What better way to start a seminar on digitalisation and robotics than with a real robot: ours is called dBot! And when Jarda Beneš, a director in Deloitte’s Tax and Legal function, asked him to welcome the guests in his place, he did not forget to add that he was very much looking forward to all the presentations and the panel discussion. “I’ve heard that you have new work for my software friends,” dBot continued his introductory speech and then he began to dance to the sound of Macarena, to the surprise of everyone in attendance.

ROBOTISATION IN EVERY FIRM…
dBot was presented at the seminar mostly just as a matter of interest, because a different type of technology is used in the digitalisation of financial processes. “They are not walking or talking machines, they are essentially a computer software that complements people, they have clearly defined rules and structured tasks,” explained Jan Voříšek from Deloitte.

Their advantage? They can do in one minute what a person can do in fifteen. “One of the huge advantages of robotics is undoubtedly the fact that results are tangible within days, weeks at most,” Petr Čapoun, another of Deloitte’s speakers, added to his colleague’s words.

IMPACTS OF AUTOMATION IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC
As for the deployment of software automation, i.e. RPA (Robotic Process Automation), Czech companies are advanced in this process. According to Deloitte’s research, more than half of the companies are considering introducing RPA or they have already begun its implementation in enterprise systems. “The technology is spreading equally fast throughout the world and for us it is an opportunity to increase the growth of economy as a whole. All the other countries are on the starting line, if we start later than they do, they could get ahead of us so much that we would never catch up,” pointed out David Marek, Deloitte’s chief analyst whose lecture focused on the impact of automation in the Czech Republic.

According to the aforementioned study, 51% of job positions could most probably be replaced by technology already today. “Unemployment could rise in the short term, but we expect that labour markets will be sufficiently flexible, so the technological impacts on unemployment should not have to be high. Technology certainly threatens job positions, but it simultaneously creates new ones,” David Marek added.

WHERE IS DIGITALISATION HEADED?

Another essential topic of the seminar was tax reporting. “Tax administrators collect more and more information, tax authorities use more advanced investigation techniques, they have special tools for data analysis,” says Jarda Beneš, adding: “Moreover, they are starting to understand the business context – for example, as part of transfer pricing they ask about the basis of the entity’s business, what risks it bears, what its profile is like. They are also starting to connect information from various sources, e.g. data from the local sales/purchases report can serve as the starting point for a transfer pricing audit.”

But what is key: The profile of the new employees of financial administration changes, they are often people with a technical specialisation, they are more data analytics and programmers than typical accountants. The tax authority collects data about an entity throughout the period and it is able to quickly compare them with the tax returns filed. Consequences? “Companies have to be able to react within the accounting systems in a way that will allow them to prepare the correct information for discussion with the financial administration,” says Petr Čapoun.

THE PAPERLESS TREND MAY HAVE ALREADY AFFECTED YOUR OFFICE…
The seminar was also dedicated to the current paperless trend. But how to use it in practice, when paper appears in offices in a wide range of areas. The financial department needs to print out invoices, logistics needs transportation documents, production need quality reports, the business department needs contracts… and we could go on across the company.

“More and more companies are aware that it is a problem that is not sustainable in the long term and that it is necessary to get rid of paper in the office, this is an undeniable fact,” Petr Čapoun pointed out. “A paradox is that a company gets e.g. 44% of invoices electronically, but two thirds of them are printed out so that the company could process them the way it is used to.”

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) could help expand this trend, as it affects handling data, their storage, security and for example also their subsequent shredding. If you convert the data to the electronic format, the whole process is much easier than if you work with a paper archive.