Our company is looking to automate invoice processing. Should we be looking at Attended bots that work alongside our accountants, or Unattended bots that run on a server? I'm confused about which one offers a better ROI and what the infrastructure requirements are for a "human-in-the-loop" workflow.
3 answers
For invoice processing, Unattended RPA is generally the gold standard. These bots run on virtual machines without human intervention, usually triggered by a schedule or a new file appearing in a folder. This allows for 24/7 processing and higher scalability. Attended RPA, on the other hand, is like a "digital assistant" triggered by a user on their workstation—useful for call centers where a bot can pull customer data while the agent talks. If your invoices are standardized, go Unattended. If your accountants need to review and "approve" data before it hits the ERP system, you can use a hybrid model where the bot handles the data entry but pauses for a human validation step.
Does your IT department have the capacity to manage the virtual machines required for Unattended bots? The licensing is usually more expensive, so you need to justify the volume.
We started with Attended bots to gain team trust, then migrated the high-volume tasks to Unattended once the processes were stable. It’s a great way to manage the cultural shift.
Susan makes a great point about change management. Starting with Attended bots allows employees to see the bot as a helper rather than a replacement, which eases the transition to full automation.
Brian, that's a valid concern. We are currently weighing the cost of three Unattended licenses versus five Attended ones. The IT team is worried about the security of "headless" bots having access to our financial systems. How do most companies handle credential management for bots that run without a human logged in? Is a CyberArk integration mandatory for this level of automation?