Accounting professionals need lifelong learning to keep pace with evolving business needs. Data and analytics will be the critical skills for practitioners to stay ahead of the curve."Data and analytics" is the heart of any technological application. Accounting practitioners must understand the data, and know how to analyse them. They need to know which data is good, which kinds of data to choose, and how to get more useful information from these data.
Take, for instance, Europe's new legislation on data protection called General Data Protection Regulation . So, what is the relationship between GDPR and accounting work? This kind of work did not exist before, but does now. Traditional auditors never had to audit algorithms, nor did they have to audit the fairness of an algorithm. Now, practitioners need to understand algorithms and develop the relevant knowledge in order to ensure systems remain fair and robust. The Big Four accounting firms have already started to provide algorithms assurance services.
Most importantly, they must be able to communicate effectively with the data and IT departments. In fact, this is how the accounting talent landscape will transform in the future.The biggest impact of the technological revolution on the financial community is the new"ABC" - artificial intelligence, blockchain, and cloud computing. And data makes the"ABC" work. Especially for large companies, there are huge amounts of data to be processed.
One challenge faced by accountants is the sheer quantity of data that businesses produce. This is perhaps the most salient issue for audit practitioners - getting more details on the activities of their client can help them to better execute their audit and more quickly hone in on any issues that may exist. By using machine learning, it is much easier to get a sense of the big picture and notice the smaller parts that don't quite fit .
Python is a great language to start with for more general-purpose uses, while R is great for learning analytics . Once you know a programming language, you can begin to unlock more of the value hidden inside your data, and you can begin to more efficiently automate workflows.