Accounting Industry: Big Data Challenges and Future Solutions

This essay explores the multifaceted impact of big data on the accounting industry. It delves into specific challenges such as data security, the complexities of handling large datasets, and the implications for auditing processes. The essay also examines how postgraduate students can contribute to navigating these challenges and adapting to the evolving landscape. Furthermore, it discusses the impact of big data on fair value accounting, managerial accounting, and cyber security. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of data quality and the need for accountants to develop new skills to effectively manage and utilize big data for improved decision-making and strategic outcomes. It highlights the opportunities for accountants to leverage big data analytics to transform traditional accounting practices and improve overall performance.

ESSAY

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Main body........................................................................................................................................1
Discuss the issues are impact to the accounting industry.......................................................1
Discuss how post graduates might help industry to adapt to this challenge of Big Data issue in
the future.................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Global development is broad concept of denoting the idea societies and countries have
differing levels of development for an international scale. This development is means to be the
long term and suitable Cao, Chychyla & Stewart, (2015). The industries are help to set range of
new opportunities and challenges to thinking the live and for work. The body of essay is
highlight issue big data which is requires to industry or graduate for finding out the ways of
solving challenges or risk and gain opportunities by that. Big data is impact and create problems
for managing account sections.
Main body
Discuss the issues impacting to accounting industry.
Data volumes are continuing to grow and so the possible data is available in the
organisation at every field. Big data impact to accounting industry because there are had large
number of data which are related to business and accounting students. There have lots of issues
which are impact to the accounting business which are related to the big data. The big data
application in accounting is early stage. The emergence of big data and data analytics are creates
opportunities for account for improve their skills and eligibility Chi & et.al., (2016). Below is
discussion of big data is impacting to accounting are as follows:
Handling big data
For accounting industry, it is difficult to understand insights of huge amount data because
in industry are available huge and complex data. This creates the biggest problem to the
management and accounting sections. Team of accounts are responsible for managing the funds
and take records of all about expenses which are related to the management and also establishing
the new business.
Data security
A lot of organisation is claim to management and faced various problem from big data
and its security. Data security is issues which is faced by the company. This the biggest
challenges which is faced by the accounting business Jin, Wah, Cheng & Wang, (2015). This
give negative impact to the business. The data is come into enterprises is made and available the
wide range of data from the various sources. Little are not secure and compliant within the
organisation standard. By this accounting sector and business are face problems from the big
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data security. Accounting department has the various data and they are had to take care of this.
For overcome this issue is data security, company can use the lots of security sources and
channels by this accounting data is safe and secure. By this company have opportunity is hackers
are not get any chance to hack this and they are move from their. That is necessary to introduce
the date security by suing the best practices for secure data collection. Practices are give proper
training to their employees for managing it Krahel & Titera, (2015).
Lack and shortage of skilled peoples
Lack and shortage of skilled peoples are also problem for the company. In the company
and accounting business are having the lots of employees and team members and all are not had
proper skills for managing the big data at the company. At there lack of skill and knowledge of
work is not in proper manners. In that have the lots of chances for create mistakes and also get
not understand in the manners. Lack of knowledge and information is created the problems for
company. In that company have opportunity to give training and development to their employees
for managing the big data and information Lee & Kang,(2015). By the training company have
opportunities by their skilled employees because after training there are able to handle all data
very easily and in effective manner.
Create problems for auditing
At the time of audit, auditor is facing challenges of huge amount of both structured and
unstructured data. Big data is creates the problems for auditor at the time of audit. Because they
are responsible for manage the accounting system of company and also done the cross check
previous data which is related to the account department of business. Auditor is also responsible
for managing the accounts of company. For overcome this issues manager can provide their
proper and right data to auditor and also try to make the short data. By this company gain
opportunities is like auditor is not take the lots for making audit report and also make clear
annual report (Big data are impacting accounting business, 2017).
That are the issues which are affect and give negative impact on accounting. It is
important to identify issues and make strategies for solving that. Big data is creates the problems
for accounting.
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Discuss how post graduates might help industry to adapt to this challenge of Big Data issue in
the future
Big Data refers to the large amount of information or data that is inundates by business
organisation on day-to-day basis. It can be analysed for the insights which leads to make better
decisions and various strategic moves taken by business organisations. But the big data can lead
to create various issues for business organisation as the big data is very complex in nature. Some
challenges and risks may be faced by business organisation during the integration of big
information or data. The issues that may be faced by business are uncertainty related with data
management, talent gap, getting the useful and relevant data into the structure of big data, its
volume, solution cost, skill availability, etc. The business enterprises face the issue for storing,
managing and utilizing and analysing the big data effectively Vasarhelyi, Kogan & Tuttle,
(2015). In the digitalized world, huge and large amount of data is produced in day-to-day
business activities and operations. Post graduate student who are working in the industry will get
impacted and struggle for finding out the effective ways for making huge amount of data useful.
The postgraduate students and other employees of business needs to focus on taking opportunity
and benefits provided by the big data and big data analytics. This will lead to bring effectiveness
and efficiency and also efficacy of the work.
Big data and financial accounting
Different data sources are integrated into the accounting information systems, such as
text, audio and video and are also gradually linked to the traditional data. The accountants need
to focus on enhancing the data analytical skills for dealing with the large volumes of available
data. This also includes automatically mined data like URL click by tracking, or content
engagement tracking or customer purchase data.
Issue of fair value accounting
The big data may also create challenges for post graduate students or employees through
the substantial changes in fair value accounting due to big data Wamba & et.al., (2017). For
example: Various companies which are specializing in collection and evaluation of selected data
through various sources can emerge, as the big data pertaining to fair value regarding assets and
liabilities may lead to mitigate the subjective assumptions in the estimates for fair value.
This challenge of big data can be resolved by creating value for the business and also to
cultivating evidence-based culture for decision-making rather than having one that is based on
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management opinions. This will lead to resolve the issues related with fair value accounting and
will also bring the opportunity and benefits of improving the performance management systems.
Challenges for managerial accounting
The big data also posses challenges and issues for the employees managing the
managerial accounting. The Business gets struggling for getting the valuable insights of business
organisation from the big data. The employees or accountants professionals need to change from
supporters of decision making to business partners.
This change is necessary in order to create effective value for the business and also for
cultivating the evidence based decision-making organisational culture. And rather than creating a
culture that is based on the opinions of management Warren Jr, Moffitt & Byrnes, (2015). The
management accountants will get effective results and outcomes by resolving this issue as it will
bring potential for improving the overall performance management system. By effectively
adopting the techniques of big data analytics, transformation of traditional management can be
done by implementing comprehensive controlling and monitoring systems.
Issue of Cyber attack
The commercially sensitive data that is available in the cloud is likely to be vulnerable
due to the cyber attack. The industry may also faces challenge of cyber attack due to the big data
structure. Thus, management accountants need to know more regarding the information security
and cyber due to the increasing concerns of cyber attack.
Issue of cyber attack can be overcome by having cyber-insurance or real time
intelligence. The cyber attack risk can be overcome by AI expansions as well. The robots may be
used for defending against the cyber-attacks. This will help in overcoming the issues and also
bring various advantages and benefits.
Issues in Auditing
The auditors also face various challenges due to the structure and unstructured data. The
structure data includes transactional data or general ledgers, whereas, unstructured data refers to
email, free-text fields available in database, voice texts, electronic tags or Wi-Fi sensors. The
sources for non-traditional data are also increasing and it may include description of free- text
payments, list of third party watch, news media, communications happening through emails and
social media. The auditors are responsible for using the big data in order to able to follow as how
the client's manager their own big data structures.
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The consequences of big data and data analytics tools which have become easily
available, thus, auditors can make use of big data for reducing the audit cost and also enhance
profitability. Auditors make use of big data so that they can get benefit of reducing the cost of
audits. The issues related to big data and auditing can be resolved by implementing the
confirmation. This helps accountants by providing the examples regarding the automated audit
confirmation. This provides all-in-one solutions which may help for minimising the fraud and
also elevates efficiency for the full process of audit confirmation.
Issues related to changes in accounting standards
The procedure of audit is changed and adjusted according to the big data structure. Thus,
big data brings potential changes in the accounting standards as well. The postgraduate and
employees needs to focus on data or information rather than its presentation regarding the
accounting standards Zhang, Yang & Appelbaum, (2015).
This issue can be resolved by embracing the concept of recognizing information or data
assets value. The accountants can resolve the issue of changing accounting standards by bring
change in the skills which are required in the professional accountants. They can consider the
different ways for enhancing their skills and knowledge for preparing for the challenges of big
data through CPD courses and they can also explore the various online resources.
Complexity for managing the quality of data
The big data is collected through diverse sources, thus employees or accountants find it
difficult for maintaining the quality of data. The formats of data differ from each other and thus
employees finds it difficult for matching them.
Employees may increase the quality for big data or analytical data by creating a proper and
relevant big data model as this will lead to match the different records of data if they are relating
to same entity. Employees may also focus on comparing the data with single point of truth in
order to effectively match the relevant data. The quality of big data can be maintained by
comparing the data with the single point of trust or comparing the variants of addresses with their
spellings in the system of postal database. The quality can also be improved by matching records
and merging them if they are relating to the same entity, Chiang, Grover, Liang & Zhang,
(2018).
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CONCLUSION
Big data refers to the field which treats ways for analysing and systematically extracting
the data or information from application software. The issue that is selected in the report is big
data challenges and opportunities. Big data and data analytics brings impacts on the business
accounting in many ways. The issues that may be created by big data and big data analytics
includes complexity for managing the data quality, changing, cyber attack and many more.
Accounting standards, The big data structure is implemented by business enterprises in order to
effectively manage, collect and analyse the data or information that is relevant to business. But it
also makes business to struggle for finding the effective ways for getting value through this data.
The structure of big data brings great influences on how business is conducted. This also brings
influences on how the different financial statements and audited are prepared. The issues of big
data and big data analytics can be resolved by business organisation and this leads to bring many
opportunities and benefits.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Cao, M., Chychyla, R., & Stewart, T. (2015). Big Data analytics in financial statement audits.
Accounting Horizons. 29(2). 423-429.
Chi & et.al., (2016). Big data for remote sensing: Challenges and opportunities. Proceedings of
the IEEE. 104(11). 2207-2219.
Chiang, R. H., Grover, V., Liang, T. P., & Zhang, D. (2018). Strategic Value of Big Data and
Business Analytics.
Jin, X., Wah, B. W., Cheng, X., & Wang, Y. (2015). Significance and challenges of big data
research. Big Data Research. 2(2). 59-64.
Krahel, J. P., & Titera, W. R. (2015). Consequences of Big Data and formalization on
accounting and auditing standards. Accounting Horizons. 29(2). 409-422.
Lee, J. G., & Kang, M. (2015). Geospatial big data: challenges and opportunities. Big Data
Research. 2(2). 74-81.
Vasarhelyi, M. A., Kogan, A., & Tuttle, B. M. (2015). Big Data in accounting: An overview.
Accounting Horizons. 29(2). 381-396.
Wamba & et.al., (2017). Big data analytics and firm performance: Effects of dynamic
capabilities. Journal of Business Research. 70. 356-365.
Warren Jr, J. D., Moffitt, K. C., & Byrnes, P. (2015). How Big Data will change accounting.
Accounting Horizons. 29(2). 397-407.
Zhang, J., Yang, X., & Appelbaum, D. (2015). Toward effective Big Data analysis in continuous
auditing. Accounting Horizons. 29(2). 469-476.
ONLINE
Big data are impacting accounting business. 2017. [online]. Available through:
<https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/resources/impact-big-data-business/>
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