Before understanding why I felt the need for a financial clinic, let’s recall how our body works. Nature has integrated various parts of our body and gifted us with 5 senses to interact with the environment. As soon as the environment changes, our body reacts accordingly; that’s why our body is termed an open system. If we introduce any unwanted substance into our body, synchronization among body parts gets disrupted, and we need a doctor to identify the reason and resynchronize the body. All of this takes place at a clinic.
Now, let’s delve into the technological changes that have transformed the ways of doing business.
In the recent 8-10 years, be it in a CBS or ERP environment, the concept of an accounting department has been abolished, and the notion of a finance department has emerged. If we examine the functional features of ERP or CBS, all the 5 Ms of production have been integrated as one. As soon as a transaction begins with order booking by the marketing department, all other departments commence their predefined roles. It begins with the dispatch deadline while booking an order and concludes with the printing of delivery challans, requiring minimal manual intervention, primarily in the form of simple affirmatives or negatives (flags in ERP or CBS).
With the advent of ERP, the concept of Blockchain has been envisioned and is taking shape. Soon, we will witness a future business model where consumer demands, made online or through mobile apps, will be automatically converted into order bookings (based on predefined parameters like inventory levels) leading to dispatch bookings.
During the business cycle starting from order booking by consumers to dispatches, all the taxation part will be taken care by system itself as now a day’s most of the financial laws has got structured and therefore manual intervention will be avoided on procedural parts and there will be only scope for us and that too because of disputes on account of interpretation will remain for us to handle as taxation experts.
For the success of forthcoming business model which has already started to take shape, all the modules or departmental modules will have to be synchronized in such a way that all departments plays their pre-defined or say structured roles. It’s like that whenever we breath or intake food, our body parts starts working in pre defined manner. A slight failure of working or poor performance of any body parts demands for clinical treatment. Likewise that when all the parts/segment/departments of a business house will work together, failure or poor performance by any department will result in to breaking of block chain and if not treated properly and timely, business will collapse likewise human body. Therefore, an in future chartered accountant who understands business better than other professionals will have to work like a doctor. And a general physician can prescribe you normal medicine but we need an MD or expert for every single part of body, so rather than being general practitioner, we need to be specialized in any particular part or segment of the business.
Now let us come to why we need financial clinics: looking to the complexity of the business and technology, we need to do the proper analysis of the business model and mode of operandi so that problem areas can be identified and cured. Even for audit purposes, we need to critically analyze the process and controls involved into it so that all the financial assertions are accomplished without errors and that will be audit only like SOX compliance is being done in many countries. Suppose, if we starts a financial clinic where not only taxation matters are dealt with but we may take care of each and every matter of business with an expert in that field. So in my view, to survive in future we need to work as an area expert likewise a cardio or a neuro does for a hospital and for that financial clinic is the best option where we may arrange and provide all the facilities so that clients need not to move here and there.
Conclusion: With businesses evolving at a breakneck pace, driven by technological advancements, the traditional ways of overseeing financial operations are becoming obsolete. Financial clinics, with their specialized services, are not just the need of the hour, but the future. They promise to offer businesses the specialized care they require, ensuring optimal health and growth in an increasingly complex landscape.
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