Finance leaders don’t trust their data
Finance leaders are grappling with trust issues regarding their organisation’s financial data, reveals a recent survey by BlackLine. The survey, conducted among over 1,300 C-suite and senior finance professionals across seven global markets, found that nearly 40% of CFOs lack complete trust in the accuracy of their own financial data. Additionally, about half of senior finance and accounting professionals express similar doubts about data reliability.
Access to trusted data is crucial in effective decision-making, particularly when navigating unpredictable external events such as global financial crises, cybersecurity threats, and disruptive technologies.
The survey highlights manual processes as a key culprit behind data trust issues, with antiquated methods and human error leading to inaccuracies. Respondents cited reliance on multiple data sources, cumbersome spreadsheets, and outdated manual processes as primary concerns. Moreover, the overwhelming volume of manual work not only hampers financial planning and analysis but also leaves organisations vulnerable to errors that can undermine decision-making.
To address these challenges, finance leaders are looking to new technologies like AI and cloud computing, seeing these innovations as key for improving business resiliency.
While we often tout structured data tagged with XBRL as a solution for supervisory priorities, access to verified, digital and structured data is just as important internally. The same discipline and focus on data lineage that provide regulators with essential financial information can be utilised to bolster internal trust in financial {Ed — and sustainability} data.
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