Are our accountants conservative?

14. Dec, 2010 0 Comments

During my daily meetings with our clients (i.e. accountants) about Twinfield’s vision on the iXBRL introduction, I notice that everyone is willing to make the necessary preparations. I often notice that people are looking beyond the possibility of generating a digital report for the requesting party. For many people, it is an excellent time to review their company’s whole organisational structure. During this exercise, the software that’s currently in use is inspected as well.

Investment
I’m often asked whether one should invest in off line reporting software. Most of the time this is a replacement demand, but sometimes a first purchase pops up. The costs are often enormous: the software investment and re-implementation thereof, extra training sessions and, very important, the infrastructural adjustments. And then we haven’t even discussed the depreciation period, which is sure to be overtaken by the current rate of developments. Considering that web apps like Twinfield are developed and improved at such a high speed, I’m convinced that it won’t be long before this functionality will be integrated in web based solutions such as Twinfield.
So does this pose a threat to current suppliers of reporting packages? In the very short term, no. However, every existing reporting package misses one important element: the source. At the moment, the export file of an accounting package is the reporting package’s source. It’s always a big problem (and I’m speaking from experience here) to get the previous entries back into the accounts. One can safely conclude that, for a large part, the annual financial statements do not correspond to the accounts as they are processed elsewhere. Accounts are the source for composing an annual financial statement. They always have been, and will surely remain so in the future.

So what’s going to change?
It’s a fact that, in the future, reporting will only happen via internet, directly linked to and integrated with the source. I’d like to take the UK as an example. Since April 1st, it’s obligatory to use iXBRL to provide requesting parties with data. Our paper reports have been replaced by HTML documents. As in Twinfield, it is possible to get from the highest level in the report right to the final entry.

What’s this all leading to, you might ask
Good question. I wish I had a time machine, because I’m very curious to see. Many of our clients are re-developing their vision on their own activities. Everyone is aware of the impact this will have on the entire organisation, which until now has often been based on old (off line) software. To make a long story short: the awareness is there. Now it’s a question of developing a vision and sticking to it.

Another subject I bring up regularly concerns the preparations that can be done already. By far the most important element is the standardisation of accounts. It is impossible to work efficiently without it. Everyone realises this and immediately optimises the standard chart of accounts, used for creating new accounts. The result: new accounts will fit perfectly, but a number of existing accounts won’t. Examples of the latter are accounts that have been converted to Twinfield from an old system. Or ledger accounts that have been added for whatever reason. This proliferation makes these accounts deviate from the standard. Twinfield has come up with a solution to this problem, so that all accounts can be lined up with the standard. Standardisation ensures a much more efficient way of working and saves you a substantial amount of money. Please contact your Account Manager for more information.

Besides standardising your accounts, I would advise you to obtain a PKI government certificate. This certificate can be used multiple times for you software bundles, on the condition that the package in which the certificate was installed can export the certificate. A number of clients has, for various reasons, more than one environment within Twinfield. A certificate needs to be installed for each environment. Once a certificate has been installed in the first environment, a new certificate for the next environment can be exported, etcetera.

This makes it possible, in a reasonable amount of time, to submit all VAT returns in iXBRL by electronic means, using Twinfield. This is on the condition that you have installed the PKI government certificate. I’ve heard that the processing time of PKI government certificate requests are sometimes a bit unsatisfactory, information that I wanted to share with you here. Every day I look forward to meeting our clients, and I’m confident, because I find myself in a world that, both internally and externally, is changing is a very positive way.