Integrated cloud financial accounting cycle. How artificial intelligence, blockchain, and XBRL will change the accounting, fiscal and auditing practices

In the business world the accounting cycle is characterized by numerous interconnected processes [1]. However, despite the invention of new technologies useful in each step of the process, their integration still appears limited and their potential is still little exploited. Here, the authors link all the available technologies to every step of the financial accounting cycle, envisaging the use of a cloud platform on which to build a solid integrated system. Although integration is far from easy (it is no coincidence that it has not happened yet) this model takes into account all the practical needs of the stakeholders involved in the process: accountants, chartered accountants, auditors, governments, public and fiscal authorities, shareholders, creditors, data analysts. This novel approach can seriously offer a breakthrough to accounting and finance big data management [2][3]. This represents an effective method to solve various challenges such as tax evasion, tax avoidance, money laundering, accounting errors, high data storage costs, high audit risks, difficult and unreliable reconciliations, data collection and data analysis, lack of comparability between financial statement of companies based in different countries [4][5].