Callens and HoWest fight time with iRPA
Callens is participating in HoWest’s research project concerning iRPA. With the financial help of the Flemish Government and Voka, the university’s department that is located in Bruges is extensively studying intelligent automation. The researchers picked Callens as one of their guinea pigs and are now closely collaborating to set up a tool that limits the administrative and monotonous tasks for the finance department.
iRPA for a more time efficient customer follow-up
The research group ‘Security & Privacy’ (led by Kurt Callewaert) associated with the HoWest, is setting up a smart customer follow-up system for Callens. Frederik Drumont, Credit Controller at Callens, explains: “The goal of this first new tool is to follow-up the creditworthiness and payment history of a large group of (potential) customers on the basis of predefined parameters. It will allow us to see patterns better and faster, which is vital in today’s corona crisis.”
iRPA checks the necessity to withhold taxes automatically
Paying Callen’s subcontractors is still too labor-intensive for the finance team. They have to check every supplier manually to know whether taxes should be withheld. That’s why the researchers of the HoWest are working on a second tool. One that will be able to process a large amount of data at once, and to give answers in no time. For this tool, too, ‘software robots’ are the solution to repetitive tasks. “We want to focus on more complex tasks again, and in the future we will be able to do so thanks to these smart tools”, tells Frederik Drumont.
AI and RPA are the perfect match
It’s still too early for the first test results, but, surely, everyone is looking forward to start implementing the new tools. The researchers associated with the HoWest are fully experimenting with iRPA, better known as intelligent robotic process automation. This ingenious technology automates all kinds of business processes, yet is still a very undiscovered area. And that’s exactly why HoWest joined the research program, funded by the Flemish Government. Considering the time Callens will gain and the useful results the researchers will find, Callens was happy to jump on board.