Three scenarios for "teleworking in accounting and finance" made possible through paperless and digitalization

As a countermeasure against COVID-19, many companies have implemented teleworking from home for the entire company, but even in these companies, there are some departments and divisions that are forced to continue working from the office as an exception. The accounting and finance departments are a prime example of this. Meanwhile, as a result of measures taken in these departments, such as limiting the number of people coming to the office through shifts, an increasing number of companies are experiencing serious delays in daily operations such as financial closings and audits. In fact, as of April 30, 2020, 392 companies, or about 17% of listed companies, have postponed the announcement of their financial results for the fiscal year ending in March. *1

Going paperless is essential for the transition to teleworking for accounting and finance. For security reasons, paper documents cannot be taken out of the office, so work must be done in the office. This time, we will introduce three scenarios for going paperless based on our own efforts.

Delays in digitalization result in delays in financial closing and audit work

Looking at companies that have decided to transition to company-wide teleworking due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, delays in operations are becoming more serious, especially in non-production departments such as general affairs and accounting.

When trying to introduce teleworking as a countermeasure against COVID-19, delays in work are unavoidable. This seems to illustrate the dilemma, but why is this happening?

Many companies cite paper invoices, stamping, and receipt of paper payment slips as obstacles to teleworking from home, all of which are considered to be paper-related tasks. These paper-based tasks hinder the digitalization of work, which is a prerequisite for teleworking from home. Conversely, going paperless is essential to promoting teleworking from home in accounting and finance.

However, the scope of paperless operations is so broad that many people may not know where to start. Below, we will introduce three scenarios for going paperless, based on our own efforts.

Scenario 1. Systemizing expense reimbursement from application to approval

The first is "making the expense settlement system paperless and systematizing it." This benefits not only accounting and finance department employees but also all general employees who apply for expenses, and is effective in promoting the company-wide transition to teleworking from home.

For example, in the case of in-house expense settlement, receipts are attached to the designated application form and submitted to accounting, who then stamps it with an approval seal and begins the payment procedure. However, paper-based expense settlement basically assumes that employees involved in settlement must come into the office. To enable applicants and accounting staff to work remotely, it is necessary to "go paperless" by eliminating paper application forms and receipts, and to "systematize" by introducing a system that can handle everything from application to approval digitally.

In 2014, our company introduced the expense reimbursement system "SAP Concur Expense" and began digitizing our expense reimbursement processing.
This allows employees to register the necessary data in the system and submit an application, which automatically activates the approval workflow and allows payment procedures to proceed via the accounting system. Even if accounting staff or department managers are out of the office, they can approve applications on the system. Digitalization also leaves a trail from application to approval, which reduces the amount of work required to respond to audits.

Scenario 2: Go paperless with AI-OCR and an invoice management system

The second is "going paperless" from paper invoices received from business partners. Manually entering paper invoices into an accounting system, filing them, and storing them poses challenges such as the risk of input errors and increased storage space. Recently, there has been an increase in cases where invoices are no longer sent by mail and are instead received as PDF attachments via email, but it seems that many companies still end up printing them out and doing the same work.

If all invoices could be received digitally, such as in PDF format, rather than on paper, and that information could be automatically imported into accounting systems, it would be possible to achieve a completely paperless and significantly more efficient invoice management. Furthermore, tasks such as allocating invoice details to relevant organizations could be performed from anywhere, as long as one can log in to the system.

The problem is how to import PDF invoice information into the system, so we recommend using AI-OCR services, which have become increasingly accurate in recent years. AI-OCR is a technology that uses artificial intelligence to automatically read and digitize text. Using such services allows you to digitize paper invoices without manual input, significantly reducing the burden on accounting staff.

In our case, we have created a system that uses AI-OCR to read the information in the received PDF and automatically connects it to the invoice management system SAP Concur Invoice, which has enabled us to go paperless and automate the processing after the invoice is received.

Scenario 3. Systemizing accounting procedures makes working from home a reality

The third is the "paperless and systematized closing process," which could be called the highlight of accounting and finance. Many companies still rely heavily on Excel for their closing processes, using analog methods where numbers are reconciled on paper. However, this means that large amounts of paper (accounting slips, confirmation documents for closing, etc.) must be printed and managed to leave a trail for audits. Communication when working on closing processes as a team often involves sitting down and looking at paper documents, asking questions like, "Hey, what's going on with these numbers?", or managing a huge number of tasks on a whiteboard, all of which can only be done by gathering together in the office.

To break away from this situation and realize accounting and financial settlement from home, all analog work needs to be digitized and processed through a system, just like expense settlement and invoice processing.

BlackLine, a dedicated settlement system that began offering in Japan in 2019, meets these needs.
BlackLine is a SaaS that automates repetitive, routine tasks (matching and reconciliation) that take up accounting staff's time in accounting and finance, allowing them to spend their time on more productive tasks such as variance analysis and forecast creation.
In addition to business process management and workflow functions, the app also comes equipped with a group communication function that allows both internal and external communication, including with auditing companies. This allows all team members to check the overall progress of tasks on the dashboard, making it easy to manage progress appropriately.

Our company introduced BlackLine in December 2019, and as a result, we were able to complete our year-end financial statements without delay, even after the new year, when we had to suddenly switch to teleworking from home as a countermeasure against COVID-19.

Providing "modern finance services" based on our own successful experience

The solutions featured in each scenario, such as "SAP Concur Expense/Invoice" and "BlackLine," as well as the AI-OCR invoice system, are all cloud services (SaaS). Rather than creating dedicated systems, we aim to create an environment that is easy to adapt to change by flexibly combining the best tools available at the time.

The data integration software "DataSpider" plays an important role in connecting data between each system.
Based on our own successful experience, we provide "modern finance services" that integrate various cloud services with DataSpider at the core, achieving unprecedented efficiency through digital transformation of accounting and finance.

If you are interested in digitizing your company's accounting and financial operations or are struggling to improve the efficiency of your accounting and financial operations, please feel free to contact us.

Results of "Modern Finance" Initiatives at Saison Information Systems (now Saison Technology)

• 1 Tokyo Stock Exchange Summary

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