ThinkTWENTY20

The UK’s Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has published a thought-leadership piece, A Matter of Principles: The Future of Corporate Reporting.[1] Does it portray the future of corporate reporting as you see it? Comments are due by February 5, 2021.

I have been trying to stir up the community to talk about materiality, primarily related to XBRL/Inline XBRL, but also related to other non-financial areas, such as Sustainability.

The executive summary for the FRC paper summarizes the discussion on materiality in this way:

“Materiality is essentially a filter for determining what information is included in a particular report. The general principle for materiality that we propose in the model is that materiality will be judged by reference to the communication objective of the specific report. We do not believe that a single definition of materiality is appropriate for all reports.”

The UK’s Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has published a thought-leadership piece, A Matter of Principles: The Future of Corporate Reporting.[1] Does it portray the future of corporate reporting as you see it? Comments are due by February 5, 2021.

Before I start in my thoughts on the paper here, I wanted to tell you (remind you) of a vision of the future that has stuck with me for a very long time. It was first presented to me at an AICPA technology conference by perennial keynote speaker Dana R. (Rick) Richardson, who strongly contributed to my own presentation style.

In 1987, Apple Inc. produced a video[2] about the interactive, personal future of computers, known as the “Knowledge Navigator.” Thirty-three years later, it is fascinating to compare and contrast the vision as detailed in the epilogue to John Sculley’s Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple with Apple’s product direction and the rest of the industry.

The UK Financial Reporting Council (FRC*) has published a thought-leadership piece, A matter of principles: The Future of Corporate Reporting (1). The 36-page discussion paper, with comments requested by February 5, 2021, “explores ideas for changes to the system of corporate reporting with a view to making it more effective and engaging for all those with an interest in a company.”

My ThinkTWENTY20 Editor in Chief Gerald Trites and I were discussing blockchain projects recently. ThinkTWENTY20 is, of course, a visible innovative magazine for financial professionals who want a deep dive into contemporary issues and their application to our profession and its practitioners. That means those with innovative solutions will reach out with press releases and editorial content ready to go.

Back in May, I had a Blog entry on Python, and whether financial professionals should know how to code in Python. See https://thinktwenty20.com/index.php/blog/478-should-financial-professionals-know-how-to-program-or-data-analytics-accountants-should-understand-them-and-have-toolsets-to-perform-them for a refresher. I mentioned the use of Jupyter Notebook as a means of storing and conveying the code and documentation and facilitating writing, testing and executing the code.

So far, in this series, we have discussed Robotic Process Automation as a tool to take dull, repetitive, static tasks and give them to computers instead of people, for greater satisfaction, speed and accuracy. Let’s talk a bit about who can teach their computers to do these things.