Thomson Reuters quietly buffed up its audit tool suite this week with the announcement that they’ve signed a “definitive agreement” to acquire Confirmation, everyone’s favorite way to get confirmations without using interns.
The details of the deal are secret but we can only imagine it involves truckloads of money based on what we know about Confirmation’s ridiculously brilliant business model and the many, many firms that use the service. According to Thomson Reuters’ press release, the acquisition allows them to expand on their “strategic objective to provide more software and cloud-based offerings and will meet a growing market need for accounting professionals globally, aligning with Thomson Reuters focus on its core offerings in legal, tax, compliance and risk.” In other words, they realized Confirmation is making cash hand over fist and wanted some of that hot confirmation action.
Charlotte Rushton, president, Tax & Accounting Professionals, Thomson Reuters added, “The audit industry is changing rapidly, with confirmations being a critical, yet previously challenging part of the process. New technologies and the widespread electronic storage of financial information are now making audit transformation possible. We believe that acquiring Confirmation will enable Thomson Reuters to: scale Confirmation by leveraging our extensive audit firm relationships and channel to accelerate cross-sell and adoption; better serve the needs of our audit customers, including providing them with additional capabilities as part of our Cloud Audit Suite; expand Confirmation globally, and use our existing customer relationships and capabilities to grow Non-Bank confirmations.”
Confirmation founder Brian Fox will join Thomson Reuters after the ink dries on the deal and stay on in an executive role.
RIP, mailed confirmations, we hardly knew ye.
