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Accounting Innovation Opportunities

Hi all. I'm advising a team of software designers in Accounting topics. They've been asking me a lot of questions about what areas in Accounting that may be prime for innovation or, at least, lots of improvement to reduce the pains/ challenges that us Accountants experience. I thought that I'd ask you all to contribute and share your thoughts since you're all the experts who live and breathe Accounting. What are some areas/ processes in Accounting that's ripe for disruption and innovation? What are the pains or challenges you wish could easier/simplified/ reduced? Any ideas from big processes (e.g. Closing) to smaller ones (e.g Posting invoices) are welcome!


Title: CFO
Company: C-Suite Services
LinkedIn Profile
(CFO, C-Suite Services) |

Artificial Intelligence (Siri/Cortana/etc) embedded in an ERP. You can run with the endless features/abilities it can do. asked!

Title: CFO
Company: C-Suite Services
LinkedIn Profile
(CFO, C-Suite Services) |

Here is another one....

I/O options.... Finance and Accounting is STUCK in the usual I/O options. Monitor/printer. It would be nice to iINTERACT, manipulate or do something with data/information some other way. asked!

Chris Shumate
Title: Accounting Manager
Company: Dominion Development Group, LLC
LinkedIn Profile
(Accounting Manager, Dominion Development Group, LLC) |

Fixed asset tracking directly within the accounting system instead of having a standalone product like Sage FAS. It'd be great to add and dispose of assets and have it automatically update the GL when the next month's recurring entry is posted.

(Associate) |

I would suggest automation of different processes. Some that come to mind are:
1. bank reconciliation where the software would interface with the bank's site and automatically clear checks, add deposits, etc.
2. credit card recons where the gl postings would be automated from uploads and where vendor accounts would track expenses charged to a card (i.e. when a utility bill is charged to a card, the vendor record for that utility company would show how much was paid)
3. ability to have both "book" financials and "tax" financials, meaning the system could switch between federal and book depreciation, subtract expenses not allowed on taxes, etc.

Kim Zarraga
Title: Accounting Manager
Company: Bio-Rad Laboratories
(Accounting Manager, Bio-Rad Laboratories) |

With the transition to a shared service model, one area we are struggling with is accruals and working with different geographical sites and managers. It would be helpful to have a central repository that could match open purchase orders, with un-applied vendor invoices and a place for cost center owners to add accruals for services that haven't been invoiced. We are struggling with two many worksheets and timing differences because of working over multiple time zones.

Ross Anderson, CPA, MBA
Title: Controller
Company: TFS Capital
(Controller, TFS Capital) |

Accounts payable automation!

Topic Expert
Wayne Spivak
Title: President & CFO
LinkedIn Profile
(President & CFO, |

Ability to have all data in enterprise accessible through one system.

Example: Manufacturing. there are many moving parts with different software programs tied into the process. Some are stand-alone products, others may or may not be part of the central accounting system.

Think what you could do if you had all the data in one place for reporting analysis? How long was a machine down, the actual maintenance cycle, etc.

Title: CFO
Company: C-Suite Services
LinkedIn Profile
(CFO, C-Suite Services) |

Lots of AI-ERP initiatives emerging....

As I initially alluded to....Artificial Intelligence and input/output options will revolutionize the Accounting and Finance function.

Imagine (as an example) Alexa, Siri or Cortana inside your ERP. Imagine the things they can do on everyday transactions, analysis, budgets, projections, scenario analysis, etc.

(Accountant) |

functional User-defined fields

Kundan Lal
Title: Accounting & Finance Consultant
Company: Real Time Cloud Services, LLC

I think, Cloud-based and online, or what we call, saas solution has already taken over the accounting marketing. When the accounting software is hosted on the remote servers, everything becomes mobile, which is the need of the hour for every business. This helps the accountants, CPAs, to access the software anytime, anywhere, get real-time information, and be sure that data and software are safe on the cloud.

Varun Jain
Title: Founder
Company: Miles Education
(Founder, Miles Education) |

Enterprise Resource Planning integrated with cloud storage would be the heart of innovation in the field of core accounting!


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