The Future of the Accountant: Adapting to Change

Over the years, technology has revolutionised our daily lives and as technology continues to advance the pace of change will only get faster.

The accounting profession is affected by these technological advancements, and with it, the traditional accountant has begun evolving as well because it has to adapt to this change in order for the profession to survive.

Accounting software is slowly taking over the traditional duties of the accountant, today’s accountant should not be burdened with task-oriented projects. With each passing year various accounting softwares and tools are automating more and more tasks and taking over the traditional role of the accountant.

Because of that, many accountants fear that technology will completely wipe out their role and eliminate their use in companies but that won’t happen.

Consider this, in the 80’s before the computer was made available to the masses, companies had a number of accountants in one room with ledgers recording every single transaction as it happened and then they would have another accountant that would put those ledgers together and produce financial statements.

Then computers were introduced and this revolutionised the accounting industry, companies no longer needed to have a lot of accountants to record transactions because all the transactions were recorded as soon as they were done by the computer.

Did this end the accounting profession?

No, the role of the accountant never disappeared but rather it evolved and today we have a high number of accountants than they were in the 80’s.

With further technological advancements the accounting profession will only continue to evolve.

Because of technology, Problems and challenges that did not exist two years ago now exist and this also creates opportunities as more employers will be looking more for professions that can find the solutions and have a more strategic role in the organisation.

The future of finance and a business will depend on accountant’s ability to change and adapt to the new requirements.

More accountants and financial controllers will begin to take on roles of becoming business managers and business advisors to meet some of the globalisation challenges that are being brought about today.

Today’s finance leaders have to anticipate change and identify approaches to capitalize on these changes.

This ability will determine the extent of how far the accounting profession will evolve

How do we, as accountants, prepare ourselves to incoming changes?

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