PCA survey: 65.1% of companies have adopted electronic delivery for payment statements, while login and password management remain the top barrier

PCA Corporation, a developer and seller of cloud-based core business systems including PCA Arch, which uses AI technology to support finance, accounting, HR, labor management, and sales management in one stop, conducted a survey on the creation and management of payment statements. The survey targeted 110 people responsible for corporate payment operations and issuing payment statements, and was conducted from March 18 to March 19, 2026. According to the survey, 23.6% of respondents submit 500 or more payment statements annually to tax offices, while 21.8% submit between 100 and fewer than 500. For payment statements sent to recipients, the largest group, 25.5%, sends 500 or more per year. Regarding creation methods, 48.2% use commercial statutory statement software, while 30.9% still use self-made Excel or Word formats. As for frequency, 45.5% enter one month’s worth of data at the end of each month, and 41.8% process everything once a year during the January statutory report submission period. For the workflow between accounting software and payment statement data entry, 43.6% first enter journal entries in accounting software and then transfer or link that data to payment statements, while 38.2% first enter payment data into a system and generate accounting entries from there. For delivery to recipients, 65.1% have already introduced web distribution or electronic delivery and mainly deliver data electronically. Another 22.0% still print and mail or hand-deliver paper documents while considering digitization. The largest barrier to adopting electronic delivery is that recipients dislike the burden of logging into a dedicated site and managing passwords, cited by 34.3%. This was followed by concerns that system implementation and operating costs do not justify the benefits, at 22.9%. If electronic delivery were introduced, 37.1% said the most acceptable method for recipients would be viewing documents simply by clicking a URL in an email, without logging in. For collecting My Number personal identification numbers, 41.8% use a dedicated cloud service that allows recipients to photograph and upload documents via smartphone, while 24.5% receive image data or copies by email. Current inconveniences in systems or Excel include being able to register only one address, making it impossible to separately manage registered residence and mailing addresses, and limits on the number of digits for payment amounts, each cited by 41.8%. Name field restrictions that prevent accurate entry of maiden names, pen names, or long katakana names were cited by 37.3%. Desired system functions include automatically generating accounting journal data from payment statement data, at 45.5%; sending payment notices in bulk by email to eliminate manual enclosing and shipping work, at 42.7%; and bulk updating recipient information such as address changes while managing change histories, at 41.8%. PCA concluded that while digitization of payment statement operations has progressed to a certain extent, psychological and operational burdens on recipients remain the biggest obstacle. Delivery methods that prioritize recipient convenience, such as URL-based viewing without login, will be key to further digitization. At the same time, demand is high for functions that reduce manual work for staff, including journal linkage and bulk email delivery, indicating the need for comprehensive system renewal to advance DX across payment statement operations. PCA also introduced its cloud-based statutory statement creation software for small and midsize businesses, PCA Cloud Statutory Statements, and said the latest Rev6.70 version released on April 21, 2026 supports electronic delivery to recipients through integration with eDOC, reducing the burden on both issuers and recipients.