Judging by my texts on “Clerk,” you might think that I don’t like accountants, I think they are narrow-minded and lazy. In fact, it's quite the opposite: I consider accounting to be the most important office activity. It is the system accounting supplies data for analysis to economists, financiers and other employees with beautiful titles on business cards.
It is difficult to imagine a more important and responsible job than that of an accountant - he forms the information basis for managing an organization. Without an accountant, the decision-making process is like searching for a long-lost black cat in a dark room. If he did his job poorly, then the decisions could be fatal for the organization.
Therefore, no matter what I write about the professional qualities of individual representatives of the profession, I am in love with the profession itself, and I am very upset when I hear from high stands.Many would-be futurologists fantasize that in the near future accounting programs will begin to keep records themselves. These fantasies fall on fertile ground: replacing an accountant with a robot is the dream of many entrepreneurs.
The robot is cheaper, it doesn’t get sick, doesn’t make mistakes, and doesn’t leak information to competitors. However, there are reasons to doubt such forecasts. I regularly monitor the state of affairs in the industry. And I see no real reason for the sweet dreams of the guys from Skolkovo to become true for two reasons.
First reason- increasingly complex accounting standards, which are increasingly based on .
The second reason is that the current level of robotization of accounting is very far from the day of the rise of machines. The most technologically advanced development in the industry is recognizing the client’s scanned “primary” document and putting it into folders for further processing by an accountant. That is, the robot is an assistant to the least qualified accounting employee, whose functionality is easily algorithmized.
In addition to the above reasons not to believe in the total robotization of accounting, there is one more. Serious studies based on in-depth analysis of the labor market do not predict a decrease in the number of accountants in the foreseeable future. For example, the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Statistics publishes the Occupational Outlook Manual every two years, which projects absolute and relative employment growth in 325 occupations in 25 economic sectors for the 10 years ahead. The latest such study was released last year. The accounting profession is projected to grow by 10%, one of the highest rates among finance and business professions. However, this forecast only applies to qualified accountants.
For ordinary accountants who perform routine operations (bookkeepers), the prospects are not so rosy. A decrease in their number is predicted - precisely due to the automation of lower-level accounting processes.
Despite all my skepticism regarding the total robotization of accounting, I still admit that someday neural networks will be able to replace a qualified chief accountant. This day is still far away, but an honest analysis of your work functionality regarding the relationship between routine operations and activities that require non-standard solutions will not be superfluous for any accountant.So far, any accounting program only works in the hands of an accountant. These hands are very different. Some try to play, others conduct. In the first one, we will definitely lose to the robots very soon. In the second there is a chance to flounder. And it's not so much a matter of the degree of proficiency in the program. Much more important is the attitude towards their work, based on which we can distinguish three types of chief accountants: they are very different today, and the day after tomorrow the first two types may not remain.
1. Fighters against the system. Such chief accountants who have learned to more or less tolerably keep records and submit reports to tax office, statistics, etc. But they are waging a constant and never-ending struggle with the enemy in the person of the regulatory authorities. These are people who have learned to turn on the X-ray machine, place their enterprise in front of it and take pictures - accounting registers and reporting. However, their pictures are not always of high quality, so they themselves cannot understand them and are constantly struggling with users who read them differently.
Such specialists usually confuse tax accounting with accounting, dealing in fact with the first, but projecting its rules onto the second. Because of this confusion, they have problems with both accounting and tax accounting.
These are the guys who recalculate the amounts for 1C in Excel, do not update the release so as not to remember the new location of the buttons, and believe that their main task is to submit all reports to all authorities on time. Such accountants mechanically follow the algorithms that are laid down in them by the Tax Code and their favorite accounting journal.They are the first candidates for departure when the robots attack.
2. System elements. These chief accountants know how to keep records in such a way that the tax inspectorate, state statistics bodies, auditors and other inspectors have no complaints about the results of their work. But they are not full-fledged accountants - they simply record events that have occurred.
Often, such chief accountants, when maintaining records, use methods that do not allow the use of its data to manage the enterprise. This is not always due to low qualifications - sometimes they simply simplify their work. Depreciation is strictly linear - it’s easier to combine tax accounting with accounting. Reserves are not created because the chief accountant supposedly does not see any signs of asset depreciation, but he understands perfectly well that PBU 18/02 will have to be applied, and this is extra labor costs.
Multiple indirect cost distribution bases? Estimated and contingent liabilities? I am begging you! They have learned to take good X-rays - the rest is not their concern. Having such an accounting system, it is difficult to explain what illness happened to the enterprise, much less cure it. A hundred shots a day will not resolve appendicitis.
Due to increasingly complex accounting standards, such specialists will still have to work - they, unlike the chief accountants-fighters, are able to master the new rules and again reduce the amount of their work to a minimum. But their prospects are second roles in the accounting departments of private companies, or the public sector - they don’t bother much about the efficiency of accounting.3. System builders- chief accountants who organize accounting so that it provides the data necessary for making management decisions.
Analytical accounting is organized in all necessary sections; the capabilities of modern accounting are used to the maximum: both methodological and software. If the owner needs to know what type of product he makes money on and what type he loses on, he will receive such information promptly and in full. If you need to understand whether procurement is being carried out effectively or equipment is being used, he will know about this too.
Accounting thus turns from a system that observes events taking place into a system that manages these events.
Such chief accountants are already full-fledged doctors who can take clear photographs, read them and identify the diseases of the enterprise. They are not afraid of robotization. On the contrary, by delegating routine operations to a robot, the accountant will be able to devote more time to the accounting architecture.To summarize: rumors about the imminent demise of the accounting profession are greatly exaggerated. But, of course, the profession is transforming. The role of an accountant will increasingly shift to the level of decision-making, which will no longer be executed by other accountants, but by artificial intelligence.
Based on materials from my posts on vc.ru: and.
The Ministry of Finance believes that new technologies will leave accountants without work - under what conditions will the profession leave the market.
New technologies can displace the accounting profession, according to the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation. Of the 1 million accountants involved in accounting in the public administration sector, 40% could be cut. Some experts also agree with officials - professions that can be automated will soon disappear. They assure: the profession brought to Russia by Peter I will face the same fate as drivers and cashiers. The development of new technologies will require the accountant to decide complex cases, and not engage in routine, say optimists. We asked experts if they agreed with the Ministry of Finance's forecast.
In the future, the profession will be replaced by new technologies, like the profession of a driver - by the Uber application and driverless cars, says Alexey Ermolov, accounting service"Finguru." “Previously, everything was calculated on accounts and written in ledgers. Then computer programs took over part of the calculations and generation of reports. Nowadays no one makes paper reports and submits them to the tax office, only electronic submission. There is no need to manually submit a bank statement to the accounting department - it is imported automatically,” the expert argues.
According to Ermolov, the most labor-intensive area is the primary accounting documents, which must be made in the program, printed and signed, and then transferred to the counterparty, who will enter the data into the program. Instead, electronic document management systems can transfer a document from system to system, and the seal and signature on paper will replace the electronic signature.
The extinction of the accounting profession - like other non-creative work, where all actions can be clearly described - is inevitable, says Alena Vladimirskaya, a famous recruiter, founder of Anti-Slavery:
“A classic that - I don’t want to offend anyone - thinks very little. This is the story: I submitted the report on time, wrote out invoices, made statements... All this will go away. Ordinary accountants, lawyers (not experts) - these professions will begin to die out within 5-7 years.”
The first conversations about the disappearance of the accounting profession began 25 years ago, when the 1C program appeared, recalls Nikolai Patskov, general director of the document designer FreshDoc.ru. It turned out that the person and the machine divided the roles - “the person does the most complex and important work, and the machine takes over the routine, “shifts the papers,” leaving the person more time for the most important things.” Electronic document flow should always be controlled and administered by a person who understands this, adds Olga Kadomskaya, a specialist in the training department of Kolocall (an outsourced call center).
“No machine will take into account the subtleties and nuances tax legislation and will not be able to think, analyze and decide what numbers are worth submitting and how taxes can be reduced. None of the automated systems have experience in writing responses to tax authorities’ demands. She will not be able to pass the audit, will not be able to check the previous accountant and will not restore the accounting,” -
Lyubov Monich, general director of the accounting firm “Letter of Audit,” is confident. She believes that new technologies will completely replace humans if taxes in Russia are minimal and the number of reports is reduced.
Appearance professional standard“accountant”, approved by law, shows that the profession remains on the labor market for now, concludes Elena Odintsova, general director of the OdnoGrad company (the company outsources accounting for small businesses). The Ministry of Finance’s proposal rather concerns the optimization of work in the field of accounting, the expert believes.
Numbers and plans
The research service Zarplata.ru calculated: in Yekaterinburg, the number of vacancies in the “Accounting, banks, finance” section at the beginning of the year increased by 17% compared to the last week of 2015. Almost every week, vacancies increase by 3–12%. In the summer there were almost no new offers, but at the end of September it increased by 17% in just a week. Similar dynamics are observed in the Novosibirsk labor market. The salary meter shows: the average salary of an accountant in Yekaterinburg is 31,298 rubles (based on offers in 224 vacancies), in Novosibirsk - 34,943 rubles. (293 vacancies). Depending on the volume of work and the status of the company, a specialist’s salary can reach 80–180 thousand, Lyubov Monich knows.
The introduction of automation will increase the need for professional growth - instead of routine, the main task will be solving complex issues, says Tatyana Evdokimova, expert of the Kontur.Accounting service of the SKB Kontur company.
Accountants who are able to organize the automation of accounting, financial and management reporting, and can also ensure the implementation of ERP systems and know how to find a common language with IT will remain in demand in the profession, adds Ilya Goldovsky, partner at Employment Psychology. “In Russia, many enterprises are just beginning the process of automating accounting and document flow, and we have seen a number of successful projects in which it was he who led the project from the business side, interacted with IT, and reported to general director or shareholders.
Such accountants will certainly be in demand in their field or may move towards project management at the intersection of IT and finance, for example, move to a system integrator or consulting,” explains Ilya Goldovsky.
The strength of accountants is the ability to work with documents and numbers - unlike creative personalities. “One of the best career scenarios is a transition to creative professions: journalism, PR, design. Then the ability to work with numbers will be a great addition and competitive advantage“, suggests Ilgiz Valinurov, founder of the Recruiting Academy. Experience with numbers is in demand in the work of an analyst - not necessarily in the financial department, but also in the marketing or sales department.
Ernst&Young accountant Gwen Jorgensen has had an unusual career: she became a world champion and Olympic champion in triathlon in Rio.
A high pace of life, rapid changes in technological processes, incredible discoveries - all these are the realities of today. In many sectors of our economy, changes occur every day, and unique new products are created every second. Sometimes it seems that you wake up in the morning, turn on the TV, and there they are already reporting about the first robot that created a full-fledged family. Humanity is developing continuously, so it is not only important to keep up with the pace of its evolution, but it is also necessary to obtain a specialty that allows you to survive in modern society.
Today we hear more and more about the professions of the future. Futurologists are causing representatives of some professions to panic, declaring that in the near future completely new, more progressive professions will appear to replace existing ones. Before choosing a particular specialty, school graduates carefully study all the pros and cons of each profession, not forgetting to pay attention to the prospects for work in the future. IT specialties are especially popular among young people, so a significant part of the younger generation connects their future with this profession. What can you say about the accounting profession? At first glance, it is very popular and is considered to be in constant demand. But can we call it the profession of the future? Let's try to figure it out!
Let's remember a little history! Accounting appeared hundreds of years ago. Despite the fact that in those distant times people did not have computers, and world trade did not acquire global proportions, an accountant was needed in all accounting operations. L. Pacioli, having written a treatise on accounts, made an invaluable contribution to the development of accounting as a science. Since then, accounting has constantly developed, changed and convincingly demonstrated the need of society for representatives of this profession.
Today it is difficult to imagine even the smallest enterprise without an accountant. The activities of a large enterprise are simply impossible without accounting! Even in a crisis, you cannot do without representatives of this profession, which is why there is a constant demand for accountants in the labor market. What changes over time are the requirements for accountants and the nature or scope of their work.
The work of an accountant in the future may differ significantly from modern work accounting specialist. The software will become more advanced, allowing an accountant to gradually turn into an analyst, monitoring the correct execution of all accounting operations by a computer, and, perhaps, by a completely new gadget still unknown to us. But will accountants agree to such a role? Will they entrust all the responsibility for performing such important work to the technology of the future? This is debatable. While compiling a balance sheet using a program will not surprise anyone, filling out a VAT return or tax invoice automatically raises serious doubts. Trivial data entry or calculation of complex formulas is not enough here! Several methodological or technical errors can add unnecessary hassle not only to the accountant, but to the entire enterprise.
Moreover, it is difficult to entrust the preparation of such an important document as an annual report to a computer. The technology may be far from perfect, and it will likely be many years before skeptical accountants begin to believe in the wonders of software and have unconditional trust in automated accounting.
However, you should look at this problem, on the other side. With the help of modern software, you can significantly save an accountant’s time. Email today it allows an accountant to promptly send documents to the tax office. The accountant no longer has to stand in queues, waste his precious time, spoil his mood, and does not even need to print out reports. Thus, the work of an accountant in modern conditions is greatly facilitated, because all that needs to be done when submitting reports is to monitor the correct display of data in a specialized accounting program. Thus, the accountant has more time to relax; he does not need to sit up late in front of the computer or stay at his workplace on weekends. If the program does not have time to do something, it can be left to work at night, while the accountant himself will relax at home with his family or friends.
It can also be assumed that in the future the essence of an accountant’s work may change, because, along with technology, processes in everyday life will change. The accountant may have to think for a long time about how to capitalize spaceship, or how to depreciate the latest equipment. One thing is certain - the work of an accountant in the future will not be monotonous. He may have to undergo special
The accountant is mine future profession!
Have you been to the accounting department? I've been to the accounting department
- numbers and numbers everywhere, both small and large,
very different, but in the end they all agree with each other.”
Accounting! Surprisingly interesting."
V. V. Mayakovsky “Bath”
When the time came for me to decide on my future profession, my family and I were faced with the question: “Should I continue my studies at school or get a profession in college after the ninth grade? And if you choose a profession, then what?” My fate depended on this decision, so I thought hard. I have always been an exemplary student and a versatile person. As a child, she loved to sing, organized concerts for relatives and friends, and really wanted to become pop singer. Over time, this hobby gave way to another: in school years I preferred chemistry. I liked writing down formulas, conducting experiments, and participating in Olympiads. Many people thought that I would connect my life with medicine. After much debate and deliberation, the choice was made. My mother advised me to become an accountant, I agreed with her and now I don’t regret my decision at all.
The words of the Polish poet Stanislaw Jerzy Lec were written by him:« Only accountants could determine the date of the beginning of the world.” I'm proud that my future professionas old as civilization. It is known that already six thousand years ago people began to purposefully record the facts of economic life.
Who is an accountant and what is the essence of this profession? Accountant (translated from German language- “book expert”) is an accounting specialist who must pay taxes on time and correctly, report to government agencies, clients and partners of the organization, track the status of the company’s account and bring the balance to a single indicator.
Many people consider this profession boring, uninteresting, and monotonous. I think differently: my future profession as an accountant is dangerous, difficult, important, and interesting...
It is important because without an accountant it is impossible for any company to exist, since every organization must keep track of all business transactions performed.A competent accountant is a guarantee of the financial success of the company! That is why often an accountant is a kind of " right hand“the bosses, and the accountant’s word in the company is significant.
It is dangerous and difficult, because an accountant, like a sapper, cannot make mistakes in his work. Mistakes can lead to sanctions, fines and the like. In addition, the difficulty may lie in contradictions in accounting and tax legislation, as well as in constant changes in legislation. Therefore, a professional accountant must always be at his best: constantly improve his knowledge, keep abreast of all changes.
Interesting because, in my opinion, there is nothing more fascinating than the world of numbers, mathematical calculations, especially when everything works out, everything fits together, despite the fact that sometimes you have to spend a lot of time searching possible error. In this one cannot but agree with the hero of the play “Bath” by V.V. Mayakovsky, Ivan Ivanovich: “...there are numbers and figures everywhere, both small and large, very different, and in the end they all converge with each other. Accounting! Amazingly interesting!”In addition, the work of an accountant is now much more interesting and easier than, say, 50 years ago. If earlier workplace The accountant was equipped with office accounts, and the work was purely manual, today it is difficult to imagine accountants without computers, copiers and other equipment that facilitates his work.
I have been studying to become an accountant for the second year now and now I can say with confidence that only a person who has such qualities as responsibility, perseverance, organization, the ability to listen and remember everything that is told to him, and the ability to concentrate his attention on work can become an accountant. But, probably, the most important thing in choosing the profession of an accountant is to love the work you do, and then you will be happy to go to work and proudly return home from work, because you will understand that the work you love benefits not only you and your family, but also your Fatherland.
On Friday, September 23, at the Moscow Financial Forum, Deputy Minister of Finance of Russia Tatyana Nesterenko said that the accounting profession will leave the market due to the emergence of new technologies. Our permanent expert, Ph.D. in Economics, Alexander Pyatinsky, categorically disagrees with the opinion of representatives of the Ministry of Finance and analyzed in detail why accountants are still needed in the country.
Surely, the ideal future looks like a taxi without drivers, hospitals without doctors, schools and institutes without teachers, supermarkets without cashiers... And it immediately becomes clear that this will not happen so soon, even if such a trend is emerging.
While the Ministry of Finance predicts the future, presenting what is desired as a possible reality, I will explain why the accounting profession will not leave the market in our country in the near future.
There are at least seven obvious reasons why the accounting profession is not destined to die.
1. To minimize paper document flow(as the Ministry of Finance wants), there must be a technical possibility for this. This means that at a minimum you need:
Refuse paper work records(reform and legislation have been proposed for many years now - all in vain);
Minimize cash payments (however, ways to combat the complete eradication of salaries in envelopes have not yet been invented);
Establish electronic document flow (for example, the accountant of every Russian company knows that every year, before April 15, you need to personally bring printed papers to the Social Insurance Fund to confirm the type of activity);
Stop sending tax officials requests (companies still provide copies of documents for the last three years, certified by the signature of the manager and sewn together with thread in packs of no more than 200 sheets per sheet).
2. Assuming that none of the fiscal authorities needs company documents and reports(which in its essence seems absurd), someone still has to pay and calculate taxes, fees and charges. In terms of the tax burden, by the way, there is a tendency towards dynamics not in favor of payers.
3. Let's imagine a very ordinary company that does not have a single accountant. And let's try to answer simple questions:
Who will carry out settlements and accept payments?
Who will do the inventory?
Who will prepare, collect and maintain records of company assets (including trademarks, fixed assets and inventory)?
4. Suppose that the Ministry of Finance adopted a law to eradicate accountants, and there will be none of them in Russian companies. But don't forget about Big4. No investments or international reporting in this case there is no question. However, no one is going to cancel the mandatory audit of domestic companies either.
5. Managing any company, and especially a large one, is only possible based on activity data. Even if we assume that each section of accounting is kept by an ordinary person responsible for it, there must be a person who brings together and links all these indicators with each other.
6. Almost all Russian companies conduct accounting, personnel, tax and financial accounting. How smaller company, the less staff it has. This means that all of the above types of accounting are kept by an accountant. If there is no accountant, there will be no accounting. None software and the service will not cope with automation, without outside control. Control over automated business processes is a new cost item. Small businesses, in turn, will not be able to financially cope with such automation.
7. Budget accounting- the most interesting reason. Every government penny, both received and spent, must be accounted for. Accounting is carried out using budget classification. This number of changes per one calendar year as in Russian budget accounting, nowhere. Before accountants had time to get used to the innovations, they had already released new law. Without budget accounting, the state will not be able to function and exist efficiently. Only accountants (and even then, not all) can keep budget records.
And now a few words about what scenarios are possible:
The profession “accountant” will simply be renamed into something more consonant with English language(how arithmetic was removed from school curriculum, replacing mathematics);
The requirements for the profession will become more stringent, and the accountant will begin to perform additional functions of a financier, auditor, analyst, etc. (which already exists in many companies);
It is possible to transfer accounting functions to those responsible for the work area (for example, the storekeeper will handle all accounting for material assets, the head of the sales department will handle accounts receivables, etc.), but in this case there can be no talk about the quality of work.
And lastly, accountants not so long ago were finally able to completely abandon the use of wooden abacus with bones and floppy disks in their work, and you say to automate everything...