Jobs That Have Been Replaced By Technology – Technology has a long history in the accounting profession. Every technological advance, from the first abacus used by the Mesopotamians to today’s artificial intelligence and machine learning, has accountants questioning how they will fit into the new workplace.
A 2015 Accenture report predicted that by 2020, “digital will die” and 40 percent of transaction accounting jobs will be automated. Now that the future has arrived, we think now is a good time to test this prediction. Has technology replaced the human element?
Jobs That Have Been Replaced By Technology
Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA) are changing the way work is done across industries. According to a report by Global Market Insights, Inc., the market size for RPA alone is expected to exceed $5 billion by 2024.
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In accounting and finance, companies are leveraging these technologies to increase efficiency and streamline business processes. But with these gains comes fear. In a 2019 survey by Robert Half, 12% of workers said automation would negatively impact their jobs:
Yet even workers who believe technology will positively impact jobs recognize that AI and RPA will require them to develop new skills and processes.
So far, automation in the finance sector has been an opportunity, not a job killer. It reduces costs and risks because computers make fewer mistakes and work faster. It also helps reveal time wasted on low-value, repetitive tasks and poor processes.
Historically, many of the tasks accountants performed were based on manually entering data into legacy systems that did not integrate with each other. Think of data entry, reviewing spreadsheets for errors, entering identical journal entries, or preparing identical reconciliations each month. Entire careers have been built around finding numbers, typing them into a location, and performing routine calculations. But is this really the value accountants provide?
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The value of a finance and accounting team has never been its ability to crunch and crunch numbers. Rather, its ability to analyze the financial and operating results of a business and use those insights to drive better strategic decisions is its value.
But humans still need to make logical and ethical decisions. So instead of eliminating CPA jobs, technology is freeing them up to do the higher-value work for which they were trained. In fact, it comes at an opportune time, given the industry’s ever-increasing workload.
The amount of data accountants have to deal with today (with the same resources and accelerated deadlines) is unprecedented and growing. Accounting teams are being asked to crunch more and more data and do more with the information they have. For those who are still using manual processes to do this work, the burden is enormous.
Organizations already use financial and accounting software for account reconciliation, transaction matching, intercompany transactions and resolving variances. Now, automation of accounting and finance departments can help organizations improve the quality of governance, reduce risk, provide more insights, better manage working capital, and improve financial reporting by performing repetitive processes in software.
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Anchin Block and Anchin’s Yair Holtzman, writing in Accounting Today, describe three innovative technologies expected to impact accountants.
Big data analysis studies large volumes of data to uncover hidden patterns, correlations, and other insights. A survey by the Institute of Management Accountants found that finance and accounting professionals are increasingly using big data in their business processes. Fifty-three percent of organizations are developing strategies around the use of big data, and 45 percent say their companies have a “strong” or “very strong” approach to data-centric information technology.
In recent years, blockchain technology has outgrown its cryptocurrency roots. According to Harvard Business Review, blockchain technology, originally a solution for managing transactions facilitated by cryptocurrencies, “…is an open distributed ledger that efficiently records the transactions between two parties in a verifiable and permanent manner. between transactions.” It is being used by many industries, including healthcare, supply chain management, government, insurance, banking, and real estate.
Yair Holtzman said: “The immutability of the blockchain as a general ledger makes it incredibly valuable to businesses. Information is not stored centrally by any business, organization or government agency. The technology provides a quality audit trail and or other actions.” This can significantly reduce an organization’s annual audit and compliance costs.
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Artificial intelligence allows machines to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, including speech recognition, visual perception, decision-making and translation. In the accounting sector, AI helps accounting software learn to automatically perform analysis and draw conclusions: “Tasks such as bank reconciliation, audit fee submission, and invoice classification can be systematically automated,” Holzman writes. AI can also be used in fraud detection by analyzing transactions to identify potential fraud.
We cannot ignore the fact that transactional levels in organizations will shrink or disappear. Employees who engage in manual, repetitive processes such as data entry and routine reconciliations on a daily basis need to upskill – improve existing skills and add new capabilities – and take on more strategic roles within the company to stay relevant.
But companies still need interpretation and judgment to realize the full potential of technology and automation. Accounting and finance departments need to shift their focus to developing more strategic and consultative initiatives within the company, rather than eliminating jobs. Accountants who embrace technology can look for opportunities to use their best skills and add value.
For most CPAs, technology will not replace them. Instead, their roles will evolve and enhance as they use technology as a powerful tool for their organization. Put it this way: How and how technology is applied in the field of accounting will actually allow CPAs to do what they’re taught. Ultimately, these emerging technologies will be so ingrained in finance and accounting that no one will talk about the mundane work these software do behind the scenes. It will become part of everyday life. Decades, twenty or thirty years – or sooner – robots and related technologies will be as ubiquitous as cell phones are today, at least that’s Bill Gates’ prediction; we’d be hard-pressed to find a roboticist, Automation experts or economists can make strong arguments against this. The robot revolution promises a range of compelling (especially in healthcare) and imaginative benefits, but it may also come at a huge cost.
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We find ourselves confronted with a thorny paradox: on the one hand, technological progress increases productivity and well-being, but on the other hand, it often increases inequality.
Stuart Elliot, a visiting analyst at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), who happened to be on leave from the National Research Council’s Testing and Evaluation Committee, noted that technology could replace “80% of current jobs.”
In his research, Elliott relies on advances in speech, reasoning and motor skills to illustrate how robots and technology can replace jobs. I agree with the general idea of the study, although I believe speech recognition is much more advanced now than Elliott claims. This factor alone will result in the loss of many jobs, such as translation, over the next five years.
Elliott is not the first to claim that robots and technology will have such a profound effect on employment or inequality. Michael Hammer, a former MIT professor and key driver of workplace restructuring in the 1990s, estimates that up to 80% of middle managers are vulnerable to automation.
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Professor Tyler Cowan also predicts a hollowing out of the labor market, with a shortage of middle-skilled, middle-wage jobs and the inability of 80% or more of citizens to thrive. They will be a permanent underclass, unable to improve their lot.
This “underclass” may have emerged earlier than Cowen predicted. While there are “short-term” adjustments in employment figures, most are in low-wage sectors, with 73% of “new” jobs at the bottom of the wage pyramid being temporary rather than permanent.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the fastest-growing occupational categories over the next decade will be “healthcare support occupations” (nursing assistants, orderlies, and waiters) and “food preparation and serving personnel”—the vast majority of which are low-wage jobs.
Just last month, the Financial Times reported that “new technologies are changing the structure of the US economy but creating only a handful of jobs, according to the largest official business survey ever conducted every five years.”
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“Digital technologies are advancing rapidly, but organizations and skills are not keeping pace. As a result, millions of people are being left behind. Their incomes and jobs are being destroyed, making their situation worse,” the authors note.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year, Google’s Eric Schmidt warned that the question of new technologies dramatically changing and displacing jobs will be the “decisive question” of the next two to three decades .
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