Sign InGet Started
Features
Industries
Pricing
Partners
About Us
Resources
Request Pricing

Report: Magic Unlikely to Impact Accounting and Reporting in the Near Term

Feb 29, 2020

There has been a lot of news about companies focusing on automated accounting and reporting software over the past few years. Sometimes this is framed as analyzing expenses with AI to predict what will happen next or using past cashflows to automate forecasting. No matter what, these solutions all seem to be promising a fully automated accounting process.

It’s not a secret that the vast majority of business leaders don’t care a ton about accounting. It’s something they know they need to take care of and they know it’s important, but there are other things they’d rather focus on. That makes sense, your business is doing something to make money and that thing is not accounting.

That said, you need to know how much money you’re making, spending, and how much you have. And it’s not that hard to create a world-class process for doing just that if you start early. Later it’s much worse, but inevitably you’ll have to make a switch if the company continues to grow.

The Best Businesses Do This Every Month:

1) Figure out how they did and their current financial position

2) Determine the financial impact of what they expect will happen next

3) Review

4) Decide what to do

At a high level, it’s not a particularly complex process. But too often steps 1 and 2 are done about 85% or done too late. As a result, steps 3 and 4 happen with incorrect or incomplete information. This problem only gets worse and eventually, it can literally be the reason a company goes under.

Lastly, steps 1 and 2 can’t reach full automation. That’s essentially what anyone pitching a full tech solution to this problem is saying, that these steps can reach full automation. It’s just not possible, there’s still too much judgment involved in processes that may seem like low-hanging fruit from the outside. Automatically booking cash and credit card transactions to the right accounts seems like it’d be easy, I mean the categories are all there and there’s so much data to use. Many have tried though and none have gotten it to work.

You can, however, and should automate your accounting and reporting processes, with human input as needed. Figure out what accounting and reporting tools work for your business and integrate them together in a logical way. This is the gold standard. Until magic (or true AI) enters the mix.

Accounting Statistics: New Data for 2022

Why You Need Financial Reporting Automation

How to Get the Most Out of Your Financial Reporting System

Author
Recent Blogs
Ben Taylor
CEO & Co-Founder at SoftLedger

A CPA with more than 10 years of varied public and private accounting experience, Ben has led many complex financial projects to successful outcomes.

He began his career at Ernst & Young, followed by in-house management roles at Fannie Mae and other public companies.

Ben holds a B.S. in Accounting from the University of Maryland.

One comment on “Report: Magic Unlikely to Impact Accounting and Reporting in the Near Term”

  1. Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and
    wished to say that I have truly enjoyed browsing your blog posts.
    In any case I will be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again very soon!

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, users have the option to use their own chart of accounts or SoftLedger’s standard chart of accounts when getting started with SoftLedger.  SoftLedger’s flexibility allows users to make changes to their charts by easily adding new accounts.

Ready to Get Started?

Book a demo for a free test-drive of the SoftLedger software and APIs
Get Started

Subscribe to our
newsletter

© Copyright 2025 SoftLedger, Inc.

Features
Menu
close
Industries
Menu
close
Company
Menu
close
Blog
Menu
close
magnifiercross-circle