Automatisierung des Monatsreportings: Entwicklung eines RPA-Prototyps für Bilanz- und GuV-Berichte im Controlling regionaler Banken

Abstract

The increasing digitalization in finance and accounting offers significant potential for efficiency gains, particularly through the automation of repetitive processes such as monthly reporting. Regional banks face the challenge of developing digital solutions despite limited IT resources and technical expertise. Robotic Process Automation (RPA), in combination with low-code platforms like Microsoft Power Automate, enables so-called citizen developers—business users without programming skills—to independently implement simple automation projects. However, there is still a lack of practical, standardized frameworks tailored to the specific needs of regional banks and citizen developers. This thesis aims to close this gap by developing a transferable RPA prototype along with an implementation framework. The thesis is divided into a theoretical and a practical part. First, a literature review was conducted to examine the fundamentals of RPA, Microsoft Power Automate, citizen development, and RPA governance. Building on these foundations, a six-phase automation framework was designed to cover the full lifecycle of an RPA project—from process identification to bot development and distribution. In the practical part, this framework was tested in a real-world use case: the monthly reporting process of an Austrian regional bank was automated using a modular Power Automate bot. The evaluation was conducted through technical testing, effort analysis, and qualitative observation. The implementation of the RPA prototype led to a reduction in manual effort of approximately 80%. The time required to generate monthly balance sheet and income statement reports was reduced from around 75 minutes to about 15 minutes. The bot extracts structured data from Excel files, transfers it to predefined report templates, generates PDF documents, and sends them automatically via email. Subsequent report corrections require only the replacement of the source file in SharePoint, after which an updated report can be generated instantly. The developed framework proved to be repeatable, maintainable, and transferable to other regional banks. The three research questions were comprehensively answered: (F1) The main technical, organizational, and methodological challenges were identified; (F2) a practical framework was designed and evaluated; and (F3) measurable time savings and qualitative improvements were demonstrated. Thus, this thesis provides practical insights into the implementation of RPA in the controlling and accounting functions of regional banks.

Date of Award	2025
Original language	German (Austria)
Supervisor	Andre Gramlich (Supervisor)