Forced to tighten their belts financially by the coronavirus pandemic, businesses are increasingly using software that automates back-office tasks.

The technology handles repetitive duties like filling in numbers in a spreadsheet or matching invoice data to payment orders. The idea, of course, is for companies to save money by reducing the number of workers they need to handle clerical work.

Although the technology, called robotic process automation, or RPA, has existed for years, recent advances in machine learning and natural language processing have made it possible for it to do more complicated tasks. That includes deciphering financial jargon in PDF documents, analyzing that data, and then using it to fill in information in spreadsheets, which is helpful for cataloging invoices, among other tasks.

Mihir Shukla, CEO of Automation Anywhere, which sells RPA software, pointed to the financial industry as among the many adopting the technology. He cited unspecified banks that are using the technology to help process the flood of small business loans that were handed out by the federal government. 

"It would have taken two years to change 6 million records without the bots," Shukla said.