Impact of Technology on Accounting: A Comprehensive Report

This report delves into the profound impact of technology on the accounting sector, examining how automation, cloud computing, mobile accounting, and OCR are reshaping traditional practices. It explores the evolving skills required of accountants, emphasizing the importance of both technical proficiency and ethical considerations. The report investigates the changing career opportunities within the field, analyzing the effects of automation on job markets in the UK and the USA, and the surprising statistics related to job displacement. It also provides insights into the adoption of accounting standards and the viewpoints of different countries. The report is based on group observation and surveys over the current scenario of accounting jobs at UK and various countries.

A report , group activity minutes,
job advertisement

Table of Contents
A report , group activity minutes, job advertisement.......................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
A. .....................................................................................................................................................1
Current and future technology, skills of accountant, ethics and career opportunities............1
B.......................................................................................................................................................3
Surprised information.............................................................................................................3
C.......................................................................................................................................................5
Changes and adoption.............................................................................................................5
D.......................................................................................................................................................6
Group opinion.........................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
In the past few decades, there has been increase in automation for completion of business
operations. It has replaced various tasks that has been done by the help of individuals, and has
the great impact over accounting sector. As per the present report, there has been various
changes in the field of making the financial reports, planning taxation over the assessable
incomes, auditing etc. these all accounting duties were replaced by the use of several soft-wares
and machineries. The technical advancement is the need of current world but it has reflectively
provokes the unemployment. The assignment is based on group observation and surveys over the
current scenario of accounting jobs at UK and various countries. The technical reform can take
place of making the financial report with the help of various soft-wares and devices and the
artificial intelligence.
A.
Current and future technology, skills of accountant, ethics and career opportunities
As per current requirements in multiple industries regarding completion of a task at less
duration of time and with accuracy, which develops the need for implementing technology. In
every course of work like accounting, manufacturing and designing a product all laborious work
is replaced by technologies and soft-wares (How Technology Is Changing The Accounting And
Bookkeeping Industry, 2016). Reformation in the industrial operations is being done at the point
of increasing productivity, profitability and quality in each piece of work. As per researches
made by the group which describes that now a days due to implementation of technology in
accounting filed has reduced importance of accounting professionals in handling financial
transactions. There is implementation on the new technologies and which will be advanced in
future such as:
Cloud computation: This technology will facilitate organisations in making financial
reports at any where and the data will be saved in cloud server. Whenever there is need of data
an individual do not need to go for scrolling all informations which are filled in devices. They
can be able to use all information at any where without depending several devices to fetch all
data (Judge, Li and Pinsker, 2010). It is an Internet based accounting software which will bring
benefits in retaining all informations regarding company's financial informations such as yearly
turnover, expenses and analysing the growth they have achieved in past years.
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Improvements in taxation: Internet accounting will be important in getting updated
about the current taxation, rates and interest of country. It will help accountant in keeping all the
records in up-to date with current rates (Deegan, 2012). There will be introduction of various tax
soft-wares which can be fruitful in accurate taxation and alert organisation before tax penalties.
These soft-wares will help accountants in making audit of all accounts as it is fully automated
and come with the accurate results based of current rates. It will reduce duration of making an
audit of firm's accounts.
Mobile accounting: cell phones or mobile devices are increasingly used by every single
individual which is in context with facilitating services at different locations. Various accounting
soft-wares or applications were helping to promote mobile accounting which can be done by any
person at any location and at any time. The user need to feed the financial data in such soft-wares
and than it comes with final results (Brown, 2011). These are the best and prompt method that a
person need not to wait for hours to get corrective outcomes. It took few minutes to calculate and
gain adequate solution. It will help accountants and managers of a company in having reports
regarding all financial data on prompt time and if there is any mistake or loophole which will be
checked and corrective action can be made of time.
OCR: These technological reform will facilitates to convert a scanned document and
files such as PDF or images into editable document (Hail, Leuz and Wysocki, 2010). Where a
person will be able to make changes in such documents and fill necessary information. These
soft-wares are very essential for every individual that will help in reducing time for developing
the same formate again and adding all transaction in it.
Skills and ethics of an accountant
As per the name accountant is a person who look over and execute the accounting system
in an organisation. In these jobs there is requirement of professional training to all the accountant
as he should be well aware with all accounting techniques, methods to make the better financial
accounts, asset valuation, auditing and planning the budget for company. Ethics related to these
posts were taught in the courses of accounting at colleges, universities and various educational
institutions (Duska, Duska, and Ragatz, 2011). Training facilitate to accounting students as to
give them the practical knowledge about their jobs. They not only prepare of manage the
accounts or financial report of the entity as well as they provide quality outputs. They can
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calculate taxations, measurement of firm's revenue and expenditures as well as they also give
favourable suggestions to the directors of business that they can take effective decisions
regarding planning, controlling and making budgets. They measure adequate costs for a
particular operations such as purchase of material, assets, production or manufacturing cost and
estimated revenue or gains.
Career Opportunities
for the assessment of report our group has made surveys over various organisations that
what are the requirements and posts for accounting professional in running a business. For
building a career in the accounting field an individual can perform various jobs such as
accountant, budget analysts, certified auditor, manager, clerk etc. these are the posts which has
essential requirements in an organisation (Uyar and Gungormus, 2011). There may be increasing
use of technologies for such operations but no one can replace the accountant as they have best
basic knowledge of preparing any report. There may be threat of stilling data, errors or virus
attacks in devices which need to be observed by accounting professionals. They must gain the
technical knowledge of preparing the accounting statements but must have strong skills for
preparing reports on traditional methods. As per the advancement in technical uses there are
reducing jobs for accountants. People who have interest in accounting they have to go for other
career options and as competition raises there will be no favourable numbers of jobs are left.
B.
Surprised information
Surveys made at various records and various blogs which we have gathered from the
various sources. Most shocking news that have been received which has surprised us. As per
professors in university of Oxford in the year 2013 has stated that there have been a great
reduction of 47% jobs at various posts (De Villiers, 2010). Increase in uses of automation has
reduced personal interference at every piece of work like labours were replaced by machinery,
robots at factories, legal professionals such as layers and tax practitioners were replaced with
various soft-wares as well as accountants were replaced by use of devices and soft-wares. Not in
the white collar jobs but the replacements are taking place in laborious work too. It was
estimated in 18th century that there were 75% of British population were engaged in agriculture
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but as time passes there is increase in the use of machinery and equipments in farming has
reduced it to 35%.
Affects of automation over every sector in society:
It will be shocking as an individual has expended his many years in perusing a course in
the area of his interest than there will be no jobs left as organisations are implementing use of
technologies for completion of work. Even the jobs for professors and teachers are also on the
scale of unemployment. People who don to afford to gain education at universities and colleges
due to higher fees they have started educating themselves with the use of internet and online
education services (Brennecke and et.al., 2013). These will be good in advancing knowledge and
students will gain more informations about their interested subjects beyond the traditional
criteria. As per the expansion of technology in industrialisation there is increase in the number of
unemployed people in UK. Government has implement the welfare scheme as they facilitates
allowances to disabled and benefited the unemployed people.
Welfare as to prevent poverty but increasing unemployment:
These welfare schemes are known as reservation wage to such people, the motive was to
have control over poverty and maintaining the favourable growth of economy. These strategy has
created unattractiveness in individuals towards jobs and as the unattractiveness rises the number
of employees got reduced in industries. These can be reason which provokes organisations to use
devices and soft wares for completion of work (Sisaye and Birnberg, 2010). These are the
informations which has surprised us that if a person is spending his most valuable years in
building a career in accountancy as his interested subject but when there is no jobs available than
unemployment took place. The study was done by Oxford or various universities of UK on jobs
reformation in year 2013 there has been large reduction over charted accountant and certified
accountant jobs for 95% due to high rate of using the automation. These technological
advancement has make replacements in every areas of work but accounting jobs are highly
affected by these reformation. For easy to hard calculations of financial data are being available
at cheap and free applications. One can measure the income and financial statement at any where
from any devices such as mobile applications, soft wares at tablets or laptops. It negatively
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encourage the accounting professional to do jobs such as clerical duties like data entry, checking
errors in financial statements and compiling the data. The maximum work is done over computer
only maintenance of such accounts or financial records are to be done by the accounting
managers.
C.
Changes and adoption
Australian Viewpoint:
Australian codes of accounting ethics has been build with the help of various laws, rule
and regulations. These are based on duties related with the professional accountants such as
IESBA of IFAC. These both belongs to the international standards of ethics (Accounting
Professional and Ethical Standards, 2017). Objectives is to serve the quality framework and
promote professional standard of accounting. There are four categories of accounting standard in
Australia such as professional standard are applicable to public practice, business as well as all
the members and codes or ethics applicable to accountants. There are no such variation in the
practice of Australian accounting ofr the international accounting. Accounting standard at each
place remains the same as if organisations are working on international basis they need to make
financial statement of all its branches located in various countries. There will be variations in the
taxation or interest of different nations. For the convenience of all monetary and financial
transactions there is fix standard and methods of measuring financial components. One of our
member in group belongs to America and he has the keen interest in accounting sector.
Accounting environment in USA (as per group member)
USA has many companies and MNC's and this country has acquired the automation on
the very first stage. The motive is to make the work complete on less utilisation of time and
money. As compare USA with other countries there is high rate of unemployment and recession
that affect the economic standard of this country. The adoption of automation is highly affecting
jobs at accounting or financial departments. All the efforts which are made by accounting
professional are now replaced with machineries such as accounting tools soft-wares, calculators
of taxation of various countries (Montresor and Vezzani, 2015). These may facilitate the prompt
method of solving an problem but it is existing the traditional methods of doing the accounting.
Method of maintaining records of all transactions can be benefited with recording them digitally
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in devices or in cloud. It brings advancement in the standards to as the government and various
accounting institutional are planning to make courses which help the accounting professional to
learn a the use of devices and make digitalisation in each transactions.
Opportunities:
There may be lack of jobs in the field of finance and accounting but there can be increase
in knowledge of digital methods of solving the accounting problems. In-spite of these we can say
it will be fruitful for managers in maintaining books with the help of various soft-wares as well
as applications and that provide them enough time to make planing for other organisational
operations (Montresor and Vezzani, 2015). They can make favourable suggestions to
organisational heads in estimating costs and planning for making investment in to achieve
business goals. They will be able to plan operational activities related with monetary transactions
as well as execute them. Opportunities for jobs remains the same as before the automation only
there is modification in the performance done accounting professionals. They can make
decisions regarding firm's financial growth, revenue generations, product cost control, efforts to
reduce expenses etc. these kind of duties need time and proper attention. Digitalisation will be
helpful is these kinds of changes can be adopted by the companies and accounting standards. It
will be helpful for stakeholders to have adequate reports regarding financial statements of
organisations (Judge, Li and Pinsker, 2010). There will be swift into disclosure of such
statements which will affect the prompt reactions of stakeholders in making the favourable
investments in firm. There will be raise in the value of shares, products and companies will earn
enough revenue. There will not be any reduction in the jobs of accounting professional it will be
redesigned and rebuild with the help of new accounting standards.
D.
Group opinion
As per growing use of automation in organisations as well as various government offices
also started using technology because, it facilitated less time consumption and comes up with the
authenticated results, it will be threatening to employment. Observation can be made that in the
coming days there will be threat to all categories of jobs and that will result in provoking
unemployment in the country (Uyar and Gungormus, 2011). People will go job less as well as
they were replaced by the automated machines which make calculations and make work easy. It
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is not like that there is no requirements of technology in this filed, it is highly needed but as the
use of technology grow, it will lower down the laborious or employee efforts for the completion
of organisational operations. Traditional methods of maintaining books of record will come to
existence. New taxation method will replace previous techniques of employing the taxation over
the piece of work.
Dependency:
Every one need to get dependent over the technology and devices. There will be
introduction of new technologies such as Cloud computing, OCR, robots and many changes that
will reduce the duration in making of a report (Judge, Li and Pinsker, 2010). There will be
promptness in presenting the disclosure of financial statements and it will be easy for firm to
make changes if any mistake or error occurs. As per the requirements raises in the industries it
will simultaneously make changes in the educational sectors such as students will pay more
focus over gaining the knowledge through online sites, starting using software to find the end
results of any calculation. They will started learning how they can manage the books at the
devices. The promptness in the completion of work has made reduction in laborious efforts made
by employees in preparing financial statement on the basis of traditional techniques.
Automation affecting educational methods:
If students starts learning online than there will be reduction in the employment of
teacher and professors in colleges and reduce the use of books or notes for study will also
replaced by PDF and Documents at devices. The rate of unemployment in UK will increase for
the post of charted accountant and certified accountants that will create non satisfaction in such
individuals as they have invested many years in gaining knowledge of accounting and had
dreams of building good career in the accounting courses. It will all be replaced by automated
culture and here they have to survive as doing jobs for lower cadre like clerks, accounting
assistance (Hail, Leuz, and Wysocki, 2010). Which has made reduction in requirements of
accountant in the organisation and the only posts which are available to them is to compiling the
data, data entry, accessing errors in the financial statements. Automation will going to affect
every category of employment in the society, as it will provoke dependency over artificial
intelligence for quick results. It will be good as the work will complete quickly but as the
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dependency over devices and software raises it will lower down employee requirement in the
companies. Further, it can be said there will be rise in the rate of unemployment.
Automation benefits:
It can have positive impact over jobs as there will be innovations in the techniques of
solving accounting measurements. Accountants will have much time to participate into
organisational decision making as they will be beneficial in making the economic strategies for
the firm. The methods or techniques will be planned by them as to control costs or expenses over
the piece of work as well as suggest organisational heads to make fruitful investments as to give
vision to expand business operations (Brown, 2011). It will reduce time consumption over
preparing financial statements as well as there will be quick disclosure of such reports quarterly
of yearly. It will help the managers in making the favourable planning as to make changes into
techniques they are using to encourage the operational functions of organisation. There will be
changes in duties which are previously performed by the accountants. There is need to make
changes into accounting standard as to control the unemployment, government as well as the
accounting institutions must make favourable changes or modification in the accounting work.
CONCLUSION
As per the above report the conclusion can be made as there is rapidness in the increasing
technical use of solving any financial transaction. Organisations as well as governmental
institutions has started using the various soft-wares and application to make the quick transaction
or have the adequate results in the end. Further, it can be said there will be positive impact over
accounting careers as there will be implication of changes or modifications in accounting duties.
Organisations will have much time to make favourable decisions regarding controlling costs,
planning strategies, investments planning etc. will help to retain employment opportunities for
accounting professionals.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Judge, W., Li, S. and Pinsker, R., 2010. National adoption of international accounting
standards: An institutional perspective. Corporate Governance: An International Review. 18(3).
pp.161-174.
Deegan, C., 2012.Australian financial accounting. McGraw-Hill Education Australia.
Brown, P., 2011. International Financial Reporting Standards: what are the benefits?
Accounting and business research.41(3). pp.269-285.
Hail, L., Leuz, C. and Wysocki, P., 2010. Global accounting convergence and the potential
adoption of IFRS by the US (Part II): Political factors and future scenarios for US accounting
standards.Accounting Horizons. 24(4). pp.567-588.
Duska, R., Duska, B. S. and Ragatz, J. A., 2011.Accounting ethics. John Wiley & Sons.
Uyar, A. and Gungormus, A. H., 2011. Professional knowledge and skills required for
accounting majors who intend to become auditors: Perceptions of external auditors.
Business and Economics Research Journal. 2(3). p.33.
De Villiers, R., 2010. The incorporation of soft skills into accounting curricula: preparing
accounting graduates for their unpredictable futures. Meditari Accountancy Research.
18(2) pp.1-22.
Brennecke, J. A. and et.al., 2013. Accounting for technical noise in single-cell RNA-seq
experiments. Nature methods. 10(11). pp.1093-1095.
Sisaye, S. and Birnberg, J., 2010. Extent and scope of diffusion and adoption of process
innovations in management accounting systems. International Journal of Accounting &
Information Management. 18(2). pp.118-139.
Montresor, S. and Vezzani, A., 2015. The production function of top R&D investors:
Accounting for size and sector heterogeneity with quantile estimations. Research Policy.
44(2). pp.381-393.
Online
Accounting Professional and Ethical Standards. 2017. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.cpaaustralia.com.au/professional-resources/accounting-professional-
and-ethical-standards>. [Accessed on 20th September 2017].
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How Technology Is Changing The Accounting And Bookkeeping Industry. 2016. [Online].
Available through: <https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2016/08/03/how-
technology-is-changing-the-accounting-and-bookkeeping-industry/#6e5047ef51ba>.
[Accessed on 20th September 2017].
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