Information technology has reshaped the world of finance. From high-frequency trading to computer-driven price building mechanisms – everything has become faster and more frequent. Yet while finance has embraced electronic data-processing on a far greater scale than others, one part of the industry appears to be frozen in time: quarterly reporting.

With the exception of shortening deadlines for filings, few changes have occurred to the decades-old tradition of reporting that reflect the vast improvements afforded by IT. We are thus missing opportunities to lower our cost of capital and to tighten financial management. In the age of real-time news feeds and Twitter, the speed at which financial information is updated is akin to that of printed encyclopedias.

This suits many executives just fine. For many of today’s chief financial officers, more frequent reporting holds little appeal. Regulation has significantly increased over the last decade – think Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank – creating a much greater burden of disclosure. But improving reporting speed can bring a significant benefit to companies and their CFOs – namely, the reduction of their cost of capital.