This may come as a hard truth for those who fear change, but there’s no escaping automation. We come in contact with some element of automation from the moment we wake up—it’s in our smartphones, computers, cars, TV, behind the scenes of your bank account, and in too many other places to list out!

We're firm believers in the idea that challenges are opportunities in disguise. Call it a positive outlook, if you will, but we just think of it as a helpful approach to problem solving. And that's why Botkeeper was created: to help solve the problems preventing the accounting industry from becoming truly transformative!

Any accounting professional knows that a big part of the job is dedicated to settling client accounts and managing invoices. Thanks to continually evolving technology available in the accounting sector, this hefty task is becoming smaller and more manageable every day.

When we talk about automation technology, it’s easy to let our imaginations run wild and jump to the distant future when bots might be able to operate independently from humans. But despite huge advances in automation technology, we’re not there yet, and we still need humans!

It all started with a near disaster—a cash catastrophe, if you will.

Botkeeper CEO and cofounder Enrico Palmerino was running a previous startup called ThinkLite, which was doing well and growing faster than most startups. But the company’s rapid growth meant that it was difficult to keep up with all their accounting needs. To sum it up, Enrico and team ran out of cash because they had no insight into what their cash flow or balance was due to delayed financials.

A new client is added to QBO, and simultaneously that client is added to your marketing welcome campaign in Mailchimp.

It’s always a good idea to welcome new clients to your business in some personal manner. It makes them feel like they’re going to be treated well in their brand new relationship with you, and it helps answer any on-boarding questions before they arise.

Imagine…a new client is entered by one of your bookkeepers into QuickBooks Online (QBO), and you’re automatically emailed a notification acknowledging the action. But not only that—you also learn that they’ve been added to a running Google spreadsheet of all your current clients.

This scenario, and many more, are easy to achieve using a type of middleware integration software like Zapier. In this article, we’ll explain how easy it is to set that automation up, and we'll show you some other ideas, too.

Let's jump in!

We’re in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), and most industry leaders believe the two concepts—working in tandem—will be what creates massive growth for companies in every vertical. It’s actually what’s known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and we probably haven’t even hit the thick of it yet.

It's 2019, and we have machines to do nearly every awful task that we never wanted to do again...a dishwasher for our dishes, washing machine for smelly clothes, GPS for getting us anywhere, cars that drive and park themselves (also for getting us anywhere). But what about other terrible tasks? We're talking about things that would not only make our personal lives better, but also improve our professional lives.