Grant Thornton has issued inter.x, a blockchain platform for handling intercompany transactions. The firm has executed the new platform in-house. Still, it is also accessible to clients to manage dealings between financial entities of a business, which account for 30-40% of the global economy.

Inter.x surrenders real-time data-analytics dashboards that control these intercompany transactions, including transfer pricing compliance and treasury management.

Grant Thornton approaches new technology by studying at the global business problems its clients are facing, according to chief transformation officer Jamie Fowler. “The business problem here had to do with intercompany transactions, particularly for our multinational clients,” she said in a statement. “They were having difficulty making sure both sides of the intercompany transactions matched, they were properly accounted for, and that they could feel assured they were good.”

Fowler revealed that although intercompany transactions appear easy, they are the fifth largest cause of financial restatements. ‘We find that a lot of our clients don’t have extra personnel to make sure these transactions flow properly through their ERP systems and are correct.”

The inter.x solution combines with a business’s ERP systems, aggregates data, and generates an end-to-end workflow that performs as a single transaction. This enables companies to identify and make important decisions rather than waiting until a monthly or annual accounting cycle.

Because it is produced on a blockchain, inter.x enables users to track and account for intercompany transactions with an immutable audit trail — that is, the integrity of the audit data persists over time. The result is a permanent and unforgeable audit trail for transaction information.

“The response from treasury management has been the most interesting,” Fowler said in a statement. “I think because it’s just really hard to get our arms around everything these days during the pandemic, organizations are struggling to make sure they get every part of their response right. Cash is moving so quickly, changes are happening quickly, and cash needs are at the forefront of everybody’s thought process right now.”