Page 280 - Accounting Best Practices

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13–11 Switch to On-line Reporting
13–11 SWITCH TO ON-LINE REPORTING 269
In organizations that occupy a large geographical area, the accounting staff faces
the chore of somehow sending financial and operational reporting information to
many locations. This can mean a mass mailing once a month, or perhaps more
frequently if daily or weekly reports are required. If there is some urgency to this
information, overnight express mail delivery may be necessary, which is quite
expensive, especially when used many times a year for many locations. Faxing
this information is frequently not an allowable option, for the information being
transmitted may be so sensitive that there is too great a risk that the wrong person
will retrieve the information from the fax machine. Thus, sending paper reports
throughout a company, and especially a large one, is a major hassle.
An effective means for eliminating the problems with paper-based reports is
to switch to electronic transmission. By doing so, there is no need to send any
paper documents and there is also no transmission time interval before the infor-
mation is available to recipients. The only difficulty with this approach is that a
few of the more formal documents, such as audited financial statements, with
their accompanying footnotes and graphics, cannot be sent easily by electronic
means. However, for the bulk of all reports, this remains an effective approach.
Information can be sent electronically in either a passive or ‘‘push” mode. In
the passive mode, the accounting department simply posts the information in a
file and waits for employees to go to the file to scan the data. The ‘‘push” method
involves sending information to employees by e-mail. The ‘‘push” method is gen-
erally more effective, since there is no way for employees to avoid the data,
unless they are in the habit of deleting their e-mail without first reading it.
This approach can be an expensive one with a long implementation interval,
but only under certain implementation approaches. It is certainly more expen-
sive if a special file structure is created to contain the on-line reports, especially
if the data is to be contained in a data warehouse (a major undertaking that is not
recommended). Even the less difficult approach of sending out reports by e-mail
requires the previous installation of a companywide e-mail system, which can be
a problem if there are many locations that must be linked. However, the distribu-
tion of data is made vastly easier by the presence of the Internet; any company
location can now obtain an e-mail address from a third-party e-mail provider at
minimal cost and receive electronic transmissions through this electronic mail-
box. Another alternative is to spend a moderate amount on a corporate intranet
site, on which financial reports can be posted under an icon. Though an effective
and easy-to-use approach, it does require access to the intranet from outlying
locations. Consequently, there are a range of implementation alternatives for all
possible budgets, starting with distribution by the Internet, progressing through
an intranet site, and ending with a custom-made file structure with comprehensive