Most of us believe that when you spend money the only impact is to reduce the amount of cash in your wallet or purse or bank account.
Accountants, educated to view the world through double-entry lenses, see two impacts. The debit and the credit. Bank account credited and expenses, assets or loans/debt debited.
Never-the-less, is this extended, double-entry world the full extent of the possible ways to view transactions? For example, what possibilities does the transaction open or close, and what action needs to, or could be taken?
Enter the world of binary thinking, our computers.
Software, the neurons of our IT, is a complex stream of what-ifs. If yes, do this, if no do this, but undertaken at cosmic speeds, way outside the comprehension of our ability to reason on a conscious level.
Which is why, perhaps, IT will eventually take over this computational area of accountants’ work, and why it would be wise to develop skills that lie outside the binary thinking processes that is the realm of computers.
In simplistic terms, will IT disenfranchise the present level of human input into accountants’ compliance services? Producing accounts, tax computations and automating filing processes.
If this is likely, what can firms invest in now to counter this trend?
Where the grey matter between your ears may have an edge over computers is in the ability to connect disconnected ideas, to be creative. Which is what advisory services need to include to be of any real value.
Perhaps the current debate surrounding advisory v compliance services is timely. If binary thinking computers become more cost effective at delivering compliance services professional advisers need to become just that, advisers.
There is possibility in the non-binary world, professionals just need to take time out to consider their options.
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