Know-how spending appears to be giving a great, however not nice, return on funding for many accountants.
That is in response to a latest examine from lease accounting software program supplier LeaseQuery. When asking about their ROI on tech spending, 53% of accountants described their previous expertise as “considerably profitable” versus the 22% of accountants who mentioned their efforts had been “very profitable.” This means that whereas corporations are incomes a optimistic return on their investments, there’s nonetheless a variety of room for enchancment. This was additional evidenced by the 11% who mentioned their expertise was “considerably unsuccessful” and the two% who mentioned it was “very unsuccessful” (12% of individuals mentioned they weren’t certain).
The examine prompt that corporations will probably focus extra on ROI sooner or later as a result of beforehand poor or mediocre experiences with expertise funding.
On the identical time, corporations appear to have some huge cash to spend on expertise. LeaseQuery mentioned that for a full 71% of accountants, the highest funding supply for expertise investments has been simply present liquid property (e.g. money), which means they’ve the interior sources to make these purchases themselves. In the meantime, simply 12% mentioned they used financial institution loans and solely 3% used stimulus funding.
The first issues accountants need from their expertise, at 79%, is to save lots of time and improve effectivity, which the report theorized may need one thing to do with the elevated calls for on accountants’ time.
“Calls for are mounting and since accountants cannot purchase extra hours within the day, they’re searching for expertise to realize efficiencies, streamline workflows and add worth to purchasers,” mentioned the report.
Following this, at 57%, is “optimizing enterprise processes,” which may most likely additionally contain saving time and growing effectivity, too. After that, at 38%, is enhancing compliance, adopted by slicing prices, at 25%.
The report additionally talked about the place accountants are utilizing expertise. The most important space is bills and accounts payable, with 80% saying they use expertise to assist this course of; intently behind, at 79%, is monetary reporting; and in third, at 71%, is accounts receivable and billing. One space the place solely a minority of accountants use expertise for assist is lease accounting, at 46%, which LeaseQuery mentioned was too low. Nevertheless, it was auditing, at simply 23%, that was the bottom on the record.
In the meantime, if accountants may automate something, the bulk, 60%, mentioned that it could be information entry, adopted by reconciliation at 49% and information evaluation at 49%.
LeaseQuery’s Accounting Know-how Wishlist Survey polled 237 accounting professionals throughout public, personal, nonprofit and authorities organizations in September of 2022. The bulk — 61% — had been in personal.