Continuous data monitoring – friend, foe or friend?

The concept of being monitored 24/7 has been made familiar by CCTV. While some find it intrusive and others feel it gives them a sense security, many people find it beneficial. What about monitoring your organisation’s data? All over the globe, governments are using technology to monitor your organization’s data. Businesses must embrace it in order to reap the benefits and minimize the risks.

Continuous data monitoring is a key function in a finance department. Continuous data monitoring is a way to review the data entering a system and then check it. Analytics can be used to gain valuable business insight. All this in real-time. No month ends in pain. These words are often greeted with rolling eyes and a loud, sighing sigh by finance professionals.

Month end is traditionally about data cleansing, corrections, manipulation, and reconciliation. Along with long hours, complicated spreadsheets, summaries, and frustration, it can also mean long hours. A few people, usually those working in larger organizations, may experience something closer to “Month end?” What’s the big deal?

The difference between the two responses is due to an acceptance of the need to transform. There are many drivers.

• Governments are becoming more sophisticated in the way they combine financial data from various sources. They also use their own algorithms and analysis to tell a story.
• In order to comply with tax authorities’ increasing demands, data must be available in real-time.
• News platforms continue to highlight tax underpayments and the growing transparency agenda.
• Unreliable data is a problem tax departments must deal with.
• The C-suite needs to have meaningful business insights, higher efficiency and better working.

Companies are rethinking how they finance their business functions. Businesses need to be able to monitor and correct errors in business processes, as well as tax data, in real-time. This is what more and more top-tier businesses are doing, and enjoying all the benefits.

A tax function can evaluate tax-relevant business data in real-time, allowing them to apply tax sensitive rules and correct any errors as they arise. This increases confidence in filing positions as well as the risk rating of tax authorities. Continuous data monitoring can also help to reduce costs, increase transparency, and ultimately improve your reputation by telling the right story. Continuous data monitoring is a great option for those who struggle with traditional month end issues. This allows them to concentrate on technical issues and the analysis of business-relevant insights. Your highly skilled employees are not only doing the right work but they’re also happier.

It is not an easy task to adopt a continuous data monitoring strategy. You will need to have the right technology but also experience and expert guidance to create an ERP that meets all financial functions including tax. An excellent place to start is to conduct a tax data quality evaluation. This will identify compliance inefficiencies, value losses and control failures. This can help a tax function to define its data, process roadmaps, and create an operating model for continuously monitoring tax data. It all depends on the organization. This could include maximizing existing technology to implement continuous monitoring or providing managed services that monitor their data.

Continuous data monitoring can be a win-win for businesses. Data friendliness means that you can get it to work for your organization, allowing you to rest easy at night and not worrying about what the government is telling.