This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on July 23, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: The application of technology in accounting profession is not going to result in the loss of jobs for accountants, on the contrary it will help develop the profession further by easing some of the more repetitive work, according to a senior executive of the International Federation of Accountants (Ifac).

Ifac president Rachel Grimes believes the application of technology allows accountants to focus on the more “interesting” parts of the job, as technology would assist with the more mundane tasks.

“I think the saying that accountants are not going to be around in the next few years because of technology is rubbish. In fact, I think technology has made the profession more exciting as it has helped remove some of the more repetitive tasks.

“For example, the application of robotics in terms of software for the accounts payable function when it comes to tasks like invoice matching, this relieves the workload for the accountant, who can then concentrate on more value-added tasks such as working with vendors on improving the payables process,” she told The Edge Financial Daily in a recent interview. Grimes was in town recently for the Malaysian Institute of Accountants’ (MIA) inaugural AccTech Conference, in which she was a keynote speaker. She is also the chief financial officer of the technology division of Westpac Group, Australia’s oldest company and the country’s second-largest banking organisation.

As Ifac president, Grimes instituted a board-level technology advisory group to ensure critical data and information technology advances receive appropriate consideration by the board.

“Because the topic of technology is so wide, at Ifac we wanted to break it down to what we think is the foundation that the profession should be looking at. So we decided to simplify it [into acronym] ABCD, in which ‘A’ is for artificial intelligence (AI), ‘B’ is for blockchain, ‘C’ is for cybersecurity and ‘D’ is for data and data analytics.

“We think that these four aspects will be relevant to the profession going forward. For example, blockchain can be applied in wealth management for buying and selling [activities] as it creates a more centralised ledger.”

Grimes cited a survey done last year by Gartner Inc among chief information officers (CIOs) of businesses in Asia-Pacific, which showed that Asia-Pacific is leading in the adoption of disruptive technologies such as the Internet of things (IoT) and AI.

“The survey stated that 43% of Asia-Pacific CIOs have deployed or are in short-term planning for deployment of IoT technologies compared with 37% globally. As for AI, this was at 37% for Asia-Pacific, compared with 25% globally.”

Meanwhile, a survey of 1,052 MIA members between July and September last year on technology adoption in the accounting profession revealed that cybersecurity, big data and analytics, and automation were among the three technology trends that have impacted the profession the most.

High business costs, lack of talent to use the technology effectively, and a lack of understanding on the benefits of technology adoption were cited as the top three barriers to adopting technology in the accounting profession.

Taking this into account, the MIA recently launched the “MIA Digital Technology Blueprint”, which aims to guide accountants in developing the action plans that are appropriate for the evolving technological environment they are in.

MIA chief executive officer Dr Nurmazilah Mahzan said the blueprint — the first of its kind in Southeast Asia — outlines five driving principles that guide Malaysian accountants to respond appropriately to digital technology.

“These are assessing digital technology trends, identifying capabilities, harnessing digital technology, funding, and governance. The blueprint also sets out the MIA’s role in supporting members in the five principles which include educating and upskilling our members and accountants in Malaysia on emerging core areas such as big data analytics, cloud computing, automation and AI.”

She also said MIA seeks to evolve further into an organisation driven by data and technology that can serve its members more precisely and add value to the accounting profession in order to support nation building.