As a result, finance departments and CFOs have to become even better at ensuring that irregularities never happen. Ashley Ellington, MD, Softline Enterprise, says that one way to do this is to use technology effectively.
 
Ellington reckons that there is no doubt that technology has increased the pace of accounting, creating new and significant challenges: As less time is being spent on transaction processing, the emphasis shifted to analytics and scenario planning and it is a good thing.

In parallel to the acceleration of their profession, accountants and auditors have also become the new guardians of corporate governance. This requires direction and control of management activities with business savvy, objectivity and integrity.
 
Ellington says technology should be seen and architected as an assistant for corporate governance, increasing real-time visibility and reliability of the financial information.
 
In corporate governance, agility is probably as important as reliability, explains Ellington. Financial software becomes a tool for increased corporate governance when it allows monitoring indicators such as cash flow and solvency in real time, enabling professionals to perform the necessary analytics and give the advanced warnings a company needs, he adds.
 
Viewing technology as such helps in understanding why the choice of financial software or an ERP system as it is now frequently integrated is a key decision for an enterprise, especially when considering that companies tend to keep their accounting system for an average of nine years. Your choice of financial software must provide insights and reports needed to comply with reporting standards that will be sustainable in the future. For instance, accounting software should all be IFRS compliant, explains Ellington.
 
Good corporate governance needs to establish controls to ensure compliance with regulatory regimes, such as BEE, environmental requirements, conflicts of interest or securities disclosure rules. Ellington says that a good financial system should be able to provide either pre-defined reports or tailored ones, to adapt to the specifics of any enterprise.