STRAIGHT – THROUGH PROCESSING OF FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

The AUTOMATION buzzword is more than a trend. We all are witnessing the transformation unfold before us in real-time. Day-after-Day traditional processes across Businesses, Government and Households, we have all been accustomed to are being disrupted by innovation and widespread adoption of automation.

We have all envisaged a Utility Software being developed to automate the manual workflows in preparation of Financial Reports and make interoperable, the disjointed world of ERP or Accounting Packages and the Reg-Tech systems.

As the number of compliances & frequency thereof for SME’s continues to rise, many SME’s and their Financial Consultants are struggling to find ways and means to stay compliant within short regulatory timeframes and avoid harsh penalties for these delays and to also provide their services at reasonable and affordable costs for these SME’s.

There is a case for a full-suite of Financial Reporting that is suitable for complying with the requirements of multiple regulators such as the :-

1. The Financial Statements in Schedule III Format to be filed with the RoC / MCA and for shareholders in case of Corporate Entities ;and / or
2. The ICAI Guidance Note for Financial Statements of Non-Corporate Entities,
3. The various formats for filing Financial Statements with Income Tax Department,
4. The CMA (Credit Monitoring Arrangement) for reporting to Banks & Financial Institutions and
5. The Annual Return / Annual Statement with GST department, etc.

The available templates must be readily be available for further customization to meet the needs of each user.

The present scenario of preparation of Financial Statements involve manual workflows which are prone to (a) Errors, (b) Regulatory Time Constraints and (c) Resource Drain.

Automation is expected to streamline the manual processes such as (a) Data collection, Consolidation and Analysis; (b) Manual Re-keying of Data across disjointed systems. By leveraging available technologies, we Chartered Accountants can ensure Real-Time Data Accuracy, quicker Report Generation for statutory compliance adherence.

The obvious benefits would be reducing the risk of human error and freeing up of ‘valuable’ professional time for leading to strategic insights for users of financial statements.

We have been working to help users create an automated system for preparation of Financial Reports by extracting Trial Balance from popular Accounting Packages and ERP’s such as Tally Prime, etc. and pre-built or easily customizable templates for presentation of general-purpose Financial Statements, namely – Balance Sheet, Income Statement (or Profit & Loss Statement), Cash Flow Statement and Schedules and Notes to Financial Statements.

Additionally, by extracting raw data such as Accounting Transactions from these popular Accounting Packages and ERP’s, Auditors can perform various activities such as data mining, analytical analysis, preparation of Work papers, etc.

Embracing automation in FINANCIAL REPORTING is expected to herald a new era of Efficiency and Accuracy and lay the foundation for a transparent, agile and data-driven Financial Reporting process.

An automation tool for FINANCIAL REPORTING and AUDIT can help to reduce the time of Auditors and Clients spent on manual processes such as Data gathering and re-keying of reports generated from ERP’s and Accounting Packages, etc enabling them to devote more of their ‘valuable’ time on Data Analysis, Value Addition, Compliance with Accounting and Auditing Standards and Risk Management in Audit Assignments.

Whether you are a Chartered Accountant firm or Business Enterprise, we offer you access to a library of training videos, documentation, trial use for simulation and chat support, all designed to help you automate your entire Workflows of Financial Reporting and Audit.

We believe that a proper solution is in the offing for Chartered Accountants engaged in the preparation of Financial Reports and in Financial Audits – Statutory, Tax, Internal, etc of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) in India.