Okay, so let’s dispel that myth right away: No, a robot won’t be your accountant. At least not any time soon. But robot-like accounting technology is doing a lot of the grunt work accountants do, particularly in some very large and far-flung operations, according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal (8-15-17).
Companies like Duke Energy, Red Hat and Dun & Bradstreet are using advanced technologies to close their books faster than ever before. In fact, PricewaterhouseCoopers states that it now takes companies just 4-1/2 days to close their books each quarter, down from 6 days in 2009. Companies that close their books faster, of course, have results in hand sooner, and that helps in making better decisions faster and staying nimble.
Among the most helpful advances have been technologies that accelerate the book-closing process. Companies are increasingly automating closes and reducing manual activities, as they use their accounting systems to collect ever more transactional data for management reporting on things like cost of goods sold, revenue, shipments and other key performance indicators.
At D&B, the CFO notes that “the lure of cost savings has prompted investments in robotics and automation technology that accelerate the quarterly reporting process.” D&B closes its books now in four days despite operating across over 200 countries. Their teams are already testing potential applications for robotic process automation in finance.
Increasingly, companies are utilizing more widely distributed and more powerful accounting systems, tracking and capturing more categories of revenues and expenses than ever before, in the effort to save time, reduce costs, report more quickly and gain a competitive advantage by managing more of this data-capture via automated information systems.
Accounting reporting has historically been a low priority among companies who often do it on a shoestring. But actionable reporting that can drive better decision making are a key reason to pay more attention to management reporting, and a reason more companies today are more fully utilizing their accounting systems to automate more, faster.
The fact that today’s modern accounting, MRP and ERP reporting systems can do this on a PC makes these benefits available today to virtually any company willing to make the investment to deploy and learn how to use them.
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