutions that streamline processes, enhance productivity, and drive growth.
We offer specialized services in:
– Product and SaaS platform development
– Business Solution development
– Business Solution integration
– Software Automation
– Document intelligence and OCR solutions
RPA platform creates SaaS opportunities
Software as a service (SaaS) is an elegant and cost-effective way to consume software – and now AI Dynamics is making robotic process automation (RPA) available as a service to its customers too.
Jon Randall, MD of AI Dynamics, explains that the company offers bots that help cybersecurity operators process the data that they ingest through their platforms, making it relevant by enriching and correlating it, and presenting it back to make their processes more efficient. AI Dynamics is now also offering SaaS-based bots to companies in the real estate world as well.
Roboteur was a good fit for AI Dynamics in its quest to automate as many processes as possible to make customers’ lives easier and their businesses more efficient.
AI Dynamics hosts its Roboteur-based services in the cloud. “As far as possible, we stay away from deploying the solution on-premise but rather offer it as a SaaS service,” Randall says. “This way we can create processes as required, and customers consume them on a subscription model.”
AI Dynamics started partnering with Saucecode when it was looking for a better way of helping its customers generate reports. “At that time, the way they had to generate reports was manual and repetitive, and we realised that Roboteur would be a great solution.
“As soon as we got our hands dirty we realised this system had far greater potential, and was being under-utilised. So we started offering the same product, but with the ability to do different things. And, as soon as we start developing for a new application, we see the potential for others.”
The Roboteur solution today goes well beyond being an RPA service. “It has become so much more than just reports, and is now a platform on its own.”
Roboteur has helped AI Dynamics customers in their quest for smoother processes and better levels of efficiency. But it has also helped AI Dynamics itself to grow.
“We have expanded the organisation, and now have an MD who is looking to the artificial intelligence and automation side of the business, with a view to growing aggressively over the next 12 months.
“We have already stopped calling ourselves an IT or cybersecurity company, but are more focused on business and business automation solutions. And we are planning to expand into every vertical market.”
Accounting bots make life easier for SMEs
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the perfect robotic process automation (RPA) customer: they are focused on running their businesses, with tedious or repetitive processes very much getting in the way of this goal.
When CloudBot CEO Heidi Gibson decided to re-enter the IT industry after a 21-year hiatus, she quickly realised that RPA solutions that help SMEs and small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) would be ideal for taking these processes off their hands.
The CloudBot team started off by developing automated bank reconciliations with Xero accounting.
The software as a service (SaaS) bot is typically used by accounting firms with an existing client base, performing daily automated bank reconciliations for each customer.
“Labour-intensive, monotonous tasks tie up resources that SMEs can’t afford,” Gibson says. “By automating these processes, business owners can free up a lot of time to focus on other things.”
And, because the automation solution is affordable, smaller accounting firms can now be more competitive, and look after more clients without adding work pressure.
CloudBot worked closely with Saucecode in developing the Roboteur solution. “We were their first SaaS customer, and they worked closely with us to make sure the solution works,” Gibson says.
The next step for CloudBot is to tweak the bank reconciliation service to work with other accounting packages, and then to start automating other processes, and finding new ways of bringing the bots to market.
Long-term, Gibson dreams of a fully-digital accountant developed as an RPA solution and performing many of the processes that keep real-life accountants busy.
She believes the Saucecode team is the right partner to help CloudBot to achieve its vision.
Robotic Process Automation
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a technology that uses software robots or “bots” to automate repetitive tasks, allowing for greater efficiency and accuracy in business processes.
These bots mimic human actions to interact with digital systems and applications without the need for human intervention
Saucecode adds agility with bridging solutions
Working with a mix of IT systems and suppliers helps corporates to find a fit-for-purpose solution to whatever problem presents itself.
This is the experience of Nedbank’s RPA department, which is tasked with automating business processes for the bank.
Keith Bekker, Head: Automation RBB (RPA and DRA) at Nedbank, explains that his team works with line of business departments to see where processes can be automated, or where they would benefit from being redesigned before automating them.
“The goal is to automate business rules where possible to reduce the amount of human intervention, to give humans back the time to do more cognitive, high value work.”
To effectively deliver on this mandate, there is no one-size-fits-all software solution, he adds.
Although Nedbank has a target state application landscape, Roboteur is being successfully deployed to deliver on niche implementations, and recently solved a couple of urgent problems for the team.
Alfred Willemse, Senior Business Process Engineer at Nedbank, explains that a number of optical character recognition (OCR) opportunities had been identified in the operations space, and were needed quite urgently.
The first project was fairly straightforward and Saucecode has able to deliver a Robodocs solution within three weeks.
The second project, for fraud verification required by the Reserve Bank, was a tougher prospect, but the team was able to modify the Robodocs solution and deliver enhanced features in order to tailor a solution.
In this particular case, the bot was required to read very large files, which is a challenge for any system. The Saucecode team solved the problem by creating an extension that would let Robodocs read the document line by line without having to ingest the whole thing.
The final solution consists of a dashboard that uploads account numbers with review dates and tracking numbers. It processes this data, which is sent to an API, while storing the request and response for auditing purposes.
Saucecode was able to not only deliver the solution but scale it to 40 000 records per day, at one second per transaction, by using its own swarming technology that lets up to five bots operate in parallel.
The bottom line is that the Saucecode was able to solve the issues, in time and on budget.
Not only that, but the solutions are constantly evolving, with new features suggesting themselves – and being delivered – as users get to grips with the scope of Robodocs’ functionality.
“As we look at the requirements and processes that we need to implement, we see several that are a perfect fit for Roboteur,” Bekker says. “We are sure that Roboteur is going to have a place in Nedbank going forward.”
Roboteur and Robodocs have no ambition to replace the corporate systems. “But they can be a useful bridge between the systems, and act as an enhancer. Because they are flexible and dynamic they can be dropped into any situation,” Bekker says.
Because they have delivered solutions quickly, it’s not hard to recognise the Roboteur and Robodocs can be linked to benefits that include better productivity, enhanced compliance, heightened security and an actual rand saving, he adds.
The urgency with which the Saucecode team addressed the solution goes a long way to making it a success, Bekker adds. “Their reaction time and willingness to help made them a pleasure to work with.”
Willemse agrees, adding: “What stood out for me was their proactiveness. Their ethics didn’t allow them to wait for us, but they went out and got what they needed to get the job done.”
OCR and Document Intelligence
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a technology that converts different types of documents, such as scanned paper documents, PDF files, or images captured by a digital camera, into editable and searchable data.
By analyzing the text in these documents, OCR software enables computers to recognize characters and transform them into machine-readable text.
Combined with Document intelligence and embedded AI features it offers highly valuable time and cost savings to any business having to process almost any form of input documentation
Bots make the move to managed services
There isn’t a single option when it comes to software solutions – different offerings are relevant depending on factors such as cost, features, affordability and more. And this holds true for robotic process automation (RPA) as well.
ISB Optimus is a management consulting firm and managed service provider that believes in giving customers access to a wide range of solutions to they can exactly match their needs.
Chief operations officer Brian Mudhokwani explains that ISB Optimus employs a range of performance improvement tools to help its customers operated optimally.
Key to finding the right solution is to help customers ensure their business processes are efficient, Mudhokwani says. “Only once we are happy that we have solved a business problem do we look at the technology that can augment the process.”
With Roboteur, ISB Optimus is able to offer customers a solution that strips away layers of complexity and comes in at an affordable price point.
The company has gone live with its Accounts Payable (AP) invoice processing bot as a managed service for a number of large customers.
“The bot automates the supplier payments process,” says Mudhokwani. “When an invoice comes through, it classifies the document to determine what it is (invoice, bank statement etc). If it is an invoice, it identifies the supplier and which purchase order (PO) it is related to. It then matches the transaction on the invoice to the goods received and the PO.
“If the information all matches, the bot pushes through the payment. If there is a discrepancy, it escalates it to the relevant person.”
The immediate benefit of this bot is that it relieves staff of a tedious and time-consuming process and frees up time for them to do more value-added activities.”
The AP processing bot can be used in a number of accounting packages.
“Working with Roboteur, we are able to customise the bot significantly for the customer’s requirements,” Mudhokwani explains.
“And it has all gone well,” he adds. “The Saucecode team was fantastic to work with. And the fact that the developers are in-country made it all so much easier: they understand the local environment in terms of business and, when there were issues, we were able to simply talk to them and they would get things done.”
Speed and agility are the cornerstones of any business, he adds. “When you have an idea or a solution, you need to move on it quickly so you don’t risk becoming irrelevant. Working with Saucecode meant we were able to get the solution live quickly, and modify it to fit the customer’s exact needs.
“Overall, we have had a positive experience working with the team, and the satisfaction levels have been high.”
Application Development
Saucecode’s expertise lies not only in design finesse but also in strategic thinking, ensuring that every element serves a purpose in driving engagement, conversions, and ultimately, your business success.
With its specialized skill set and unwavering dedication to excellence, the team elevate customers’ business presence to new heights, leaving a lasting impression on their contributing staff and customer audience.
For more information, go to www.saucecode.tech