Digital Financial Reporting

In his paper, Toward Assurance on Demand, Joris Hulstijn of Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands outlines both a vision of and framework for digital assurance reports for digital financial reports.

The paper discusses audits, reviews, and compilations; not just audits.  The paper mentions how the credit rating departments of banks are setting up a kind of "auditing" services themselves.  He says accountants would like to win back this market.

The author discusses more targeted assurance and assurance reports for specific classes of users of financial information, rather than every user fitting into one general group.  Assurance profiles is what he calls this idea.

If you truly understand digital financial reporting you will realize that a lot of things have the potential to change accounting work practices. The accounant's report is no exception: audit, review or compilation.

This is a very thought provoking and insightful paper, particularly for professional accountants who offer assurance services.