I have often wondered whether the tradi­tional method of providing audited financial state­ments to clients is really serving them as well as we could be. We print them up on nice thick paper with the firm’s letterhead and spiral bound the package with a tasteful, under­stated title page, followed by our solemn audit report.

Is this still the best we can do?

How about providing the client with their audited state­ments on a USB key with the firm’s logo embossed on it? When the client inserts the key into their computer, the screen goes black before the menu options fade in allowing the client to select the auditor’s report, balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement, summary of signif­icant policies, or notes.

How about when they choose the balance sheet or income statement, and there is a note related to a line item, they can click the note reference and the note itself either pops up or slides into view under­neath the line item? Do we think clients enjoy flipping back and forth? Is the profession so behind the times that we’re still doing state­ments like it’s 1960?

Technology has advanced, why aren’t we?

Even further, why can’t those same electronic state­ments generate infor­mative graphs and visual repre­sen­ta­tions of critical ratios on the fly from the data? We could incor­porate more than just the prior year in compar­ative numbers.

Imagine a client being able to take a single USB key provided by their accounting firm into a presen­tation to the Board, and having every­thing right there on it? Just throwing the key into the slot and selecting options on the fly. Wouldn’t that be value added client service?