The Rise of the Robot Accountant: Opportunity or Threat?
Robots are replacing some accounting tasks, but only some.
By Hitendra Patil
Accountaneur: The Entrepreneurial Accountant
By one oft-cited study, robots will replace 94% what accountants and auditors are doing today. But look a little deeper and you'll find that instead of replacing accountants, the profession stands to gain from mastering new robot technologies and putting them to work to enhance client service, streamline processes, and provide more high-value high-ticket work.
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Let’s take an example in write-up work. It was common for the bookkeeper to enter transactions off bank and credit card statements into the accounting software. Output per hour – i.e. how many transactions were entered in an hour, and to the correct chart of account – determined the profitability of that work. Now, the same task can be done by automated bank feeds software – which is essentially a software robot that performs pre-defined, repetitive tasks efficiently and accurately. And you can train this robot to be better, by defining rules. It also obviated the need to wait for the client to send you the bank statements and hence, there is now no need to send follow up reminders.
Blockchain will find answers. But you need to know the right questions.
