How Workflow Automation Helps Accounting Practices

What quality management documentation requires

One clear benefit is stronger evidence that the firm’s process exists and was followed. CPA Australia’s APES 320 page says the Accounting Professional & Ethical Standards Board reissued APES 320 and required firms to incorporate appropriate amendments to their systems by 1 January 2023. The same page says there are seven elements in a system of quality management.

Those seven elements are:

• Governance and leadership
• Professional standards
• Acceptance and continuance of client relationships and specific engagements
• Resources
• Engagement performance
• Information and communication
• Monitoring and remediation

The APES 320 page also says firms are required to document policies and procedures that address each element and communicate them to personnel.

That matters for workflow design because automation is most useful where the firm already knows which steps are mandatory and who owns them. The same APES 320 guidance says the ultimate responsibility for the system of quality management should be assumed by the chief executive officer, managing partner or managing board of partners. It also says any person given operational responsibility must have appropriate experience, knowledge, influence and authority within the firm.

In practice, that makes automation a support for documented policy rather than a substitute for it. A standardised BAS, bookkeeping or onboarding workflow can assign tasks, enforce review points and preserve records of completion. It can also make it easier to show how the firm communicated and applied its own procedures.

How can workflows reduce cyber variation?

Cyber risk is another reason firms automate carefully instead of relying on ad hoc manual handling. In CPA Australia’s cyber article published on 1 May 2022, Drew Fenton CPA said, “If we look at the risk profile of accountants, it’s probably nine out of 10.” The same article says accounting firms in Australia and New Zealand are prime targets for hackers wanting to steal highly confidential client data.

That article also reports a surge in ransomware attacks. It describes phishing attacks in which cybercriminals pose as potential new tax clients and send emails with documents embedded with remote access software. When opened, hackers can access not only the clicked computer but the entire network.

For a practice holding tax file numbers, banking details, mortgage information and superannuation information, reducing inconsistent manual steps is part of operational resilience as well as efficiency. The same CPA Australia article says that if clients’ data is stolen or compromised, firms may face legislative obligations under the Privacy Act. It also says firms can be exposed to litigation by clients alleging a data breach was due to negligence. A practice evaluating tools can review DeskMate’s Security & Trust page, which sets out Sydney data residency, tenant isolation, no model training on customer content and a full audit trail.

Automation does not remove those risks, but it can reduce avoidable variation in how staff collect documents, hand over jobs and complete approvals. It can also create a clearer record of who completed a step and when it was reviewed. That is useful when a firm wants evidence that a process existed and was followed.

Workflow automation also supports the service mix many firms are trying to build.

In CPA Australia’s practice management article dated 31 January 2025, Peter Knight FCPA said, “Clients want more than compliance; they don’t want only advisory. They want a mix. Our role is to find the balance for each client. One size does not fit all.” Standardising recurring work can help create time for that deeper level of client engagement.

How should practices plan recurring work in 2025?

The same 2025 article says small businesses are expected to face significant challenges in 2025, with business failure rates returning to pre-2020 levels. It also says public practices should set aside sufficient time to consider governance and compliance matters, such as risk and quality management policies and procedures, and to plan the pipeline of work for 2025 so sufficient and appropriate resources are in place to meet client obligations and deliver quality engagements.

That planning point is where workflow automation becomes practical rather than theoretical. If a firm knows which jobs recur, which templates are used and where reviews are mandatory, it can map those steps into a repeatable process. If it does not, software may simply speed up inconsistency.

CPA Australia’s podcast on robotic process automation in the workplace adds another concrete sign that automation capability is established in the market. The transcript says Mindfields helped organisations including ANZ, ING, Australia Post and the University of Adelaide with their automation journey.

Those examples are not a measured productivity result for accounting practices, and the supplied sources do not provide one. What they do support is a narrower conclusion: automation is established, APES 320 requires documented quality management systems for non-assurance services, and cyber exposure is material for firms holding sensitive client data.

DeskMate takes gathering, chasing, matching, formatting and filing off an accountant’s desk, while a person approves before anything becomes final; its skill library shows fixed, repeatable workflows that a practice records once and then runs the same way every time.

For accounting and bookkeeping practices, the sensible use of workflow automation is to standardise repetitive, rules-based steps and tie them back to documented policies, assigned responsibility and review controls. Used that way, it helps a practice organise recurring work, preserve evidence of completion and create more room for higher-value conversations with clients.