Case Study

Finance Automation: RPA to improve productivity

ShopFully S.p.A. engaged Cluster Reply to design and develop Robotic Process Automation aimed at handling repetitive user tasks, freeing the workforce to focus on higher value-added activities.

SCENARIO

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

A digitized world like the current one has led companies to seek new methods to earn and develop a competitive advantage in their sector. One of the winning solutions to tackle the paradigm shift is process automation, which provides resilience and efficiency for executing the most repetitive low-value tasks and allows for increased productivity.

the challenge

The objectives of Shopfully

ShopFully has identified repetitive transactional activities (such as invoicing) as an important area for intervention since these involve a significant consumption of resources that can be reduced if standardized and automated for reallocation to analysis and business support activities. The accounting management of a company indeed has a level of complexity, repetitiveness, and exposure to risk that makes it perfect for a transformation towards an automated system.

Automation

Correctness

Time and cost

THE SOLUTION

Our role in driving change

To boost efficiency, ShopFully partnered with Cluster Reply to create automation systems that relieve users of repetitive tasks, allowing the workforce to focus on strategic, value-driven work. The cornerstone of this initiative was the adoption of RPA-based processes.

Low code / No code

The use of the Microsoft Power Platform development platform, to have a Low Code/No Code solution approach.

Processes

The design and development of complex information management flows capable of replicating the human process while optimizing all activities where automation brings a tangible improvement to the methodology used.

Experience

The implementation of numerous automated flows that allow the user to have an experience similar to that existing in the consultation of information.

Notifications

The creation of a “talking” email notification system that allows users to manage and intervene on errors that cause interruptions in the execution of workflows as autonomously as possible, minimizing the intervention of specialized operators.

Accounting management

The adjustment to the existing accounting management methods required during data processing, maintaining the correct final representation of the latter.

Security, reliability, and technological flexibility

By creating a "custom robot" that completes a wide range of processes instead of a real user, the execution time of a process is significantly reduced (thanks also to the ability to utilize nighttime hours), the volume of information that can be processed in a given timeframe is exponentially increased, and human error is eliminated from the task execution activity.

The Microsoft technologies used in this project involved several specific products, including certainly Power Automate Cloud and Power Automate Desktop for the development and management of the RPA product. The information used within the various flows comes from both Microsoft NAV, which in turn is populated through the use of the CRM Dynamics 365 CE system, and from other heterogeneous sources (SQL databases, online spreadsheets, etc.).

Examples of applied RPA

Integration

Optimization

Through RPA, the processing of revenue by accrual has been optimized, allowing for the correct accounting of these values based on the reference month and the cumulative compensation present within the system. Following the release of this RPA flow, users were then able to focus solely on the direct archiving of this information in the accounting books, avoiding the burdensome task of manually processing these values and removing human error from the calculation phase.

Security

RPA has been applied to the data transfer process between two business systems. This intervention was introduced to prevent data manipulation by users, as occurred through the manual execution of the process. During this development, the ability of Power Automate (already used in various previous flows) to access third-party systems, such as Azure Key Vault, for retrieving the credentials necessary for various accesses proved particularly useful, allowing passwords to remain secure within an encrypted environment while the flow performs the task for which it was designed. Thanks to this implementation, the entire data transfer process has been automated, completely eliminating the initially present human activity, with the resulting benefits in terms of security and timing.

Monitoring

In all processed workflows, a notification system has been implemented to allow only authorized users to check the progress of the execution of the flows and, in case of anomalies, receive a series of messages that help reconstruct the origin of the error and intervene promptly. The notification system built for tracking the execution of the flows has been implemented using the Microsoft Outlook platform.

Within our Business Process Automation journey, aimed at progressively improving the efficiency and scalability of ShopFully's operational teams, we have worked on the need to optimize and automate Finance processes. The starting point was the involvement of the Finance Process Owners, with whom the most relevant processes were analyzed and mapped, focusing on their daily needs. Once the areas of waste and the most repetitive manual activities were identified, an automation and optimization plan was defined and implemented.

Matteo Abevilli
Business Process Automation Director

In the activities defined as “monthly closing”, or the activities carried out monthly by ShopFully to summarize and close the economic data of the past month, the average monthly effort has been reduced by 42%, from 4.2 FTEs/month to 2.4 FTEs/month. In some cases, the reduction has even reached 87%.

These percentages highlight the positive impact of RPA implementation on the processes.

* 1 FTE (Full Time Equivalent) = the time of one full-time person(~170 hours/month).

Matteo Abevilli
Business Process Automation Director

ShopFully

ShopFully is the leading Italian tech company in Europe and one of the main international players in Drive to Store, connecting millions of consumers online with the physical stores around them.
With its marketplaces (DoveConviene, Tiendeo, PromoQui, and VolantinoFacile), ShopFully helps 45 million consumers every month find all the products on offer near their homes and save time and money (up to 1000 euros a year) while shopping in-store.
Through its technological solutions (including the proprietary hyperlocal marketing platform based on artificial intelligence HI!), ShopFully helps over 400 top retailers and brands reach consumers along the last mile of the purchasing journey, from home to store.
The company is present in 12 countries with a team of over 370 people from nearly 30 different nationalities.