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O THER AR TICLES • Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) • Importance data Integrity, confidentiality and According to Gartner’s ERP Market Share Update loss protection published on May 5, 2014, the worldwide ERP In a contemporary business world, data is as software market stands at $25.4B in 2013. The valuable as money itself. Therefore, protecting its market share of major ERP players worldwide are as integrity, confidentiality and protecting it from follows: loss is of paramount importance. Out of all types of information organization carries and stores, financial information occupies the most prominent position. With finance professionals as guardians for financial information of the Company , it is important that they are well aware about how to keep its integrity, confidentiality and protect from loss and have a robust backup plan in case of any disaster to Information System. Human Resource (HR) People represent the most important aspect of any organization, they are the reasons organizations hit the pinnacle of growth and success and they are often responsible of its dismal downfall. Although, the area of human resource is quite vast, however, there are three important areas which finance professionals should be aware of. The details of which are as follows: *Source: Gartner’s ERP Market Share Update • Partnering with HR department This enormous size of ERP market clearly exhibits An Economist Intelligence Unit of The Economist its importance to every business these days. Often, Finance people are involved in implementation of these ERPs. Infact, finance has a key role to play in its implementation as the notion goes for every Information System “garbage in, garbage out”. So, it is important that accurate data is being inputted with processing of data ensuring compliance to laws and regulations to have desired results as output/information. Also, with rapid changes in taxation laws, it is important that related changes are timely made to the system to ensure adherence to laws. • Audit Software The use of IT in audit has clearly revolutionized the whole audit profession. Initially, IT was mainly used as a documentation tool. However, these days audit softwares drive the whole audit process to deliver quality audits while ensuring efficiency and covering all related audit risks. Therefore, now a days, it has become a key requirement for every finance professional in practice to be able to use and understand the workability of these softwares so to be able to deliver quality audits. Not only that, now professional in practice needs to continuously evolved audit methodologies using information technology to ensure compliance with auditing standards and delivering customers expectations of timely completion of audits without compromising its effectiveness. The Pakistan Accountant | Apr-Jun 2014 15