Pillars of digital transformation in accounting
In all companies in the financial sector, digital transformation is high on the agenda, but we need to know what are the pillars of digital transformation in accounting.
Why? For the same reasons common to all industries, to which are added specific ones such as increasing employee productivity through mobile tools, access to data, processes assisted by Artificial Intelligence.
Digital transformation is at the same time a bet whose expected results will change the working style but especially life at work: more time, increased profits and a much less alert life at the office.
For this bet to be won, it needs some supporting pillars. Here are what they are and how they can be used in an accounting firm to have tangible results:
Digitization
You may remember the boxes of invoices and receipts that clients used to send to the office. Sometimes you had to go to get them. Some were lost or damaged and you couldn’t understand what was written. Today it seems hilarious, but it seems like it was happening yesterday.
You spent hours and hours every week “filing invoices and tax receipts”, reminding customers to keep them and send them. When you finally received the documents, you had to enter this data manually. Often on the nights you were doing it right before a client’s deadline, every minute counted.
A mistake could be costly. Today, all this cumbersome and error-prone process is simplified by electronic applications.
The customer takes a photo of the receipt/invoice as soon as they receive it, and they are available online from anywhere and anytime without physically storing them in cabinets and taking care of them.
All tax records are transmitted digitally and will help prepare your business for change and allow you to provide real-time data to your clients.
Automation
Clients don’t choose their accountant just to enter data, but for the benefits it provides: peace of mind at the end of the fiscal year that everything is in order and that someone is looking after the financial health of their business.
The wave of automation has triggered fears of job losses. Some, admittedly, were lost, and people were trained and reassigned to other roles.
Others are given time estimates when they will be replaced. Companies need to continually train their workforce to be relevant in using technology. Used correctly, automation is an essential partner that helps you save time and increase your professional performance.
The most conclusive example for an accountant is the use of applications that have optical character recognition (OCR) technology that scans receipts, invoices or vouchers , extracts the data and saves it in the cloud.
With the help of machine learning technology, this process will be optimized and the time saved will be reallocated for the growth of the client’s business.
Data-based management
If you store receipts, tax receipts and invoices in a cabinet it is difficult to impossible to provide real-time data to the customer, moreover their physical storage is not secure.
Instead of spending time identifying, sorting and processing data, you can make a difference for your customers by saving their financial data in the cloud.
Accountants are well positioned to provide quality service by extracting information relevant to the client’s decision. That is, the quantity of their work will be increased by the quality of the rapid interpretation of the data.
Providing as much value as possible is what every customer wants and for the high added value they are willing to pay.
It must be said that people, not technology, drive digital transformation forward. It is important to advance the process through concrete steps that add more value for your customers.
Alina Făniță este CEO și Partener al PKF Finconta. A lucrat cu companii multinaționale sau firme antreprenoriale din domenii diverse de activitate, pentru a le oferi servicii de audit financiar, due diligence, restructurări de grupuri, audit intern și alte servicii conexe activității de control intern. Este membră a celor mai prestigioase asociații profesionale din domeniu: ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), CECCAR (Corpul Experților Contabili și Contabililior Autorizați din România), CAFR (Camera Auditorilor Financiari) și IIA (Institute of Internal Auditors). A absolvit EMBA Asebuss la Kennesaw State University, a fost trainer pentru cursuri IFRS și este invitată ca expert la numeroase conferințe de business. alina.fanita@pkffinconta.ro
