CFO Study

Consolidation makes way

Best-in-class companies in particular are now taking a more holistic view of the support they receive from corporate accounting software. They are investing in new areas such as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and advanced analytics, while laggards are still struggling with the core processes of planning and consolidation. That's according to Barc's recent New Value for the CFO study, which surveyed 235 corporate executives worldwide. The study provides exciting insights into the status quo of process and software support for the CFO office and is available for download free of charge.

"It is highly unusual for studies of investment priorities to show such a broad and evenly distributed picture of planned investments"says Susanne Leitner-Hanetseder, Professor of Accounting and co-author of the study. "In our view, this reflects the transition in user demand from a focus on consolidation to integrated or unified group accounting approaches. New areas such as sustainability reporting have recently accelerated this process."

The study analyzed the differences between best-in-class companies and laggards ("laggards") based on respondents' self-assessment. The results show that laggards struggle with the standardization of IT tools and organizational issues, leaving less time and capacity for innovation in areas such as predictive analytics and artificial intelligence (AI).

Best-in-class companies are planning investments across a very broad spectrum in the area of corporate accounting. Laggards, on the other hand, are still prioritizing the core topics of planning and consolidation in order to create a solid basis for the further automation of group accounting. The companies participating in the study plan to invest heavily in ten areas queried by Barc, with more than half planning to invest in at least eight of these ten areas.

"Just as ERP systems were created many years ago by combining various individual solutions, today we see integrated group accounting solutions emerging from consolidation systems"says Stefan Sexl, Barc Fellow and co-author of the study. "This reflects the needs of users, as our study shows. Best-in-class companies in particular now take a more holistic view of the support they receive from group accounting software."