IT chiefs at listed companies could soon have to undertake a massive overhaul of their reporting systems. That is if a cabal of the world's biggest auditing firms gets its way and legislation is introduced forcing companies to provide performance reports to investors in real time.

The calls for this radical overhaul of the traditional quarterly-based reporting system were made earlier this month in a vision paper from the International Audit Network, which includes Deloitte, KPMG, PwC and Ernst & Young. In the paper the firms argue that "the current systems of reporting and auditing company information will need to change — toward the public release of more non-financial information… customised to the user, and accessed far more frequently than is currently done".

It sets out a long-term goal of a new reporting framework that will see listed companies obliged to deliver more non-financial information to shareholders and to use technology to inform shareholders of changes to the business as they happen.

William Parrett, CEO of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, said in a statement that " at a time when technology is as advanced as it is, information is available online and there is a clear demand for customised information, the [auditing] profession is proposing forward-looking ideas to support this information need" .

However, such a change in reporting regulations would pose a massive challenge to many firms, according to James Fisher, director of product marketing at business performance management software specialist Cartesis. " From a technology perspective, real-time reporting is achievable," he said. " But there are a number of companies that still can’t report accurately on a year-end basis - so these proposals would require huge changes."

Bill Hewitt, CEO of data warehousing firm Kalido, agreed many firms would have to make unprecedented changes to their IT systems to comply with such reporting requirements. "There has long been a disconnect between IT and their business and financial colleagues, but for real-time reporting to work, it will be imperative for companies to develop approaches - and deploy technologies - that make better sense of their information and reduce the time taken to deliver this to the executives in charge," he said.

Fisher added that while changes to the current reporting systems were required, any move towards real-time reporting had to be undertaken gradually. "We need to see a framework of new best practice measures developed with real-time reporting as the end goal," he said.

However, Mike Davis of analysts Ovum said that while developing real-time reporting systems capable of delivering financial and non-financial data to shareholders would be "hugely expensive" and require a massive investment in integrating existing systems, it could also deliver major benefits.

"Having bang-up-to-date data for shareholders would also mean you'd have bang-up-to-date data for managers, which would have to help performance and if you did it early enough could deliver a competitive advantage," he explained. " Also, it would stop another Sanjay [Kumar, the CA CEO who was recently jailed for fraud]."