Analyst Perspectives

Managing corporate income taxes is a challenge for chief financial officers and their tax department professionals. Tax codes are often complex, so tax accounting as well as the data required for tax provisions and tax compliance are different enough from statutory accounting to create significant workloads for the tax department. The provision for income tax expense and, for public companies, the assembly of information related to tax-related disclosures, can be a factor holding up the...

ISG Research recently announced the results of its Business Planning Buyers Guide for 2025. We rated Board Exemplary and a leader in customer experience and in reliability. Board recently launched two external data offerings that significantly strengthen the capabilities of its planning software. Its Board Foresight is designed to support more effective and potentially more accurate forecasting using predictive models harnessing artificial intelligence (AI). Board Signals makes third-party...

Agents and “agentic AI” are all the rage now, eclipsing last year’s focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI). They are a way to automate work almost effortlessly so that repetitive and boring tasks get done with the least amount of effort and perhaps, more consistently. In business software, a broad range of software providers are claiming agents to be a panacea that can improve performance and lower costs. They are alluring, with an almost unlimited number of potential...

One of the promised benefits of artificial intelligence (AI), Generative AI (GenAI) and agents is that they can make everyone their own financial and business analyst. It’s true that these technologies can make it possible for everyone to access once hard-to-reach data (with suitable permissions), unleash agents to assemble the data into useful tables and charts along with commentary describing results and highlighting underlying drivers of results, propose next best actions and use natural...

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are comprehensive software platforms designed to integrate and manage all the core processes of an enterprise while recording transactions and their financial consequences to support the accounting and finance functions. ISG Software Research recently completed our Buyers Guide™ for ERP systems, designed to help enterprises that are replacing their existing ERP software to make the best choice, both in terms of the product’s performance as well as the...

Trintech provides finance departments in larger and midsize enterprises with software to accelerate their accounting close processes while achieving hard and fast accuracy and compliance requirements with less effort. The financial records of an enterprise must be periodically reviewed and summarized to create financial statements that inform executives and interested third parties of the organization’s financial condition and performance. A consolidation of the financial records and other...

While headlines tend to focus on flashier topics, arguably the biggest business impact from technology advances over the past two decades has been on helping midsize enterprises improve their performance. These organizations have the same requirements as larger ones but have fewer resources to address those needs. Prophix has been at the forefront of using technology innovation to close that gap throughout this period. Its latest advances include Prophix One, introduced last year, and FP&A...

In anticipation of conditions that suggested accelerating price increases, I wrote in 2021 about how technology could be useful in an inflationary period, anticipating the world we live in now. Responding effectively to changes in costs is always challenging, but even more so because of the choppy and chaotic nature of the current environment. Inflation may have abated from its highs throughout the rich world but is still an important factor in business decisions. Many enterprises have limited...

Enterprises have been investing in software to manage their environmental, social and governance (ESG) objectives and compliance requirements. The need to account for these considerations in parallel with financial accounting began growing early in the century and accelerated as governments and regulatory authorities began to require companies to measure and document activities and outcomes. Meanwhile, software providers have been offering products to address the needs of those subject to these...

ISG Software Research coined the term intercompany financial management to define a discipline for structuring and handling transactions within an enterprise and between its legal entities. IFM is designed to maximize staff efficiency and accounting accuracy while optimizing tax exposure, minimizing tax leakage and ensuring consistent tax and regulatory compliance. Technology has advanced to a point where this approach is feasible and cost-effective. For that reason, ISG Software Research...