Four Things Accountants Must Do To Keep Up With Technology—AccountingWeb

Technology Has Automated Many Accounting Tasks and Lowered Margins on Traditional Core Services.  Here’s How to Stay Ahead

Dustin Lubertazzi opines at AccountingWeb on what accountants must do to stay competitive in the future, and how technology will change the future role of the accountant.  An excerpt: 

Luca Pacioli, an Italian mathematician and Franciscan friar, is widely known as the Father of Accounting for publishing 36 chapters on the double-entry accounting method used by Venetian merchants during the Italian Renaissance. His book, Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita (which translates, “Everything about Arithmetic, Geometry and Proportion”), was written as a textbook for students in Northern Italy at the end of the 15th century. Pacioli’s documentation of double-entry accounting and ledgers taught entrepreneurs of the day how to conduct business using timely and accurate financial information, and it established the fundamentals of accounting still practiced today.

Pacioli’s fundamentals were only feasible thanks to the written numeral system and the abacus developed before that. And since then, the industry has seen further and more ground-breaking developments including the introduction of the typewriter, then computers, and later the Internet. With each of these milestones, technology not only impacted how accountants handle financial information but also how they interact with their clients. With the changing technological landscape, what must accountants do to stay competitive in the future, and how will technology change the future role of the accountant?

1) Increase Value-Add Services to Retain Clients
2) Differentiate Your Firm
3) Build an Online Presence
4) Be Conscious of Your Clients’ Time (or Lack Thereof)

Read the full article to see full detail on each of the four points.  

Technology is changing the accounting profession.  Here’s how to stay ahead.