Opinion: Would You Manage Your Accounting Out of a Spreadsheet?

After all these years working in this space, I am amazed at how many companies still run their compliance assurance out of Microsoft Excel.  I’m not just talking about small businesses; many of these companies are large, multinational firms.

Let’s compare accounting and compliance for a moment.  In accounting,  inaccurate or incomplete record keeping can result in fines and regulatory trouble, especially for publicly traded companies.  Additionally, lack of accurate data will impact the operations of the company – management cannot make good business decisions without it.  Payables, receivables, reporting: the data is constantly changing.  Additionally, every transaction (who, what, when, where) must be recorded and the evidence must be immutable.

Can’t the same points be made regarding environmental, health and safety compliance?   Dealing with regulatory change management is difficult.  Anyone who spends any time eyeballing the federal and state registers knows just how frequently the regulations change.  In order to avoid fines, sanctions and bad press, don’t companies need thorough and accurate data around that compliance?

Because of the above points, companies spend a lot of time, effort and dollars ensuring they have a robust and accurate accounting system, oftentimes integrating it with other back-office systems.  So why is there a lack of urgency, process and systems around Environmental, Health and Safety compliance at many of these companies?  I have my own theories, but I’d be much more interested in hearing yours.

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