In recent years, there has been an ongoing effort to introduce new financial reporting technologies to modernize financial reporting by state and local governments. Two such states at the forefront of this effort are California and Florida. For instance, California’s proposed SB 598 would transition municipalities within the state to the XBRL system, which allows for state and local financial reports to be both computer-readable and human-readable. Similarly, Florida enacted HB 1073, which seeks to introduce the XBRL system in state and local financial filings. In Canada, Montreal appears to have gained traction in this area by adopting emerging technologies, and it has even instituted real-time reporting. This article reviews the opportunities and challenges of adopting emerging technologies for real-time reporting by the approximately 38,917 counties, municipalities, and townships across the United States (https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/governments/cb12-161.html).
Although real-time financial reporting presents several opportunities for organizations, it also creates some challenges related to the complex and costly nature of its implementation. These difficulties often arise from the cumbersome process of integrating an organization’s existing data warehouse and enterprise resource planning (ERP) system into a real-time reporting system. Current technological solutions for real-time reporting pull from several sources, including business process management (BPM), mobile devices, cloud computing, business intelligence, and enterprise application integration. Business Process Management Suites (BPMS) have enabled real-time data with a Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) module that presents real-time dashboards to monitor a variety of business processes for enhanced decision making. This trend related to BPM readily presents the opportunity to implement a BAM for real-time accounting information and continuous auditing. While the opportunity exists, creating a BPM and BAM to generate accounting data is a challenging process that requires organizations to invest considerable time, energy, and financial resources to implement in a manner that complements their unique business processes and needs. Such integration is not necessarily straightforward; while both BPM and financial reporting for a given organization may arise from the same activities and events, they may come from different perspectives due to the purely economic nature of financial reporting.
Cloud computing solutions offer many advantages for implementing real-time financial reporting compared with BPM software, which does not make use of this technology. Cloud-based solutions that are available on the market, including Oracle Fusion Financials and NetSuite Financials, address several challenges tied to feasibility, scalability, and costs. Cloud computing provides access to real-time financial data and reports from smartphones and laptops, eliminating the need for excessive hardware and software requirements. Moreover, cloud-based tools make real-time reporting solutions more feasible for small and medium-sized organizations that would otherwise only be available to large enterprises with abundant resources.
