Unlocking Data To Usher Corporate Finance Into An Unsiloed Future

Unlocking the “single source of truth” for corporate finance leaders is a hot-button topic that is driving FinTech innovation (as well as venture capital interest) toward a more modern back office.

But behind the buzzword is a complicated picture of how finances are managed and how financial data is used. Often, says Trullion Co-founder and CEO Isaac Heller, some efforts to modernize in the name of that “single source of truth” can actually result in more solos.

“A lot of innovation is automation within the silos,” he said pointing to the landscape of the back-office ecosystem. “A lot of people might be automating one area of the ecosystem.”

While FinTech innovation might be inching towards providing real-time visibility into finances for the chief financial officer (CFO), controller, accounting team or auditors, the corporate finance industry is in need of technology that can link all of those workflows and professionals together.

The “glue” that can connect them is technology that can work with structured and unstructured data, according to Heller. As he told PYMNTS in a recent interview, breaking down those silos has ramifications that reach far beyond boosting transparency for corporate finance leaders into future-proofing the enterprise for some significant disruption ahead.

Compliant For Today

Trullion was initially developed as a solution for finance teams to be able to automatically aggregate data from systems, email messages and other sources as well as automate complex workflows using that data, and then generate reports and other key documents. The target demographic was the CFO and controller, with the goal of unlocking siloed data and workflows within enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and accounting departments.

As it turns out, that same capability is also in high demand among auditors too.

“We were looking at two sides of the market thinking they were completely different personas because they had always worked in silos across from each other,” Heller explained. “But they were both interested in the same solution.”

While accountants and auditors may have different goals in mind, their workflows and pain points are largely the same and are often rooted in having to manually collect information across systems and emails to generate reports.

The need to break down those legacy barriers that had kept the lives of accountants and auditors separate will only continue to grow amid more complex requirements and industry standards. Heller pointed to changes to lease accounting standards that go into effect this year as a prime example of why it’s important for both areas of corporate finance to have this data visibility and for automation technology to be malleable enough to keep pace with ever-changing rules.

Future-Proofing For Tomorrow

Whether it’s through FinTech innovation or regulatory shifts, the corporate finance space is always evolving, and while the need for accountants and auditors will never dissipate, the way they conduct their jobs and keep corporates compliant will change.

Accelerating interest in and adoption of cryptocurrency among corporates may be perhaps the most talked-about example of these industry shifts, with implications for revenue recognition workflows for both accountants and auditors. While these changes won’t be “earth-shattering,” said Heller, finance leaders must be prepared for them.

Amid shifts like lease accounting standard changes and the emergence of crypto within revenue recognition reports, macro trends igniting conversations about transparency, compliance and fraud are quickly evolving, too. The discussion as to whether auditors should be responsible for identifying, and potentially mitigating, corporate fraud came to a head amid the Wirecard scandal in 2019.

Heller is not unclear about his views on the matter, noting that auditors are “absolutely responsible” for identifying and addressing fraud. How the profession is going to elevate those capabilities is less clear, though Heller said the industry must collaborate with technology and FinTech firms.

“It has to be a symbiotic relationship,” he said.

It’s a similar goal for finance leaders within the enterprise: collaborate with technology innovators to continue breaking down silos, remain compliant, and drive modernization. Whether it’s to streamline workflows around the adjusted lease accounting standards coming into force, prepare the books to compliantly account for cryptocurrency or foster a relationship with the audit committee, finance leaders today are in a position to modernize operations for the future, but they must be deliberate about the technologies they choose to support that future-proofing initiative.

“CFOs and controllers ultimately are the ones driving innovation,” added Heller. “We work closely with them to ask, ‘What are you doing today in your company that can be brought into a modern automation?’”