Automation of Accounting

Over one-third of respondents to a recent Consumer Technology Association (CTA) survey say they plan to automate accounting tasks. McKinsey & Co estimates that about 20 percent of the tasks in a typical recording and reporting cycle can be automated and nearly 50 percent of those tasks can be mostly automated. "CIOs could consider looking at the ways their accounting department collects, processes and reports financial data. Many firms have been automating the process of producing and submitting regulatory filings, for example."

Most of the regulatory bodies in the world have set the stage for automating their filings by having adopted XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language). XBRL presents a tremendous opportunity for companies to fully automate their process of preparing and submitting regulatory reports. It can fit into any accounting system from SAP to EXCEL spreadsheets.

This opportunity is not available for Canadian companies in their filings since Canadian regulatory authorities are way behind the rest of the world in adopting XBRL. However, Many of those companies need to file with the SEC in the US, and the SEC has required the use of XBRL for years. The movement to inline XBRL is even better,  because it makes possible the automation of the whole filing, since with inline XBRL, the need for a separate text based document is eliminated.

All of which means that XBRL fits beautifully into the process of digital transformation.