Globalization and information enomy demand significant innovations in the financial reporting process. The mplex nvergence process to achieve the goal of a mmon set of high-quality global acunting standards such as International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is a challenge.Another challenge for the capital markets and regulators around the globe is to face the new way of mmunicating and sharing business data: the use of digital and standardized financial vocabularies such as the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL).

Effective financial reporting in the 21st century is not only about the quality of acunting rules: it also depends heavily on their technological implementation. Two main critical issues emerge from this scenario: the impact of the new IFRS/XBRL acunting and reporting model on the quality and reliability of financial information produced; and the need for new tools to verify and analyze such information. Digital and standardized business reporting most likely will transform financial statement analysis into an automated process, while it will also expedite the delivery of information to the users via the web.