The Future of accountancy profession in digital era

Abstract

The technology evolution is escalated rapidly. It has changed the business environment, including accountancy profession. Digitization makes various disruptive changes on accounting practices. Failure to keep pace with the digitization will be a disaster for the accountancy profession. The digital technology generates hard challenges for accountants. This study aims to examine the perception of accountants on the digital era and to identify some important impacts of digitization on accountancy profession. Strategy how to exploit the digitization is required for the benefit of accountancy profession. The study is based on a perception survey. Data are collected by distributing questionnaire on Indonesian accountants. An inclusive literature review is conducted to get more comprehensive understanding. The finding of this study indicates that the digitization has changed the way of thinking and practicing in accounting field. It is revealed that mostly accountants recognize the digitization as both benefits and challenges. It is concluded that most of accountants have confronted the technological revolution. Furthermore, it is suggested that advanced research should explore the topic in larger area for a comparative study. The main contribution of this study is some identified strategies for accountancy profession to cope the future digital era.