The Robo-Accountant?

Research from Oxford University had been picked up on the BBC website and turned into a neat gadget which enables you to type in your job title and find out how likely you are to be replaced by a robot – or more precisely how likely it is that your role will be automated in the next 20 years.

So we decided to type in some typical job titles of accountingcpd.net users to see whether we should all be scared! What we found out left us more perturbed about the lack of understanding of the role of the accountant than about the likelihood of automation.

On the surface of it, things look bleak. Out of 365 job roles the following were all in the top 30:

Not good news for accountants! However, when you look at the reasons the research gives for a role being more or less susceptible to automation, it becomes apparent that there is a misunderstanding of the role of an accountant:

• Roles that require empathy are less likely to be automated
• Role requiring judgement are less likely to be automated
• Role requiring people to think on their feet and come up with solutions to problems are less likely to be automated

These are all skills that accountants use every day. Perhaps just another example of the lazy assumption that accountants sit in the corner and add stuff up? Far from being at threat, accountants have been at the forefront of automation. Many transactional processes are now performed almost entirely online but the interpretation and analysis of this data remains in the accountants' hands. The IT remains a tool to make us better at our jobs, not a replacement.

All this brings to mind our course, Professional Scepticism by Lisa Weaver. These skills, fundamental to anyone involved in the preparation or audit of financial statements, are a long way from being automated.