Impact of technology on the role of accounting PDF

Running head: IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON THE ROLE OF ACCOUNTANTS
Impact of Technology on the Role of Accountants
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note

1IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON THE ROLE OF ACCOUNTANTS
Introduction
In the modern days the role of technology has become immensely important and all
the organisations has adopted all the policies to promote the use of technology. Accountancy
is a important aspect of an organisation by applying the principles of accountancy the
company use to record all the financial transactions of the company. The accountants are the
person who are responsible to record all the accounting entries. The companies on the
modern days use technical tools for recording the accounting entries, for which the
accountants become more dependent on the technology and that reduce the use of human
resource in the field of accountancy.
The AI revolution has bring a new dimension in the business world and in the job
market.it is expected that the evolution of the artificial intelligence system will replace almost
500 million jobs by the year 2030. Initially it is assumed that the artificial technology will
affect the job of the low level workers but gradually it is observed that in the future the AI
technology is going to effect the job of the middle level workers of the organisation like the
accountants. This made the accountants to worry about their career and they assume that AI
will make them obsolete.
Discussion
In the modern days with the invention of various artificial intelligence tools it become
more easy to keep record of accounting events which leads to the less use of manual methods
of recording the accounting transactions. Accounting means summarising recording and
tracking all the transactions that have some material value. the modern methods of
accountancy needs to keep the records in a systematic and scientific way so that it ensure that
all the transactions are recorded accurately and that the financial statement does not contain
any error.

2IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON THE ROLE OF ACCOUNTANTS
The companies depend on the accountants for error free reporting financial visibility
and long-term growth. The manual methods requires huge time as the manual process
involves preparation of invoices, writing of cheques, and at the last stage it requires the
approval of the management. It also requires lot of manual calculations and this leads in to
the occurrence of the human error. Miscalculation typing error and other human errors
spoiled many working hours and that lead to the loss of productivity.
The implementation of artificial intelligence in the accounting process will reduce the
occurrence of the human errors and this will save many working hours. The artificial
intelligence will quickly detect the errors and thereby helps to keep error free accounting
entries. It is observed that the application of the artificial intelligence has boost up the
accuracy by at least seventy percent. The artificial intelligence also increases the output, the
number of invoices that can be raised by applying the artificial intelligence method is far
more in number in comparison with the manual methods of accounting. The manual invoice
entry requires more cost than the artificial intelligence. With the automated process like e-
invoicing, invoices are stored digitally regardless of the fact that how the suppliers send these
invoices.
In three ways, artificial intelligence can improve the accounting workflow these are
mentioned below:
AI saves time
The organisations use artificial intelligence system to save time, the accounting
software vendors are deploying artificial intelligence and machine learning for book keeping
tasks like data entry, journal entry posting, reconciliation of books of accounts and many
other time consuming jobs. Automation of these time consuming tasks saves more time for

3IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON THE ROLE OF ACCOUNTANTS
the organisation for which they can give more focus on customer service and making
strategies for business development (Wilson, Daugherty and Bianzino 2017).
AI reduces errors
The major concern with the human based accounting system is that it contains many
human errors like incorrect data entry, accidentally deleting entries, overriding data of the
organisation, misinterpretation of any financial transaction and thereby making wrong
posting of the data, error in calculation, recording of wrong amount and many other mistakes
which are common for any human being. With the evolution of the artificial system it become
possible for the organisations to reduce the occurrence of these mistakes (Sutton, Holt and
Arnold 2016).
Artificial intelligence system reduces the occurrence of these errors by automatic
functions that file the right data at the right place. The artificial intelligence system with its
machine learning capacity able to observe the human inputs and can categorise the data in to
the right accounts. For example if any organisation has to pay a monthly subscription
telephone bill and a prepaid mobile bill the AI system will easily determine their
distinguishing features and categorise these items into different type of accounts (Issa, Sun
and Vasarhelyi 2016).
AI system provides accurate solutions, reduces errors through machine learning
features like the automated coding system. Automatic system streamline all the informations
without any manual entry, and thereby reduces the occurrence of human errors (Pannu,
2015).