The accountant in the digital era and the Covid-19

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Depósìto Legal: lvl-171,07-1.g87 .ISSN: 1.577-2403

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The digital era

is

rapidly changing the accOuntants' profession, Íorcing ttrem to adapi trróir w0rk and to develop a new set of skills'

The current health and econ0mic crisis, caused by c0VlD 19, has accelerated the pr0cess of changes and suddenly pushed accOunt-ants into a digital Paradigm'

The digital era in accounting, als0, raises questions in the context oÍ accounting teaching. ln ttris scope, higher education institutions are feeling

thl

pressure to adapt their degrees, in 0rder to provide

the new professionals with the necessary technological skills'

Another relevant issue is the key role of the accountants in society

during global crisis, as the cOvlD-19 pandemic, because they have

the skills to stand-up as relevant agents of business supp0rt and recOver.

Thus, in this article we address these issues through a literature review.

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ln business activities, "The lnternet and related information tech-nologies such as cloud services, blockchain, data analytics, and artificial intelligence, c0mbined with web-based business models, such as platforms, are rapidly transforming the digital ec0n0my and industry" (Moll & yigitbasioglu

,

z01g.1). Furtherm0re, in a globalized wortò, the information and communication technologies

írCl

are changing the way businesses create and capture value, Èow and wherõ we w0rk, and h0w we interact and communicate

(Cascio & Montealegre, 20'l 6).

That business transformation is the basis of a phenomen0n known as lndustry 4.0: the technological and digitat enterprise rev0lution'

Moreover, it begins to emerge referenges to a broader phenome-ngn, recently, .ãlled as Society 5.0 (Fukuda, 2019), which is based

in the c00peration between man and the machine. human intelli-gence working

in

harmony with cggnitive c0mputing (European

Economic and Social Committee, 2018)'

The digitat era and its constant pace of innovation in lcT and new

working processes, are, also, str0ngly aÍÍecting the accgunting

profess-ion (e.g.: Bhimani & willcocks ,2014; Boylan et al,, 2018,

Moll & Yigitbasioglu, 2019)

These changes, in acc0untants w0rk, have several reasOns: the markets'dJmand,

the

dematerialization

of

accounting and tax

obligations, as well as the growing application of technology to

profãssional activity in order to increase productivity, eÍÍectiveness and efficiency at wórk, as well as timeliness and reliability of the

in-formation prôouced. For exampre, the developments in digitization, software and processing power and big data use, create significant

changes and new posiibilities

Íor

enterprises and their finance ÍunctÌon (Bhimani & Willcocks,20l4). However,

it

can be, also, a problem, because the continuous development of ner,ry technol-ogies for accounting purposes can reduce the accountants' w0rk

(Boylan et al., 201 B) .

ln this envir0nment, the use oÍ new technologies by accOuntants became an actual and relevant field of research. The apprehension

that accountants Íeel about these changes, especially because they are afraid that their work will be replaced by new technologies and

artificial intelligence, has also been, in recent years, the target of several research works.

susskind and susskind (201b) and Frey and Osborne (2017) examined how jobs are susceptible

to

computerization and they identiÍied the accounting profession as one of the most affected -by inform4tion technologies, ln addition, the lnstitute of Manage-ment Accountants (lMA) concluded that most acc0untants are c0ncerned about the possibility

of

being replaced by emerging technologies (Krumwiede, 2017)'

Boylan et al. (2018) conclude that cOmpanies can reduce

account-ing service costs by using software, but that there is an increased

risk of err0rs using staff with ress understanding of accounting

concepts and procedures, They also conclude that the use of

soft-ware for taxes purposes cannot fuily replace the advice made by

prof essionals,

Grabski et at (2009) cired by Appetbaum ef at. (2017) identifies the management accountant as a key factor for a successf ul Enterprise Resource planning implementation if they become involved in val-ue-adding tasks, ráther than routine data recording and inÍormation reporting tasks. Moreover, Moil and yigitbasioglu (2019) conclude

that, despite the automation of processes, the accountants' set of

skills put them in a good position to contribute to the evaluation,

implementatiOn, and maintenance of those technologies'

Additionally, sheedy (201 7), in a paper about the north-american

accountants (cpA), argued that "The work that will be automated

is not a cpA's responsinirity. That work was simply something that needed to be done for cPAs to start their iob."

The digital era in aCCOunting, also known, aS Accounting 4'0, can be, f orlne f uture oÍ this profession, either a threat or an

0pportuni-ty, depending on accountants' ability to deal with this challenge, as

well as, on their set oÍ skills, This is particularly relevant for those

professionals wh0 w0rk with small and medium-sized enterprises

iSfUEs), because SMEs'advice 0n economic and financial issues, in many cases, 0ccurs exclusively through the accountants' ser-vice. Thus, in accountancy practices for small and medium-sized c0mpanies (sMps),accountants should focus on the value that they can oÍÍer to their clients, ln this envir0nment, they should

carefully consider diversification of services and making the

tran-sition to advisory, a transition for which technology will be a crucial

tool (Thompson , 2017).

According to the secretary-General

of

UNCTAD (united Nations Conference on Trade and Development) "we live at a time of

tech-nological change that

is

unprecedented

in its

pace, scgpe and depth of imparl" (United Nations,20lB). Thus, the lndustry 4'0 is an irreversible process and the paradigm shift in the work oÍ

accountants, with the transition to Accounting 4.0 (and, in the very

near Íuture, to Accounting 5 0) is inevitable and even indispensable for the survival of the profession. Although, in recent years, the

professionals have been postponing this transition process. H'wever,

in

March 2020, due to the world pandemic, the busi' ness world changed. ln the peak oÍ the pandemic of cOvlD-19. with business activity almost stopped, cOmpanies, rì'ì0re than ever, needed technical support and advice Írom their accOuntants to

sur-vive to the economic catastrophe that was starting. As stated by

Borrego (2020: 1) during the economic crisis caused by cOvlD-19

accountants have done a remarkabre job of trenching, being

guided by two main objectives: to minimize the economic damage

and to save as many jobs as possible", nevertheless,

to

do so. acc0untants were forced to reinvent their way oÍ working, taking

(4)

Thus, the global pandemic, on one hand, has increased the need

Íor accountants'transition to Accounting 4.0, on the other hand,

it

led to an increase in digital technologies use by accountants, accelerating this transition pr0cess.

ln this paradigm shiÍt, it is very important that accountants

over-come their fear Íor change, as well as the fear of being replaced by new technologies. Thereby, there is an unquestionable need to train the accountants, endowing them with new skills, to Íace the new reality.

Challenges to Higher Educalion lnstitutions

The accounting transition to the digital era, also, raises questions about the new skills needed to develop the proÍession.

This new reality is a challenge Íor the accounting teaching and an

opp0rtunity for a teaching paradigm shiÍt. Teachers, standard set-ters, and proÍessional regulatory entities should adjust their

curric-ula, standards, and Írameworks to accommodate the challenges oÍ

emerging technologies, as Big Data analytics and others (Richins

:t

a|.,2017).

Ghani and Muhammad (2019) studied employers' expectations

oÍ accounting Graduates in the context of lndustry 4.0 and they

frnd that companies are concern with accountants technological c0mpetences and that academia should strategizing new curric-ula. including these skills and innovating the teaching-learning approaches in order to respond

lo

new market needs. Thus, it is crucial that higher education institutions start to address these is-sues ìn their accounting degrees, because it is a gap still to ÍulÍil

tuloll & Yigitbasioglu,20l9; Turel & Kapoor,2016).

^ccounting teaching seems

t0

Íace

a

challenge

to

restructure :egrees' curricula and teaching methods, being the teaching of

i-,chnology a major concern (Apostolou et a\.,2016, Stanciu ef a/.,

2020) Accounting degrees need to change to meet the new hard

skills. in order to correspond to the new vision oÍ accountants; -or,vever, _{accountants should also}

develop soÍt skills, essentially

:r:

organizational and social ones (Dolce et a\.,2020; Papageor-3 ou & Callaghan,2020).

-f

_e_COVID-19_{pandemic is changing}

radically the education

sys-::m. that will Íavour, on the one hand, the teaching of new technol-:gres, on the other, the inclusion oÍ new teaching methodologies

r

_{the courses curricula, more Íocused on problem solving, Íor}

^stance PBL (Problem-based-learning) methodologies.

lt

is im-:0Ì1ant t0 note that global crisis, such the 0ne we are living, due

.:

COVID-19, increase the need to rethinkthe accounting-learning _ /aapcQ

:

_{rally, we}_believe_that_will_{be interesting}_to_understand_the

role

:'accountants during the pandemic oÍ GOVID-19, in the peak oÍ

:^:

epidemic by helping companies to survive, as well as in

re-:'lnching the economy afterthe containment phase. ln this scope,

:,sonitou _{and Hassall (2019) already highlighted}_the_{rote oÍ the} ac-::untant during the period of financial crisis. <

ReÍerences

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Appelbaum D, Kogan A, Vasarhelyi M, Yan Z (2017). "tmpact of bu-s ness analytics and enterprise systems on managerial accounting".

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Journal of Accounting I nformatiln Systems, 25, 29-44. Asonitou S, Hassall T (2019). "Which skills and competences to

deve-cp in accountants in a c0untry in crisis?" The lnternational Journal of

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Bhimani A, willcocks L (201 4)."Digitisation, big data, and the trans-formation of accounting informati0n", Accounting and Business Re-search, 44, 469-490.

Borrego Ac (2020) 0 papel dos contabilistas na eclnlmia em

"tem-p0

de guerra, i-online. Aavailable

at:

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