New legislation demands more transparency of finances

New legislation is creating a new approach to information access and analysis in order to improve transparency. "Local companies face pressure to comply with the regulations set out in the King III report on corporate governance and other increased disclosure stipulations as well as sustainability reporting," says Softworx MD Jane Thomson. "As a result, organisations need to develop a long-term strategy not only to comply with these regulations, but to exploit them for competitive advantage," she says.

Financial information stays in-house

The IBM Cognos FSR system allows companies to prepare all their statutory and financial information, such as annual reports and quarterly reports in-house instead of having to send it out to external parties to compile, control and organise for them. Moving financial reporting in-house will prove valuable to many companies and will help them to develop a strategy for future increased disclosure requirements.

The system is a software solution to integrate an organisation's financial statement production into the financial consolidation process, providing improved efficiency, reduced risk and greater control of the external reporting process. It also makes it possible to transfer financial statements in a controlled environment, using a workflow collaboration process that is auditable and has visibility and transparency.

It can also apply Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) tags for external disclosure that will aid in passing financial information to regulatory agencies. This workflow process also has the capability to extend into other critical areas, such as tax reporting, International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) reconciliations, generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and financial-close management.