Brace for Change: What's Ahead for Staffing and Skill Sets in Accounting Firms

Source: Journal of Accountancy, March 7, 2018

What will tomorrow’s accounting firms and departments look like once lower-level, repetitive tasks are automated and vast amounts of data can be mined for insights? Part one of this podcast explored how technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, data analytics and automation are likely to transform the accounting profession. Now, part two focuses on how accountants can prepare for the transformative technologies, new types of colleagues, and changing market demands that are ahead in the next decade.

Here are some highlights from the podcast, which featured three technology experts in the accounting field:

• Prepare to work with new types of colleagues. Traditionally trained accountants and their firms will need to integrate — and learn to collaborate with — professionals who have much different, but equally vital, skill sets that are essential for future success. Many accounting firms are already moving from an “old to new” staffing focus by hiring professionals with technology and data skills first, ahead of accounting skills. Accountants should get ready to work alongside data scientists and big data engineers in the future — professionals who can help accounting firms apply advancements in areas such as machine learning and advanced data modeling and analysis.
• Focus on future capabilities. Rick Richardson of Richardson Media and Technologies identified six key capabilities or “professional quotients” CPAs need for the future: technical and ethical competencies, intelligence (i.e., the ability to acquire and use knowledge), creativity, digital awareness, vision, and experience (described as the wisdom that is developed over time through experience).
• Pursue new types of CPE. Professionals in the later stages of their career can’t sit on the sidelines as the industry changes, participants cautioned. One even suggested doubling the continuing professional education credits required for CPAs to 160 hours, with the additional courses being technology related. Participants discussed the many free educational resources that are available to accountants and where to locate them. Reverse mentoring relationships — where late-career accountants learn from younger professionals — was also proposed as a way of acquiring new skills.

Noting that the changes ahead for the accounting profession are both “exciting and scary,” participants agreed that CPAs must devote time and effort to expanding their knowledge and capabilities in new ways if they’re to be ready for the future.

Listen to the podcast, “A new staffing model for accounting firms,” here.