The Essay On Accounting Professionals In The Era Of Online Technologies.

1.0 Project Context

I would like to continue my profession in accounting field. I would like to work for an accounting firm. There is generally an element of fun that can be had that is not possible when working out alone. There is also the accountability piece of knowing that you are expected to attend.  There are also people available to encourage you when you are discouraged and lack motivation. I have learned that a professional in the field of accounting is someone who have high ethical standards, high business acumen, ability to make smart decisions in less time and thorough knowledge of industry factors. I also believe that accountants should be open to discuss the issues at length of various stakeholders and clients. This is important because you have an informed person sharing helpful information and helping the client develop their own realistic plan to solve these challenges.  Another important area is meeting people where they are, figuratively and literally.  This could mean altering the terminology we use when speaking to someone or literally going to visit them at their home or facility where they are staying.  While those are important things, we also have to start being creative in our approach to healthier, less risky choices to appeal to wider audiences.

It is important to mention that accountant is someone who has the ability to work with different stakeholders. A cohesive effort involving all these important elements can provide better outcomes than a disorganized effort. The biggest challenge in addressing these problems is the lack of participation by all the fragments of the society.  At intrapersonal level, people need more awareness about healthier food options which may help with the obesity. 

A quality professional in accounting field requires high ethical standards. Research habitually demonstrates how organizations that are perceived as socially and ethically responsible do much better financially. Unethical behavior is such a disservice to and organization and a clear demonstration of the individual desire for instant gratification. In training, I always explain to the teachers that 99.9% of people can understand a mistake or an error in judgement just as long as your explanation is sincere, but beyond the single infraction, the same 99.9% will also consider you negligent if the mistake keeps happening. Mistakes are opportunities for growth and development. Values based leadership and ethical standards does not denote perfection (Kraemer, 2011). According to Schwartz, Dunfee, and Kline (2005) “The ethical behavior of boards of directors can influence both the ethical behavior of corporate agents, accounts, and the ability to have unethical behavior disclosed and addressed” (p.88). For these reasons, it is important to continuously review and revise leadership roles allowing for continuous learning at every turn in management.

1.1 The Importance of Accounting Professionals

Personally, I do not believe that accountant will become redundant in my particular sector, however I believe instead of having a accountant in every store, we could be left with one accountant manager overseeing and being responsible for several stores. As a business, we need to show due diligence. If something goes wrong and we end up in court, we need to show that we have done everything in our power to prevent things going wrong and this is the place where the role of accountant cannot be marginalized.

It is important that organizations should have an open and transparent culture so that accountants can add value to overall organizational development. I agree that an open system creates a certain amount of vulnerability, as a company is by necessity not in complete control of its product.  And, I think that in the contemporary business environment some degree of openness is simply unavoidable. This requires improved communication, both internally and externally, and both horizontally and vertically. This seems to me to be of primary importance if an open systems approach is to work at optimal levels for accounting profession.

The project is around the area of my desired profession of accounting. The various elements of this project can be discussed as:

Due to the highly advanced online technologies, small businesses now look up to cloud-based accounting software to save cost of hiring an accountant. Will this lead to reduced opportunities for an accounting professional? 

The objective of this project is to determine if there would be less opportunities for accounting professional due to highly advanced online technologies. It is expected that the small businesses may move to cloud based accounting software to save the cost of hiring an accountant. The specific research questions can be discussed as:

1. Would there be less opportunities for accounting professional in near future due to highly advanced online technologies?
   
   
2. Would the small businesses focus more on cloud based accounting software in future and would it make the demand of accounting professionals obsolete?

I will primarily be using the secondary sources to complete the project. A lot of research is already done in this area. I would like to explore the existing literature. I understand that peer reviewed journals would be a good source of information for me to complete my project. A brief literature review can be discussed as:

De Lange & Jackling (2013) argued that there are various examples of need of accountants even with the cloud based platform. An accountant is someone who maintain the system of check and balances. The cloud based accounting software are definitely cost effective. However, this is not a substitute of accountants (Stivers & Onifade, 2014). The accounting scandal at scandals at Enron in 2001, WorldCom in 2002, have their origin in their leaders’ unethical behaviors. The ethical failures of those leaders have brought to light the importance of the organization’s board responsibility in the organization. By, Burnes, and Oswick, (2012). Suggested that “Followers and other stakeholders should not be passive observes, but have a positive and active role to play in identifying and ending unethical practices” (P. 4). The board committee needs to help to monitor the unethical behaviors in the organization.

1.2 Ethics and Values in the Accounting Profession

Lawrence & Weber (2014) argued that the implementation of cloud based accounting software is often integrated with ERP systems. ERP systems are complex systems and thus implementing them requires huge efforts but once it is successfully implemented, there are huge benefits that can be derived out of it. Even with the cloud based accounting software, the need of accountants is not getting obsolete. Furthermore, adding to your thoughts on cloud based accounting system, from a legal perspective, one area that may seem challenging to take away from the accounting department, even though there are electronic forms available to collate that information is, accountants ensures an organization has a genuine and transparent balance sheet and as easy as a form can gather that information, accountant need to ensure the data and profitability figures and not buffed up (Islam, 2007).

Brewer & Sorensen (2014) argued that in small business, there are cases that, the accounting function is inexistent in the office although there is a minimum of knowledge when working in accountancy about accounting and audits especially when it comes to legislation.  The owner makes decisions over everything with only one thing in mind “maximum profit”. There are times in the year where the office is extremely busy with year-end payroll in March and self-employed deadlines in January (Mescall, Phillips & Schmidt, 2016). Some of your most successful companies use the organic method during changing times which causes profits and productivity to increase.   

Canning & O'Dwyer (2016) argued that one of the most significant characteristics of an organization is it’s accounting department, as accounting department allows for the organization to keep up with the changing industry while they strive to remain innovative.  If organizations do not have a good accounting department, the organization will suffer through the life cycle stage and it will be difficult to assess exactly where they are in order to remain profitable (Mastracchio, Jiménez-Angueira & Toth, 2015).

Baker III, Chow, Woodford, and Maes (2012) observed that organizations that practice continuous improvement must use all available technological resources if they are to maximize organizational effectiveness.  And Lawrence and Weber (2014) offered a similar perspective when they stated that businesses must learn how to utilize new technologies effectively if they are to thrive. In this case, the new technology is cloud computing. For small and mid-size organizations, the adoption of cloud based accounting system can be treated as a step towards the continuous improvement. However, it is important that the firms should be able to maintain the balance with this continuous improvement (Gillis, Petty & Suddaby, 2014).

1.3 The Role of Accountants in Risk Management

I will complete the project in different phases. There would be four phases to complete the project. The first phase would be initial assessment phase. In this phase I will develop the research questions and I would study the background. The second phase for me would be framework development phase. In this phase, I would do preliminary literature review and based on literature review, I will modify the research questions. The third phase would be actual research phase where I will have a detailed secondary research. The fourth or the last phase will be conclusion and continuous improvement phase. In this phase, I will have the plan for continuous improvement as I believe that the learning in the accounting field is continuous in nature. 

2.5 Conclusion 

With the discussion, it can be said that cloud based accounting system is definitely a good thing to have for small and mid-size firms. It would enable the firms to save the cost. However, it does not mean that the small firms would not require accountants. It is possible that the demand of accounts would be less. However, it is expected that a constant demand should remain. The market for accountants is a matured market in Australia. However, the market is not saturated. It can be said that there would always be the demand of talented accountants in the market.

References

Baker III, F. W., Chow, A., Woodford, K., & Maes, J. D. (2012). Applying continuous improvement. techniques to instructional design technology (IDT) for greater organizational effectiveness. Organization Development Journal, 30(1), 53-62.

Brewer, P. C., Sorensen, J. E., & Stout, D. E. (2014). The future of accounting education: addressing the competency crisis. Strategic Finance, 96(2), 29-38.

Canning, M., & O'Dwyer, B. (2016). Institutional work and regulatory change in the accounting profession. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 54, 1-21.

De Lange, P., Jackling, B., & Basioudis, I. G. (2013). A framework of best practice of continuing professional development for the accounting profession. Accounting Education, 22(5), 494-497.

Gillis, P., Petty, R., & Suddaby, R. (2014). The transnational regulation of accounting: insights, gaps and an agenda for future research. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 27(6), 894-902.

Islam, M. A. (2017). Future of Accounting Profession: Three Major Changes and Implications for Teaching and Research. Business Reporting, International Federation of Accountants (IFAC).

Lawrence, A. T., & Weber, J. (2014). Business and society: Stakeholders, ethics, public policy. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Mastracchio Jr, N. J., Jiménez-Angueira, C., & Toth, I. (2015). The State of Ethics in Business and the Accounting Profession. The CPA Journal, 85(3), 48.

T., Burnes, B., & Oswick, C. (2012). Change management: Leadership, values and ethics. Journal of Change Management, 12(1), 1-5.

Kraemer, H. (2011). The Only True Leadership is Values-Based Leadership. Forbes. Retrieved fromhttps://www.forbes.com/2011/04/26/values-based-leadership.html

Mescall, D., Phillips, F., & Schmidt, R. N. (2016). Does the Accounting Profession Discipline Its Members Differently After Public Scrutiny?. Journal of Business Ethics, 1-25.

Mintz, S. (2014). Accounting for the public interest. Perspectives on accountability, professionalism and role in society.

Schwartz, M. S., Dunfee, T. W., & Kline, M. J. (2005). Tone at the top: An ethics code for directors? Journal of Business Ethics, 58(1-3), 79-100.

Stivers, B. P., & Onifade, E. (2014). Student Perceptions of Introductory Accounting and the Accounting Profession. Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, 18(3), 49.