ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives | ERP and Continuous Accounting (3)

Digitizing Tax Provision to Streamline the Close, Reduce Risk

Posted by Robert Kugel on 09 May 2024

The tax provision process is an essential part of the close process and a core responsibility of tax departments. This process estimates the amount of income tax an enterprise will have to pay tax authorities in the jurisdictions in which it operates. Tax accountants derive the number by adjusting the reported net income with a variety of permanent differences, such as expenses that are not... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Sage Intacct Enhances Its Roadmap for AI and Generative AI

Posted by Robert Kugel on 15 April 2024

Sage Intacct recently held its annual user conference, and while there were plenty of product announcements and roadmap presentations, my focus here is on the artificial intelligence elements. AI–both predictive and generative–is the most important capability and differentiator in software aimed at finance and accounting departments. Ventana Research asserts that by 2027, almost all vendors of... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Zoho’s Roadmap Addresses Evolving Enterprise Needs

Posted by Robert Kugel on 12 March 2024

Zoho recently held its annual analyst day to communicate its strategy, objectives and product roadmap. The privately held company, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, has an unconventional approach to the software market. Its self-described corporate philosophy emphasizes making bold moves that challenge assumptions. Its design engineering approach stresses simplicity and cost while... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, Digital Commerce, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Order-to-Cash

Productivity by 1,000 Cuts: Building AI Feasibility From the Bottom Up

Posted by Robert Kugel on 05 March 2024

After a year of near-constant AI chatter, the broad strokes of how the technology will roll out in business over the next three to five years are coming into place. It’s almost trite but worth repeating that artificial intelligence will drive a substantial boost in productivity as it’s adopted. Rather than making large swathes of jobs obsolete, it will take the robotic work out of those job... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, AI, Order-to-Cash

Why AI Should Be a Focus for the Office of Finance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 28 February 2024

With a year of AI-everywhere-all-the-time chatter now in the rearview mirror, finance and accounting department executives appear to be in a state of apprehension and well-tuned skepticism about the impact this technology will have on their organization. There are solid reasons to believe that the next few years will be transformative, making it important for departments to adopt a fast-follower... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Order-to-Cash

Mining, Intelligence and Monitoring Achieve the Best Process Outcomes

Posted by Robert Kugel on 25 January 2024

Since a majority of today’s workforce wasn’t around in the 1990s, it’s worth noting that “business process reengineering” was all the rage. The purpose was to review, restructure and redesign core business processes to achieve substantial improvements in market and customer responsiveness, productivity, cycle times and quality. One reason for its popularity (beyond being a money spinner for... Read More

Topics: Product Information Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Continuous Supply Chain & ERP

Office of Finance 2024 Market Agenda: AI Begins Boosting Productivity

Posted by Robert Kugel on 24 January 2024

Ventana Research recently announced its 2024 Market Agenda for the Office of Finance, continuing the guidance we have provided since 2004 on the practical use of technology for the finance and accounting department. Our insights and best practices aim to enable enterprises to operate with agility and resiliency, improving performance and delivering greater value as a strategic partner. We craft... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Risk Management is Essential for AI and Generative Development

Posted by Robert Kugel on 04 January 2024

The recent launch of the AI Alliance, a coalition of more than 50 corporations and research institutions engaged in artificial intelligence (AI) development (including AMD, CERN, Cornell University, Dell Technologies, IBM, Intel, Linux Foundation, Meta, NASA, Oracle, ServiceNow and Sony Group), aims to achieve the following objectives: Provide independent benchmarks and evaluation standards,... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Continuous Supply Chain & ERP

Research Reveals the Importance of Technology in Shortening the Close

Posted by Robert Kugel on 12 December 2023

We conducted our recent Smart Financial Close Dynamic Insights Research in part to assess to what extent the substantial disruptions of the pandemic have impacted the accounting close. When office lockdowns began in the first quarter of 2020, many finance departments were challenged to conduct the quarterly close remotely without face-to-face interactions. In the United States, the Securities and... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Smart Financial Close

insightsoftware’s Portfolio Boosts Office of Finance Productivity

Posted by Robert Kugel on 08 December 2023

insightsoftware offers a portfolio of software designed mainly for the office of finance to handle reporting, budgeting and planning, consolidation and close management, business intelligence (BI) and analytics, as well as compliance. The company’s applications directly address a core issue confronting many finance department executives today: Productivity. The U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, analytic data platforms

A Practical Approach to Managing ESG

Posted by Robert Kugel on 22 November 2023

The emphasis on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues has been growing for some time. I participated in the development of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) as a software industry expert more than a decade ago. The rise of ESG’s profile in corporate reporting is the latest evolution of “responsible investing,” a topic that goes back centuries in the west. The modern... Read More

Topics: Governance, Office of Finance, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, ESG, Environmental, Inclusion

NetSuite Emphasizes AI and Expanded Capabilities at SuiteWorld

Posted by Robert Kugel on 16 November 2023

SuiteWorld, the annual user conference from Oracle NetSuite, focused on three topics: artificial intelligence, a reimagination of the role NetSuite can play in managing an organization and emphasizing the value to existing customers of using more of what NetSuite has to offer. AI has been a major theme in this year’s business software user group meetings, spurred by ChatGPT’s brilliant... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Workday Rising Highlights Responsible AI

Posted by Robert Kugel on 02 November 2023

Because artificial intelligence is top-of-mind, Workday spent a great deal of time on the topic at its recent Workday Rising annual user group meeting in San Francisco. It was front and center in the general sessions, in the announcements made at the event and in the product roadmaps. The sudden attention paid to AI and generative AI in the media has provoked alarmists to warn of potential... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, AI and Machine Learning

AI for Working Capital Management

Posted by Robert Kugel on 13 September 2023

In accounting terms, working capital includes current assets (short-term items such as cash, money due from customers and inventory) and current liabilities (typically payments due to suppliers and loan amounts that must be repaid within one year). Working capital management is a prime function of the finance organization, designed to balance often-conflicting objectives related to revenue,... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, CFO, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Accounts Payable, Treasury, Accounts Receivable, Working Capital

Adopt the Virtual Audit to Improve Audit Quality

Posted by Robert Kugel on 22 August 2023

Over the past three years, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (or PCAOB, sometimes pronounced “peekaboo”) has found an increasing prevalence of auditing deficiencies in its inspections of accounting firms. PCAOB was established as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 in the wake of several major accounting scandals. The agency acts as the auditor of auditors with the objective of... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, audit, ERP and Continuous Accounting, virtual audit

Reverse Factoring Lubricating the Wheels of Supply Chains

Posted by Robert Kugel on 02 August 2023

We added purchasing, sourcing and payments to our core Office of Finance focus areas this year to reflect new and important opportunities to use technology to gain effectiveness through greater efficiency. Technology continues to lubricate the wheels of commerce, aided by a financial services sector that is constantly innovating, responding to market-driven opportunities to reduce costs, increase... Read More

Topics: Product Information Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Continuous Supply Chain & ERP

Not Your Grandpa’s Consolidate and Close Software

Posted by Robert Kugel on 27 July 2023

The six costliest words in managing a finance department are, “we’ve always done it this way.” Closing the books is the process of finalizing and summarizing the financial activities of a business for a specific accounting period (typically a month, quarter, or fiscal year). It involves completing various tasks to ensure that all revenue, expense, and other financial transactions are properly... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting, AI and Machine Learning

Sage Positioned to Gain from Seismic Shift in ERP Market

Posted by Robert Kugel on 06 July 2023

I recently attended Sage Software’s Partner Summit. Implementation partners account for most of the sales and implementation of finance and accounting applications designed for small and midsize businesses, so they are important to the success of the software vendor. These events are designed to inform partners of product enhancements and the product and technology roadmap as well as provide a... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, AI and Machine Learning

Data is the Strategic Raw Material of Finance Departments

Posted by Robert Kugel on 07 June 2023

The Office of Finance can be compared to a numbers factory where the main raw material, data, is transformed into financial statements, management accounting, analyses, forecasts, budgets, regulatory filings, tax returns and all kinds of reports. Data is the strategic raw material of the finance and accounting department. It is the key ingredient in every sale and purchase as well as every... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Management, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, data operations, analytic data platforms, AI and Machine Learning

Using Continuous Accounting to Improve Performance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 26 April 2023

In 2015, I began using the term continuous accounting to call attention to technology advances that enable finance and accounting departments to improve performance. These advances have continued, making an even more compelling case for adoption of continuous accounting. In my definition, the approach rests on three pillars: Managing processes end-to-end to reduce workloads, using workflows while... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting