Back in 2015 the BBC wrote an article called “Will a robot take your job?”

Sadly, when I typed in Accountant it revealed that there was a 95% chance that my job was being replaced by automation. Bookkeepers and payroll clerks came out worse at 97%.

In reading further, the result assumed that as logical thinking ‘numbers’ people then obviously this type of work could be replaced by technology. However interestingly jobs requiring empathy or creativity were less prone to automation.

Are accountants perceived as having little or no empathy or creativity?

Looking back at my early career I have always been interested in technology in helping to grow my business even back in the days of using accounting software on floppy disks. Every time there was a jump in the use of technology I was there. Through the 1990s I was playing with databases to streamline workflows particularly for business advice. I even built an online business diagnostic tool in 2002 called Plus4Business. It flopped spectacularly which at the time I blamed on a lack of broadband but later I realized I had been kidding myself. Wood and Disney was also the first firm of accountants in East Anglia to go paperless in 2003. And we first started using cloud accounting in 2008 long before many of our competitors. From this you can see that as far as I was concerned technology was the holy grail never believing I was supporting a monster that would one day destroy my profession.

So we come to today

Am I still a geek who loves all things technology driven? Well yes and no. I do believe that bookkeepers and accountants focusing solely on compliance will disappear. Xero and QuickBooks are both moving rapidly towards “less human involvement” in bookkeeping using machine learning to recognize the corrections being made by bookkeepers and accountants and dealing with them before we even spot them. A simple case of using our expertise to copy and replicate what we do. QuickBooks has already said that it is changing its DIY model for a Do-It-With-You (DIWY) model. The increase in profits by moving from a £20 per month service to a £200 per month service is a massive incentive, don’t you think? So that’s bookkeepers disposed of so what about accountants? Well Xero has bought a tax compliance system which is not great yet but with accountants using it and suggesting improvements it can only get better to the extent that it will be offered direct to business owners. Accountants shooting themselves in the foot yet again.

Is this the end of the accountancy profession too?

Well of course not for a few reasons. Firstly, business owners are not trained bookkeepers so they will make mistakes which the software cannot correct. We will therefore still be required to carry out forensic assessments of records and make sure they are accurate. That old almost forgotten audit training will finally start to pay off. Secondly, many business owners will simply prefer to concentrate on what they do best and hand over the bookkeeping to someone who is trained and can do the job far better. Lastly, we are still required to act as translators because so many business owners have limited understanding of their numbers and need someone to paint a picture of their performance in a language they understand. Hang on a minute is that empathy showing up?

The future accountant will focus on advice, expertise and support

So, is that it then? Of course not. If you think this is just about an accountant preparing a set of accounts, you are completely missing the point. Of course, business owners need to comply with tax legislation, but they don’t just select someone to prepare a basic set of accounts. Most business owners accept that they do not have all the skills to run a successful business so select their accountants for their ability to advise them on all the other aspects of running a business. So, the real question is can AI offer this advice as well as the basic compliance stuff.

I used to believe the answer was yes hence why I developed Plus4Business 18 years ago. Today I look around and see yet more AI driven advisory systems appearing on the market. The holy grail of automatic success driven by technology. Fill in an online questionnaire and every issue can be resolved. Your business is no different to any other. One size fits all. You can take short cuts, quick fixes, dramatic growth in a matter of days and no hard work at all. Just follow a system.

My attempt to create an online business advisory system didn’t flop because of a lack of broadband but because it took effort. Effort to understand and effort to use. The same applies to today's systems. We all struggle with a lack of time so to use that valuable resource to research, learn and use is just too much effort. That’s why humans will always be required as advisers.

As advisers we provide expertise.
As mentors we provide experience and
As accountants we hold our clients to ‘account’.

The growth and advance of artificial intelligence in accountancy and business advisory services is accelerating with more and more businesses and accountants switching to on-line cloud accountancy services. This is an important step forward when it comes to bookkeeping, accounts and tax and VAT returns as these are processes that can be systemised and automated with human oversight to cover the "grey" areas. But, the human touch is still needed to understand and empathise with business owners and their problems. I think my mission is to stop business owners thinking about the word ‘count’ within accountant.