Automating commission payments

It is a rather frightening thought that in the 21st century, the vast majority of advisers still reconcile what is effectively their sales ledger using processes that are for the most part paper based. While advisers will generally keep their accounting records on computer, the vast majority of the information concerning payments from insurers has to be entered into their systems manually. How many other industries can you think of where this would be tolerated? There have, of course, been standards for the electronic transfer of commission information for the best part of 10 years ...