Statutory reporting processes can be painstaking to carry out manually. There is a diverse range of reporting requirements to consider and keep up with. When finance professionals handle these processes without the right elements of technology and automation, they take considerably longer to execute.
To help provide finance professionals with a framework with which to build a business case based on how Thomson Reuters’ automated statutory reporting solution might impact their organization, Thomson Reuters commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct an independent research study on the potential cost savings and business benefits of the company’s ONESOURCE Statutory Reporting (OSR) software.
Forrester interviewed four customers with multiple years of experience using OSR. Aside from commissioning the Total Economic Impact™ study, Thomson Reuters did not participate. Forrester maintained editorial control over the study.
To illustrate its findings, Forrester aggregated the results of interviews into a “composite organization” transforming its statutory reporting processes with OSR across 100 entities in 20 countries.
The results are now available via The Total Economic Impact™ of Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE Statutory Reporting. We have curated the findings to keep you informed.
The measurable business benefits of ONESOURCE
To quantify the system’s benefits, Forrester calculated the present value (PV) of return after three years of operation.
The independent research findings provide a clear business case for implementing OSR. The Forrester Consulting study demonstrated an 84% ROI over a 3-year period for a composite organization representative of multiple customers. The representative interviews and financial analysis found that the composite organization experienced benefits of $1.44 million over three years versus costs of $783,000, adding up to a net present value (NPV) of $661,000.
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Quantifiable savings (three-year, risk-adjusted, present value) came from these four major areas:
- Improved efficiency by 68%: $437,000 saved
- Statutory reporting team resources allocated: $173,000 saved
- Reduced statutory reporting costs (outsourcing, audit overruns, legacy processes etc.): $803,000 saved
- Improved on-time compliance rates by 5%, reduced penalties: $32,000 saved
Total Savings: $1.44 Million
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68% efficiency gains for the statutory reporting process, equivalent to US$437,000. The move from manual processes to a purpose-built, global disclosure management tool, resulted in process improvement and enabled participants to produce reports more efficiently and accurately with better visibility. Further, it saved preparation time leading to a 68% efficiency gain.
Using a single automated solution facilitated the completion of financial statements earlier in the financial process. It enabled time savings on things like roll-forward, that happens at the click of a button within OSR.
Country-specific content, extensive coverage along with the ability to make a change within templates and push that change down towards entities in one go, all contributed to a faster process. Resultantly, this allowed team members to devote more time to value-added activities.
Reallocation of statutory reporting team resources, equivalent to the value of $173,000. In this study, the participants noted the opportunity to have a centralized approach. Customers leveraged OSR’s built-in tools to centralize statutory reporting processes and reallocate the resources fulfilling these tasks to a lower-cost country. This enabled in-country employees to shift to more value-adding work.
Statutory reporting cost savings of US$803,000. With automated process capabilities, global templates in local language, translation and XBRL tools within OSR, participants achieved outsourced cost savings by bringing entities in-house. It also helped retire legacy manual processes and sunset disparate legacy software.
The participants also noted reduction in audit overruns and lower audit fees after investment in OSR. At some point, the lesser time spent by auditors becomes a sizable number that gets reflected in the audit fee reduction.
Five per cent improvement in on-time compliance rate, saving US$32,000 in late filing penalties. Prior to OSR, customers had difficulty accessing financial data, creating statutory reporting accounts efficiently and obtaining signoffs, causing lengthy delays and penalties in terms of late filings. With the global disclosure management software in their tech stack, late filings are now the exception rather than the rule.
The wider business benefits
In addition to the quantifiable savings and efficiencies detailed in the Forrester study, participants noted a range of value-added benefits from using OSR.
The centralized report templates have substantially improved report consistency and process continuity. There is greater global oversight of data previously held across different systems and jurisdictions. The enhanced data visibility supported cross-regional collaboration between local tax compliance and statutory reporting teams.
Other benefits noted in the study include the ease at which the automated processes could be rolled out to other regions, and the flexibility they had to customize reports. Improved employee experience and customer support received from Thomson Reuters were also observed by the participants as benefits.
Overall, participants chose OSR for its content, technology and support. The software’s ability to create opportunities for process centralization has been a key to its success. The net result: ONESOURCE delivers tangible business value.
There are wide-reaching benefits of implementing ONESOURCE Statutory Reporting, both quantifiable and unquantifiable. The Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Thomson Reuters provides quantifiable gains in efficiency and compliance improvements from the first year of operation. These assist with increasing transparency, retaining talent, and adapting to evolving business goals.
Briony Kempton, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Statutory Reporting at Thomson Reuters, says that increased finance transformation unlocks opportunities.
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”Content-driven technology can keep statutory reporting teams ahead of the curve. It would be virtually impossible to achieve efficiencies, savings and scale without technology, and ONESOURCE connects the dots for customers creating statutory reports whether through a shared service center, in-country, or a hybrid approach.”
“This independent study, carried out by Forrester Consulting, shows that ONESOURCE Statutory Reporting delivered considerable business value to our customers.”
Briony went on to say “Improvements in the statutory reporting process through the adoption of content driven technology can have substantial benefits for a business – not just with cost savings, but in the management of risk and giving time back to busy finance teams – regardless of whether that team is in a shared service center or working in-country. The customer quotes in this independent study from Forrester Consulting really highlight, from a user’s perspective, the tangible and intangible benefits of ONESOURCE Statutory Reporting.”
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Forrester study examines the potential economic impact that ONESOURCE Statutory Reporting may have on an organization’s finance department. Access your copy of The Total Economic Impact™ of Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE Statutory Reporting today.
