Pandemic prompts accountants to rethink use of cloud technology

COVID-19 has been forcing accounting and finance teams to get the job done remotely since last 12 months, and that’s prompting reexaminations of how to use cloud know-how for money reporting in the long run.

A report, released last month by the Institute of Management Accountants and the fiscal technological innovation firm Workiva, surveyed somewhere around 200 fiscal reporting industry experts on their activities and found that prior to the pandemic, their organizations positioned a reasonably minimal priority on know-how-primarily based money reporting methods. Two-thirds indicated they were powering other inside teams in competitiveness for assets. About 30 % of the respondents expressed curiosity in a engineering-dependent resolution for various things to do all-around the documenting of management critique processes and judgment places. Somewhere around a person out of 5 respondents claimed they have improved their prioritization or budgets for technology-based mostly corporate reporting remedies for 2021 and into the post-pandemic time period.

The pandemic pressured most corporations to change toward a operate-from-household atmosphere past year, and that included their accounting department. When several employees have due to the fact returned to their workplaces at lots of companies, many others are continuing to do their get the job done remotely. Irrespective of the preliminary worries, remote engineering has primarily served accounting and finance workers get the job done properly from household, but it has also lifted the issue of no matter if businesses should carry on to rely on cloud technological know-how following the pandemic ultimately subsides.

“What we discovered out is that, not just with the anecdotal information and facts that we ended up listening to, is that money reporting teams are ready to get the career completed through the pandemic,” mentioned Shari Littan, director of company reporting analysis and plan at the IMA, who co-authored the report. “They felt that they had suitable equipment for some locations that are more demanding than some others. Stock is a person of them. Income evaluation is a further. But by and significant, they felt that they could get the task done. What we preferred to know is this likely to alter your motion towards adoption of more stylish and economical answers? And what we observed is that there is an hunger for far more.”

The survey respondents appeared to prefer new devices for two places: control possession and succession, and evaluating profits anticipations. “The succession component is definitely in which we’re really observing some desire,” claimed Littan. “One issue a cloud-based mostly or collaborative platform can do is instantly assign who is going to oversee what and who is the next in command, somebody else who can move in if that human being is unavailable simply because all through the pandemic extra items are modifying speedy.”

The respondents from personal companies expressed extra curiosity in systems for accounting processes that have to have estimates and sorting facts.

“When you need to have to obtain financial information, issues are changing incredibly quick and you have to count on judgment-dependent estimates in a pandemic environment,” explained Littan. “Or if there are local weather functions like we saw in Texas disrupting the system, things are moving so quick, and you have to get the ideal facts for a selection that is becoming assessed. It’s far better to have resources relatively than likely out and acquiring the suitable knowledge, stripping it out, mainly because we’re dealing with unstructured info for creating the experiences. In the state of affairs of a pandemic or main temperature event, you could be working with unknowns. You will not have plenty of data. You never have adequate facts. You can’t assess to a prior calendar year. Some of your estimates have to be rethought from scratch.”

Accounting and finance groups are ever more needing to evaluate these kinds of information, including for environmental, social and governance stories.

“There is still a feeling at organizations that know-how for their financial reporting and accounting teams is fewer of a precedence than engineering solutions somewhere else in the company,” mentioned Littan. “Yet that’s taking place at the same time as we’re asking for additional reporting, on ESG for illustration, additional info, and far more groups are functioning remotely.”

Cloud technologies can assist accountants reply to individuals desires extra speedily. “One of the points we target on at IMA for individuals who are on the corporate preparer facet is the demand from customers on the professional’s time,” stated Littan. “We listen to every single day how they would like to be a lot more included, even extra than they are now, in approach, in setting up and expertise administration, in building enterprise styles, all of these other issues that we want accounting and finance experts to be equipped to do, but they are dedicating so considerably of their time to compliance and just acquiring the experiences out when there are alternatives out there to them.”

Cloud-based mostly units can also assist with workflow when creating and reviewing stories. “When you are working with this form of computer software, the reporting demands are created in, or they can be lined up and when compared, so it eradicates that reducing and pasting,” claimed Littan. “What it also could assist with is the management oversight and evaluation procedure for all those final techniques of the report for the reason that if you’re utilizing that method, it will document who reviewed specific documents and data in buy to indication off on the reports’ various features, and it will document that. That can be definitely helpful down the road if there is at any time a seem again on how specified selections ended up designed, what was the overview, what was the oversight. That will get preserved. An additional beneficial factor when persons are operating remotely is you really don’t have a actual physical document for signoff. You don’t want files sitting down on 10 distinct people’s personal computers and various versions of them. The system could help assign these items, so it could aid with efficiency.”

Cloud technological innovation can be complicated from a cybersecurity standpoint, and it can be challenging in a remote atmosphere to have the appropriate inner controls in spot and the management oversight and evaluation when a great deal of the team is doing work remotely. But general it’s established to be priceless for companies that are compelled to operate remotely in this now yr-old atmosphere of the pandemic.