How to Win a Business Case for Statutory Reporting Software
10 steps
to secure the statutory reporting software investment you need
Statutory reporting software offers a high standard in the preparation of financial statements, notes, disclosures, and maintaining compliance for local as well as global reporting across jurisdictions. There is much to be said for the in-built content, automated features and standardisation it provides corporations.
The decision to invest in statutory reporting software is usually not made by one person alone. Finance Directors, CFOs, Directors of Statutory Reporting, Director Corporate Accounting, Controller - Finance and Heads of Finance within Shared Service Centres (SSCs), depending upon your operating model - form a matrix of stakeholders who influence budget and vendor selection.
Our guide is here to make the journey smoother. Ready to prepare a business case for statutory reporting software? Follow these ten steps.
Determine what you need, and why you need it
First, we recommend that you determine how your organisation would benefit from investing in statutory reporting software. Obviously, it is important to identify that it is indeed the right software for you.
Don't know what to look for? Departments who onboard new statutory reporting software are often in need of:
- jurisdiction-compliant reporting templates i.e. embedded best-practice content compliant with local GAAP and in the local reporting language
- standardisation and automation tools translation and XBRL tagging tools, and
- access to regulatory guidance from Big4 accountancy firms covering jurisdictions throughout Australia & New Zealand, Europe, Asia, the Americas and South Africa
Once you have reached this stage, you will know what you want. You would have recognised that harmonising the financial disclosure process is the way of the future.
Automating the preparation of financial disclosures and statements frees up time, so staff can offer more value to the business. Additionally, statutory reporting software provides transparency and ensures that compliance gaps are identified and addressed. Your team may be asking for automation, leading you to conclude that driving innovation is important for talent attraction and retention.
However, you also know that new investments are facing greater scrutiny as your business grapples with market uncertainty. It is therefore imperative that you create a compelling business case to secure funding.
Identify key decision makers and stakeholders
Knowing your audience will enable you to tailor your proposal well. Your next step is to identify who will be responsible for screening and reviewing it. Core decision makers may include C-suite, such as the Chief Financial Officer, Chief Technology Officer, or Chief Information Officer.
Organisational structure and operating models (such as shared services, decentralised, or a hybrid model) will determine your collaborators. They may be Head of Finance SSC, Global Leads, Head of Sourcing or Procurement, and Directors such as Director of Statutory Reporting, Director - Corporate Accounting or Global Operations.
Gaining buy-in from an executive sponsor before you create your proposal is also a great way to solicit early feedback. When you present your business case, having an executive sponsor to support your case will work in your favour
Understand the screening process
Next, find out how your organisation screens proposals for new technology investments. The Head of IT may have a specific set of technical criteria that needs addressing before your proposal proceeds. Identifying what these are will set you on a strong footing.
Many multinational organisations are going through finance transformation projects to drive transparency, efficiency and reduce costs. The push to digitally transform organisations is not new but there has been a renewed focus in the last two years with shift in operating model to ‘central/ shared services’ and ‘remote work’ environment.
Your case for statutory reporting software must align with your organisation’s digital strategy. If it does not fit the mould, advocate why the software warrants strategic attention.
There may even be a funding pool you can apply to access for your digital transformation project. Taking your case to your key stakeholder or group of business leaders must be timed strategically.
“Depending on the size of your organisation, applying to secure technology funding may be an elaborate or relatively straight forward process. Following the correct process is a given, and the fundamental premise of your messaging remains the same wherever you work – your business case must convince the right people it will deliver a return on investment,” remarks Andrew Hay, Proposition Lead – Software Solutions for Asia and Emerging Markets at Thomson Reuters.
Colleagues and industry peers who recently submitted proposals for technology investments could also provide you with useful information.
“Find out which technology investments have recently been approved and stalled, and the reasons why. You can then anticipate potential issues and adapt your proposal accordingly,” advises Sakshi.
The following screening criteria may help you to anticipate and prepare for stakeholders’ questions about your proposal.
Toolkit:
Examples of stakeholder screening criteria for new tech investments
Technical criteria
- Does the vendor offer a global purpose-built solution?
- Does the software vendor service all major regions, and can they support your company’s local ANZ as well as global operations?
- Does the vendor provide real-time security and technical updates to all software users?
- Does the vendor provide customised and ongoing training to users? Is the vendor a true partner in this, helping you define processes and best-practice approach?
- Can the vendor qualify the return on investment and cost-savings that can be achieved with their software, with proven examples?
- Can the vendor provide a global software license for all your offices and shared services centres?
Business criteria
- Does the proposed investment align with the organisation’s strategic goals?
- Are there identifiable business benefits from the technology investment? (e.g., increasing efficiencies, boosting talent retention, supporting business growth.
- Does the project have a rollout plan that aligns with internal schedules and budgets?
Recruit champions to endorse the change
Implementation of software to harmonise statutory reporting processes will require the support of division leaders across the business. It is a good idea to identify which peers could be critical to the success (or failure) of your project. Bring them on board before you present your business case. Their influence and expertise could help demonstrate your ability to lead the project.
“The power of internal networking and bringing others along for the story within your organisation cannot be understated. It is never a good idea to submit a hefty business case without context. Instead, ensuring you have garnered support and guidance among selected stakeholders beforehand will help secure your success,” comments Andrew.
Project champion
No project can go ahead without an internal champion. Identify who you would like to lead and sponsor the software rollout. For example, it could be your - Lead for statutory reporting or Head of Finance.
“Seniority and influence matters when it comes to stakeholders taking a technology implementation project seriously. You will be counting on your digital champions and allies to support a smoother change management process,” advises Sakshi.
Project manager
You will also need a project manager to ensure the sound establishment and delivery of implementation milestones across. Lining one up early shows your initiative.
Start by asking colleagues who would be best suited to manage the local in-country (or perhaps multi-country) rollout. Then, sound out the shortlisted project managers about their interest and experience in this initiative.
Local leader
Identifying synergies between projects or teams could help you to make a stronger case for prioritising technology investment. Speak with colleagues across business units or within your SSC to identify their pain points.
Bring local leaders on board as early in the process as possible and include their feedback in your business case. Doing so could help to convince stakeholders that the investment has global importance and application.
“Think beyond your tax or finance department. If you’re seeking to invest in statutory reporting software, the chances are it may benefit other teams, too. We have many customers in Australia who have stakeholders and users of the data in other departments,” says Andrew.
Identify critical weaknesses in existing processes and systems
Stakeholders will ask why your organisation’s current technology stack does not cut it. “To make the case for investing in statutory reporting software, you’ll need to present details of the systemic gaps, process weaknesses and compliance risks posed by existing methods of reporting,” comments Sakshi.
The most effective way of gathering this information is to conduct a quick international survey. Recruit the business units and shared services teams involved in statutory reporting processes to complete it.
Collecting information of the current process and users of the data and information in your team as well as others within your organisation can help to finesse your business case and is a great way to identify potential change management issues that may arise in the future. For example, conducting a survey could very well uncover the level of support and engagement talent within the business may need once the technology is adopted.
Toolkit:
10-point survey on statutory reporting processes and systems
Time and budget needed to comply with regulations
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1. Consider the process as a whole and how many people are involved. Calculate the number of hours that go into manual processes across all jurisdictions that your organisation operates in. Excessive time spent on these processes may be causing more problems that ultimately cost additional time and money. Consider breaking the process into steps involved and map time spent on each step for entities across jurisdictions. This includes the number of iterations needed for:
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2. How do you deal with legislative/regulatory changes across jurisdictions? |
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3. Without adequate standardisation, are your auditors spending more time integrating different formats and reviewing different outputs, resulting proliferation of audit action points and therefore, billing? |
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4. How much do you spend on your current processes? (Consider audit overruns cost, outsourcing costs, labour cost, translation costs, penalties etc.) |
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5. How do you currently manage translating the reports for review by non-local language speakers? |
Legacy systems and approaches to statutory reporting
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6. How easy is it for statutory reporting teams to instantly access vital information in the format they need, wherever they are? (Rating scale: 1 being very difficult, 5 being very easy) |
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7. Consider how you collect your data and how your contributors submit it. |
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8. Are all financial records for [jurisdiction] stored in a central location and in a standardised format? |
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9. How easy is it for team managers to identify possible data inconsistencies, reporting errors or non-compliance in [jurisdiction]? (Rating scale: 1 being very difficult, 5 being very easy) |
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10. How easy is it for your team to globally harmonise its statutory reporting processes? How easy is it for the shared services centre to scale the process? (Rating scale: 1 being very difficult, 5 being very easy) |
Demonstrate the business benefits of the technology investment
By now, you will have:
- Identified the main decision-makers for technology investments.
- Considered their expectations, workloads, and priorities.
- Found internal allies to help you make the case for the investment.
- Conducted an internal survey on the systems and processes that the software can improve.
- Identified the critical issues undermining the quality, consistency, and transparency of statutory reporting.
The next step is to identify how the statutory reporting solution can strengthen your organisation’s financial disclosures.
Stakeholders respond differently to the benefits of a technology solution, and you’ll need to cater to your audience. For example, your legal counsel and compliance stakeholders will appreciate the benefit of reducing risk. Meanwhile, the benefit of maintaining talent retention will appeal to a HR stakeholder. So, my point is to not keep the benefits you outline too niche or narrow.
Toolkit:
Making the case for investing ONESOURCE Statutory Reporting
1. Standardisation and automation of statutory reporting processes
- Business case: A standardised and automated approach to report creation removes the need for multiple iterations and reviews. It also ensures consistent data standards across all offices, delivering greater data quality and accuracy worldwide. It is easier to scale a standardised process than try to extend multiple specialised ones.
- Issues addressed: Data entry errors, data inconsistencies, data misstatements, process inefficiencies, multiple internal reviews, multiple auditor reviews, multiple iterations of disclosure procedures.
- Efficiency drivers: The software includes standardised reporting templates in line with local regulatory requirements for over 45 major jurisdictions, including ANZ and Global IFRS template and XBRL filings for most mandated countries.
2. Time and cost-saving automation tools to eliminate manual processes and errors
- Business case: Much time is needlessly spent by finance and accounting teams on routine financial processes. Many of these can easily be replicated by technology in a fraction of the time and to a premium standard. Highly skilled staff can then focus on adding business value through innovation or higher-value work.
- Issues addressed: Human error, lengthy manual tasks, process inefficiencies, productivity costs, attrition of skilled staff.
- Efficiency drivers: The software has numerous built-in time-saving tools, including automated rounding, annual roll forward, and dynamic note and page number referencing.
3. Timely updates on regulatory changes to reporting rules and templates
- Business case: A key challenge facing your business is keeping up to date with critical policy changes in every jurisdiction in which you operate. New reporting requirements and templates are announced sporadically in different mediums, languages, and formats. Identifying regulatory updates is a time-consuming and labour-intensive process.
- Issues addressed: Staying up to date, process inefficiencies, late filings, risk of compliance breaches, risk of penalties, risk of reputational damage.
- Efficiency drivers: To help ensure local and global compliance, the software provides best practice, country-specific reporting templates and content updates for over 45 jurisdictions, compliant with local GAAP and in the reporting language. The translation tool should help alleviate the challenge of managing multiple languages from a regional or global centre.
4. A full audit trail of financial records and reports worldwide
- Does the proposed investment align with the organisation’s strategic goals?
- Are there identifiable business benefits from the technology investment? (e.g., increasing efficiencies, boosting talent retention, supporting business growth.
- Does the project have a rollout plan that aligns with internal schedules and budgets?
5. Centralisation and harmonisation of global statutory reporting
- Does the proposed investment align with the organisation’s strategic goals?
- Are there identifiable business benefits from the technology investment? (e.g., increasing efficiencies, boosting talent retention, supporting business growth.
- Does the project have a rollout plan that aligns with internal schedules and budgets?
Partner with your vendor to highlight the software’s value drivers
Now that you have demonstrated issues within existing statutory reporting processes, the next step is to highlight wide-ranging benefits.
“Be prepared to disclose your implementation timeline, what resources are needed, and any roadblocks that may arise. Choose a vendor with a proven track-record of local and global rollouts,” advises Sakshi.
How your vendor can help
Your vendor’s representatives can help you to answer stakeholders’ questions and gain their buy-in for the software. For example, your vendor can work with you to:
- Identify the business inefficiencies and compliance risks that the software addresses.
- Answer stakeholders’ questions about the effectiveness of the software.
- Provide testimonials from other corporations and multinationals that have benefited from the software.
- Prepare an implementation schedule and budget in line with best practices.
- Deliver training on how to use the software’s key features to maximum effect.
- Provide tips on how to maximise the software’s return on investment.
- Whether the tax results on a macro basis can be explained against the financial results.
Scenario:
The cost of status quo
Let us say you are an organisation who prepares financial disclosures without the support of specialised software. A single entity may take hours and several iterations to create one financial disclosure. The cost of maintaining these outdated manual processes would be high. Investing in automation-powered statutory reporting harmonisation software would result in substantial efficiencies and support growth. What if you created your own scenario for your department’s circumstances? It would enable you to highlight the return on investment you would get from statutory reporting software.
A vendor that is focused on building long-term relationships with clients can be an invaluable partner. They will help you prepare your business case and tailor the implementation journey to suit your requirements.
Consider the timing of your software roll out
You have now reached the semi-final stage of creating your business plan for investing in statutory reporting software. This involves putting together a draft plan for rolling out the software across your business.
“Implementation roadmaps vary by organisation. Some opt for a phased approach where they introduce software efficiencies gradually, whereas others launch many all at once. It depends on the culture within the team, headcount available, and of course the business objectives,” says Sakshi.
Work with the team leaders you brought on board, including the project manager, to fine tune your proposed implementation schedule.
Project milestones and deliverables associated with your implementation process is a must, and these should be included in your business case. Even if the scope of the project changes down the track, doing the groundwork early will help secure your future success.
Start by creating a checklist of tasks and putting together a rough timeline for achieving each of them.
“Remember to build in enough time buffers for the unexpected, but equally don’t be so conservative with your implementation schedule that stakeholders are put off by the amount of time needed to obtain a return on investment,” advises Sakshi.
For each proposed project milestone, be sure to include draft deadlines and requested resources (e.g., IT support).
Share testimonials for the software
The reputation of the company providing the statutory reporting software can make all the difference. Conclude your proposal with product testimonials from comparable organisations to alleviate any concerns about the product's effectiveness.
“Consider partnering with a -provider that you trust, or that your industry peers trust and have recommended to you. Also, speak to multiple vendors, not just one. You need to ensure the solution and its implementation is the right fit and that your future statutory reporting tech provider truly understands your vision,” advises Andrew.
ONESOURCE Statutory Reporting has been at the forefront of statutory reporting compliance for many years and offers a purpose-built solution. Armed with professional teams spanning across the region, we work closely with hundreds of organisations and accounting firms. Our expertise enables successful local and global roll outs that deliver unparalleled country content.
Testimonials:
From ONESOURCE Statutory Reporting customers
Watch a testimonial on why TMF Group chose ONESOURCE Statutory Reporting.
Organisations that have implemented ONESOURCE Statutory Reporting solution have noted numerous efficiency gains to date.
Moving to ONESOURCE Statutory Reporting reduced our reliance on the historic spreadsheets we had to manually manage every year end that were fraught with flow through and rounding issues. This helped improve our control and governance through enhanced data integrity and better audit trails.
There is a lot more efficiency, control over processes, and centralisation and standardisation of systems seen after investing in the right technology.
Submit your proposal!
Using the tools in this guide, you have:
- Identified the main decision-makers for technology investments.
- Considered their expectations, workloads, and priorities.
- Found internal allies to help you make the case for the investment.
- Conducted an internal survey on the systems and processes that the software can improve.
- Identified the critical issues undermining the quality, consistency, and transparency of statutory reporting.
- Demonstrated the wide-ranging business benefits of the technology investment.
- Worked with your vendor to bring stakeholders on board.
- Created a draft schedule for rolling out the software across the business.
- Concluded your proposal with strong testimonials from other multinationals that have benefited from using the software.
You are now ready to convince upper management that a global statutory reporting solution will deliver wide-ranging benefits. It is time to submit your proposal and schedule a meeting with key decision makers to talk them through it.
Connect with a content-driven software provider
Whether you maintain the statutory process in-country, centralise through shared services or take a hybrid approach, ONESOURCE Statutory Reporting can drive efficiencies for your organisations across business units. Ready for a purpose-built solution that offers unparalleled content?
Contributors
Andrew Hay, Head of Proposition, Software Solutions, Thomson Reuters
As Head of Software Solutions, Andrew overseas the commercial, go-to-market, value proposition, and regional product management across Corporate, Legal and Tax & Accounting Professionals SAAS and legacy software portfolio for Asia and Emerging Marketing.
Throughout Andrew’s career he has helped clients standardise and optimise operations by leveraging technology. Andrew has led teams in different business units including proposition, product management, content development, solutions consulting and client implementations.
Sakshi Rehani, Statutory Reporting Proposition Lead, Thomson Reuters
Sakshi has over a decade of professional experience in the tax and tax technology industry. She works closely with Shared Service Centres and multinational customers propelling their adoption of technology to meet global tax and financial reporting requirements. She is a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
