{ Technology | Business intelligence }
“The future will be reported in real time, and it’s going to require us to step outside the general ledger to lead into the future.” They will always be looking backwards at what you just passed instead of seeing what’s coming through the driver’s windshield of CRM, orders and operations management. That’s why we need BI systems in addition to our accounting systems—so we can measure (and thus manage) the right things in our businesses. Accounting is still important for many types of decisions, such as investments, cash flow management, tax planning and many others. Accounting and financial pros should participate in and even lead those efforts in their organizations (unless you are willing to implicitly trust the sales, operations and IT departments of your organization to reconcile that data back to the accounting systems). As BI has grown in importance, new methods of extracting, transforming, loading and reporting on the data have been developed, and the cost and complexity associated with implementing a business intelligence solution have both dropped precipitously. While implementing a BI system is still challenging, it’s much more approachable than it was just a generation ago, when it required significant investments in hardware, software and personnel just to get started. Modern, self-service, cloud-based BI platforms like Microsoft Power BI, Tableau Online, and Qlik Sense Cloud allow users to use templated connections that pull data from a wide range of on-premises and cloud-based applications into data warehouses that run on shared computers in the cloud. For example, you can connect Microsoft Power BI to a wide range of data sources (such as Salesforce, Acumatica, QuickBooks Online, Sage 50, Xero Salesforce, Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, most of the Dynamics 365 apps, Dynamics GP, Office 365, Asana, SmartSheet, SQL databases, Twilio, and ZenDesk) with your login and a little information in less than five minutes. And most connections come with a generic dashboard and an Excel-based report. If you have onpremises data, you can use a data connector to automatically upload your operations management information to Microsoft’s servers, or you can use Microsoft Power Query to extract it from most major database engines and then publish it to Power BI Online. It’s priced at $9.99 per month per user, with no up-front costs. Reports, dashboards and even Excelbased analyses can be published to web portals, consumed on personal computers or accessed on mobile devices while
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retaining the same interactivity and drill-down access to data that is available from your personal computer. This new “self-service” model for business intelligence has significant implications for the long-term future of auditing. When transaction details from accounting, CRM and operations management systems can be combined and stored on a third-party data store with easy access to external data feeds from e-mail, banks, credit cards and merchant accounts, it changes the game. This future will allow investors, directors and lenders to use the same BI systems used by management to analyze the activity surrounding the company’s operations and their collateral (usually inventory and accounts receivable) and, if permitted, they can get signs of unusual activity in near real time. With more and more organizations setting up electronic workflow tracking systems, the digital evidence trail associated with transactions could be analyzed in real time for any warning signs—before borrowings are permitted against questionable sales transactions or slow-moving inventory items. The data that is aggregated by such systems is also interesting, since the data ends up stored in a structured database format. Process workflow data with date and time stamps can be used to create data-based performance standards for business processes. These integrated data stores can lead to better measurement, fewer mistakes, more focus on operationalizing business processes, and more transparent organizations. While some believe that this “big data” is the new big brother, I believe integrated, structured data is a huge competitive asset that can be combined with continuous improvement for the benefit of accountants, managers, executives, companies and their investors and lenders. Are you and your organization ready for this new chapter in your future?
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA, advises firms and companies on accounting technology issues. He has served as technology editor for a major accounting industry publication and currently teaches courses in the U.S. and Canada through K2 Enterprises. Contact him at 865-684-4707 or brian@bftcpa.com. Find his blog at CPATechBlog.com. © 2018 Brian F. Tankersley, all rights reserved.
On Balance
March | April 2018
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