Digital Finance 2025: Transformation From the Inside Out – Presented by Deloitte | Written by Olivia Marcey
In 2017, Deloitte’s finance organization decided that in the face of expanding technological innovation, they needed to step up to the plate.
The business had been using Finance on an ad hoc basis, and they refused to be overrun by the digital era. Finance decided to act—not react—and develop a common vision.
Through research and analysis, they found that shifting to digital enables the sale of high margin products and services, fueling the wave of the future.
Here are some of Deloitte’s predictions for the future of Finance.
The role of Finance will be to spend less time on manual activities and more time on analysis. They will maintain an accounting mindset, influenced by technology
Self-service will pull data whenever and wherever the business wants
Operating Models will incorporate new ways of working
A changing workforce and workplace might make some uncomfortable, but it will be positive in the long run
Transactions will be touchless and move seamlessly between software
Finance cycles will be in real time. Leveraging close automation and predictive analytics, Finance will make a lasting impact on the business
Applications and microservices will challenge traditional ERPs. Finance will need to be supported by cloud applications like BlackLine.
The proliferation of APIs will drive data standardization
Deloitte suggests that to prepare for the future, organizations should reform their processes from the inside out, starting with intercompany reconciliations.
The process they propose has three main guidelines, although they did admit it’s not going to be so simple.
Design a data model
Clean up the mess
Dial out risk
BlackLine’s Intercompany Hub (ICH) helps finance organizations follow these guidelines by:
Eliminating the duplication of data and offering a central repository to capture all intercompany transactions to improve system architecture and centralize the data management process
Cleaning up data at the intersection of each transaction’s import into the platform, yielding more substantiated transactions coming into the Hub
Improving transparency across the business to create visibility into processes and reduce risk
For Deloitte, tax reform brought intercompany to the forefront, as they needed visibility at the transaction level. As a business with over 120 legal entities, in 35 countries, across 5 ERPs, Deloitte’s tax exposure is estimated at over $700 million.
And they trust BlackLine to help.