seremify007
Junior Member
I don't want to duplicate what others have said (eg bookkeeping vs professional accounting, the roles considered 'dying', etc) but instead, I'll share my own experience especially since the topic of automation and robotics is commonly brought up in this circle. The key thing here is not so much about the field of accounting 'dying', but rather, what the profession will entail in the future and how the skills you have today will change over time to meet the changing needs of the industry.I've heard accounting especially is dying. It has a high chance of being automated in comparison to other degrees as well.
Are you guys sure running this degree is still a good idea?
One of my recent projects was to help a client with building an automated reporting system by taking the various specific set of rules applicable to a certain type of regulatory reporting and defining the business rules in the target operating model, working closely with the IT platform vendor and helping develop a bespoke system which was efficient enough to run BAU and customisable in the longer term with an open script/programming language.
I don't have a programming background. I have an accounting background. I was able to use my knowledge gained from auditing these rules and knowing how they are pulled together to help the client with actually building this thing. In the future as rules change, new products are added, etc... there will be more tweaks/work required to keep it up to date, but ultimately the mundane part of this reporting of accounting/financial data will be automated.
I've done similar other projects lately which leverage various things I've learnt from audit (eg how to design a process with sufficient controls to address business risks in a process landscape within a target operating model) but it's these higher level activities which can only be done once you've had sufficient experience on the ground actually doing the leg work, and even then, that leg work will exist but just in different forms.
Just my 2c.