Back-office functions handle administrative tasks an organization needs to keep its operations going. Without back-office support, a company can’t sustain its operations, including the customer-facing division.
To help with this, companies started to redesign their business operations and explore more processes to automate. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now incorporated into different back-office functions, speeding up tasks efficiently and accurately..
How AI enhances common back-office functions
As businesses adapt to the changing world, their need for expansion increases. The need for added back-office support has become imperative compared to the past decades. Thus, it must be further optimized.
An enhanced back-office function reflects the company’s capability to deliver quality services. Salesforce research shows that 59% of IT leaders cut departmental costs by 11 to 30% after automating tasks previously done manually.
This is why businesses started to invest in AI and AI Planning.
The AI Planning subset is programmed to perform procedures and tasks declared by the software developers. It focuses on completing the same goal every day. This back-office support optimizes the approach in practice, driving more productive results.
Here are some of the back-office functions AI can enhance:
Data Entry / Data Management
Data entry can be typing, word processing, transcribing, and clerical work. In earlier times, data entry and management in the back-office required one or more operators to encode raw data into an organized catalog and secure physical files in a cabinet.
Some examples of data entry and management include extracting information from files, emails, or posted contents into their corresponding categories. Machine learning incorporated in software systems works significantly faster than labor-based processing.
In the age of big data, a company acquires a massive amount of information from their customer, especially in digital marketing. Data entry and management are essential to keep information within the company systems, to protect them from getting compromised.
The voluminous data acquired and processed today can outpower manual practices, subjecting to errors and inaccuracies. AI integration in data processing boosts productivity and reduces cost in budget and time.
Human Resources (HR)
HR management requires a person’s emotional and social intelligence to make decisions and sound judgments. AI can help enhance human skills for better workforce management.
Even recruitment processes have changed over the past years, especially during the major onboarding season. AI can now scan and identify the candidate with relevant skills and experiences written on their resume. With this, HR managers and recruiters can focus on in-depth evaluation, helping them select the perfect applicant for the job.
Aside from recruiting, AI also innovates payroll systems, employee assessment, and training programs for growth and development.
Payroll
Companies hire talents in different ways. They may employ in-house teams, hire freelancers for one-time projects, and outsource some of the back-office functions. Either way, each worker must be paid correctly and on time.
Automated payroll systems make it easier to identify employees and their types of employment in the company. AI helps by simplifying time tracking systems and computation of tax and government-mandated contributions until the release of payroll.
Payroll automation directly links to HR systems that evaluate the conduct and performance of the employees. It can also quickly process overtime, bonuses, and pay raises in less time – making employees feel appreciated and rewarded for their hard work.
Accounting
Accounting is one of the most critical functions of the back-office because it involves the company budget, payroll, and audits. Disorganized accounting systems bring too many risks not only within the firm but also to the external environment.
Further, transaction backup recording and secured storage may not always be ensured. With encrypted AI systems, access to sensitive and confidential information will be limited and less likely to override. Companies can also utilize biometrics, facial recognition, and voice activation.
Automating accounting processes through AI will bring auditors transparency and higher accuracy rates. The manual accounting system is time-consuming and subject to human error. It can also take over monotonous tasks way faster than manual processing, boosting productivity and efficiency for the organization.
Fraud and Risk Mitigation
Cybersecurity is a significant concern in the age of digital commerce. In the past, major businesses have lost millions in revenue from fraud and hacking incidents. Companies did not only lose profit, but worse is the loss of public trust – damaging the brand’s reputation, and facing legal charges from the authorities
Fraud and risk mitigation for back-office operations safeguard the company from loss caused by prevalent cybercrimes. Client data, company resources, and customer information processed by the back-office can be compromised without targeted fraud and risk management systems.
Using AI in fraud and risk management in the back-office will enhance security levels, empowering human abilities in detecting signs of fraud. AI can also help mitigate risky decisions by properly analyzing data and making comprehensive forecasts based on its interpretation.
How AI enhances back-office processes
The back-office contains and processes all documents that have ever been made in the entire organization. To avoid inconvenience, information and documentation must be stored and processed efficiently.
AI enhances back-office processes by optimizing and simplifying tedious tasks, accelerating work rates, and driving better quality results. With AI in the back-office, organizations are more confident to take their business decisions to the next level.
How to make AI and human support work together for back-office
Laborious tasks take so much time and energy from human support teams. Back office efforts need to scale up, especially during peak seasons, end of fiscal years, and business expansions.
For a human employee, this can be exhausting. AI alleviates this kind of burden from the human workforce through task automation and assistance.
AI brings financial benefit and, most importantly, it enriches the back-office functions through organized and expert systems.
