The din of your family in the background (or complete silence if you live by yourself), and household chores have crossed over into our professional lives over the last few months. While some of us simply miss the familiar routine of waiting for our PCs/Laptops to warm up as we grab a hot cup of coffee/tea, others miss the early morning team sessions that got them rolling for the day.
We are all adapting to this professional diaspora in our own ways. The IRIS team, for example, has organized a system of shared calendars and tools like QuickScrum to bring efficiency to our work from the home process. Our colleagues have also set aside half an hour a week to just catch up and have a virtual tea party for casual conversations. We’ve modified our workplace rituals to suit work from home. Things have changed since everyone started working from home, especially since we were used to preparing iXBRL reports in our workplace.
Here’s what we’ve learned in the last few months that we hope will help you:
Make sure your data is secure
Working from home means more frequent online interaction and exchange of sensitive financial information, even one breach could make the organization vulnerable. Make sure you follow the
security guidelines established by your IT team. Install the software they recommend and follow their guidelines on data sharing.
You can also consider using a VPN to establish a secure connection. Depending on your security needs, use a VPN for your entire workplace or just for yourself.
Where your unpublished financial data is concerned, make sure that you choose a solution that
is an American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) audited and approved platform.
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Automate your process
Automation is not just about convenience, its purpose is to establish a good flow for your iXBRL activities. Automating a task will help you to achieve the same results more efficiently while saving a substantial amount of time, an aspect that is invaluable to the current work-from-home scenario. When we shifted to a work-from-home system, one of the main reasons we were still able to meet our quick turn-around time was because of IRIS CARBON’s® essential automation features. The platform’s features combined with our team’s proactiveness played a key role in ensuring our transition to work from home.
Make collaboration easy
Smart applications and software play a key role in ensuring a smooth collaboration. When our clients started working from home, they switched to IRIS CARBON®’s smart review and intuitive dashboard for their update and review process. They also used the iXBRL platform’s in-built features to assign tasks to team members and track the status of the reports. The platform also ensures secure access to all major stakeholders in this process, whether it’s the CFO or the accountant, everyone’s accountability is confirmed without micromanagement or constant follow-up. As work from home became the norm, this shift in approach made the transition less cumbersome.
Choose the right tool
There’s a reason that regulators recommend specific iXBRL solutions for annual report preparation. While you will find varying price points and different levels of functionality, zeroing in on a solution that will meet your specific needs is crucial. When you’re deciding on an iXBRL solution, remember that it needs to deliver quality, come with a reliable support team, be cost-effective, and should suit a work-from-home life. Most importantly, before you decide which solution to go with, ensure that you get a detailed demo of the product.
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Work, whether we do it from home or from the other side of the universe, is work. It keeps us grounded to reality and gives us strength during adversity. Our work is our anchor in a crisis, often acts as our purpose to carry on, to help us cope with circumstances that are not in our control. So whatever you do professionally, no matter the challenges you may face, find ways to do it well.
We hope to be able to support you in our own way. So if you’re looking for an efficient and sustainable solution to streamline the last mile of your reporting process or an XBRL solution that will ease your compliance process, we’re here to help.
