Core traditional practices in the accounting industry need to be re-evaluated with the increase in clients’ demands. In a way, the accounting profession needs to be step up to meet up the requirements and thrive.
The future of the profession will be determined by the decisions made by accountants. An evolutionary change is around the corner and this will bring focus on different factors that will propel the profession into next decade.
Core accounting skills will have their value but there is a continuous shift and we can see evidence of that. There are signs of struggle when it comes to creating a diverse workforce, not only which provides real solutions but prepares effectively for the future. Earlier, the image of an accountant is stereotypical; they were imagined as somebody who just keeps the books. In recent years, we have seen that the ongoing technical revolution is driving a huge change, which means the role of an accountant now is expanded to be strategic and to provide advice, marketing strategy, and growth.
Technology brings clear benefits for accountants, but they need to learn new skills, anticipate the future and reorient their thinking to put their firm ahead all while anticipating and adapting to the client’s needs that helps in offering a service that is competitive in the industry.
Now the accountancy profession is also trying to respond to these changes by making the cultural shift to compete in the growing marketplace. In the next segment, we will discuss about these technologies driven changes that will decide the future of accounting.
The real question is “Can technological advancements be a solution”?
As we know, there is an ongoing digital revolution in the world, one has to think ” Why not accounting?” as it is happening across all the industries, with the latest cloud technologies in the market; that can not only reduce administrative burden but can also increase the productivity of the users.
That’s why accountants are feeling more optimistic about intervention of technology and excited to avail the benefits of cloud technology. Cloud technology has been proven as blessing for many other respective industries and accountants are hoping to have a same effect on their field.
Cloud is turning out to be the smart business solutions for many organizations as a replacement to the expensive IT setup. With its ability to provide real-time access to your data in a secure environment, cloud sets the foundation to make critical financial decisions instantly based on the real-time data.
It has been seen that there is a tremendous increase in the collaboration among the users with shared resources on cloud. If we look at this from an accountant standpoint, clearly this is one step forward towards cloud based practice to achieve service excellence and client satisfaction.
Accountancy as a profession is more competitive today than at any time in history and is being pushed by increasing and evolving client demands. How an accountant responds to the challenge of competition and client demands is ultimately going to determine their success or failure over the next 5-10 years.
Key factors that come with adapting a cloud technology are:
Automation:
With automation on cloud, there is no need to manual data entry, basically accountants are being freed from the administrative burden and can focus on core financial tasks that adds more value to the whole accounting process.
Security:
Cloud hosting providers ensures that there platforms are safe & secure to hold your financial data, this is accomplished by installing enterprise grade security tools along with other advanced firewall. Encryption is one of the other commonly used methods to maintain the security of your data.
Data sharing:
In order to be more collaborated, users need to share the data between themselves and sometimes this could be a hassle if working on different networks or locations, however; cloud makes it easier not only to share the data files but helps an accountant to save time and resources which increases the productivity.
Conclusion:
With the accountancy profession being more competitive than ever, it is high time when the accounting profession needs to step up and embrace the technological benefits especially automation and cloud as the client/accountants relationship will grow and evolve and they expect nothing less, intelligent use of the technology can meet this need and accountants are not afraid to use it.