Independent College Dublin

Assessment Cover Page

Student Number:
51 68 80 42 # here

Student Name:
Leno Vieira de Oliveira

Lecturer’s Name: Anne Marie Cogan

Module Name: Advanced Financial Accounting - Implementation Issues

Course: BA Accounting and Finance

Due Date: 7/04/2020

Date of Submission: 7/04/2020

Requested Word Length: 1,500

Actual Word Length: 1.438

Check you have used the following file name convention: ☒ Checked
surname_student ID_.doc or .docx

eg: durant_51600001.doc, or durant_51600001_bird_51600002_ james_51600003.doc

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY STATEMENT

By checking the box below: I/we (if submitting on behalf of a group) certify that this
assignment is my/our own work and is free from plagiarism. I/we understand that the
assignment may be checked for plagiarism by electronic or other means and may be
transferred and stored in a database for the purposes of data-matching to help detect
plagiarism. The assignment has not previously been submitted for assessment in any other
module or to any other institution. 

☒ Agree

Date:
7/04/2020
Introduction

We live in a world full of changes and, since the beginning of our creation, we have
been through many evolutions and changes, and the way people think and our
behaviour with society has constantly evolved. Evolution is part of our improvements
to find harmony and progress in our development. In the accounting sector, as well
as other areas, the accounting tools we use are continuously improved to facilitate
day-to-day work with the help of technology.
This technological evolution is improving our current resources and providing new
jobs and taking away people's personal or complex work, while facilitating the
production of reports with less probability of failure or human error. This can be
extended to various areas of business, as is the case of artificial intelligence in
accounting, which is improving various accounting systems to facilitate the lives of
accounting professionals.
The impact that AI is having on accounting is revolutionizing the accounting market
because many professionals are being replaced by machines, but in other aspects,
is developing tools that simulate human intelligence with learning and creativity and
with a cost benefit to entrepreneurs.
Artificial Intelligence and its Positive Impact on the Accounting Profession.

Artificial intelligence has been advancing daily into offices, businesses and
industries, bringing benefits such as reduced operating costs, improved efficiency,
process automation and price optimization to businesses around the world by
transforming the way people and businesses relate to technology in accounting and
how things work. Some leaders are beginning to use artificial intelligence in
accounting to automate tasks such as making phone calls. But the benefits of AI can
support more complex decisions in areas such as human resources, budgeting,
marketing, and even corporate strategy.
In the accounting sector this technology is being automated every day and creating
various systems such as sage 50 and SAP among other software, to facilitate and
reduce the routine and repetitive working hours of accounting professionals, thus
impacting a cost benefit for the company and reducing the occurrence of errors or
inaccuracies in accounting reports.
Some of the positive imapacts that Artificial Intelligence is having on the accounting
practice/industry are as follows:
 Practicality of tax calculations;
 Communication;
 Accounting classification;
 Organization;
 Performance analysis of the result indicators;
 Productivity;
 Relationship with customers using machine learning through the web site;
 Security;
 Recommend to managers about taking preventive actions based on trends
and behaviours.
With the ascension of information and personnel costs, coupled with the rise of big
data, such as financial Shared services centre, it is very likely to reduce the number
of accounting personnel. Perhaps most of the basic accounting personnel will face a
similar fate with dinosaurs? With the continuous development of science and
technology, artificial intelligence is gradually replacing some part of the accounting
personnel; in this case, the enterprises will gradually reduce the demand for
accounting personnel in the accounting department, making the accounting
personnel face the crisis of elimination.

The accounting course is being taught to accountants working with archaic

accounting because when a professional goes to a job interview the market already
requires a broad knowledge in some Enterprise Resource Planning system geared
to business management, and when you enter the organisation this software makes
our lives easier and we find that we may study some subjects unnecessarily.
Individuals should be investing in studying something useful and necessary for their
professional development. As shown below we can analyse what this technological
development is influencing in the accounting career.

Figure 1. Job Vacancy Announcement . (Ref. 1).

We can see in the figure shown above that the ideal candidate is related to
accounting with specifics of a professional in the area of IT, this function has been
happening for some years since they began to replace people with computers.
AI is also able to provide real-time status of financial matters to organizations
because it can monitor communication through natural language processing (
Bernard 2020).

With the automation of all accounting processes, intelligent decision making, and
accounting service sharing, the basic accounting work flow will be more professional
on one hand, on the other hand, a large number of procedural accounting basic work
will be replaced by accounting information systems. This leads to the transformation
of the accounting personnel, that is, from the fecundation, procedure, repeatability of
accounting work, to more valuable and more professional judgment based on large
data analysis and data mining such as accounting management.

Assess the reasons why an organisation would adopt a computerised

accounting system and the advantages of using a product like Sage 50 would
bring to them.

The technological advances have been taking place gradually in accounting in both
managerial and process forms, resulting mainly from the use of information
technology, which has brought as a consequence a renewed importance to the
function of companies using software to facilitate the life of accounting professionals.
These technical and managerial innovations profoundly modify the management of
production which more than ever takes on a strategic character. They offer industrial
managers a wide range of alternatives to improve the productivity of companies as
well as to obtain other types of competitive advantages.
With the development of information technology, accounting is innovating its ways of
carrying out its work and software is having an efficient influence on accounting
information systems due to being present in this process of transition from the
manual to the digital era.
Since, in the past, accounting records were made on paper and are now being
carried out by programs which are recorded on a digital platform, damaging the
freedom and practicality of working anywhere or anytime, which is being very
beneficial today during this pandemic , many companies are closed but accountants
remain working from home.
Sage 50 software creates an efficient work area for its users, with the main tools to
help in the improvement and development of the company, saving time and working
the counters quickly and safely, ensuring more savings for the company.
Some of the advantages of using a product like Sage 50 would bring to an
organisation are as follows:

 Manage cash flow,

 income, expenses and payments;
 Create professional invoices and quotes;
 Connect to your bank account,
 Manage VAT;
 Powerful reporting and dashboards;
 Secure cloud access and backup;
 Office 365 integration;
 Mobile apps;
 Connected Users;
 Track and manage stock;
 Manage multiple departments and budgets;
 Track Project income; expenses and profit,
 Create sales and purchase orders;
 Trade in multiple currencies.

According to the article ‘‘Cloud Based Accounting Software to Enhance Efficiency in

The $574 Billion Accounting Services Market, Reports TBRC’’ the Cloud-based
accounting software is increasingly being preferred by accounting firms to enhance
the ability to access and edit financial data through the internet, enhance security
associated with financial transactions, and to reduce costs.
In 2018, According to the "Accounting Today" survey conducted by Sage, a
software company, 45% of small companies, 57% of midsize companies, and 58% of
large companies preferred cloud accounting over desktop alternatives. Additionally,
67% of accountants prefer cloud accounting tools and 53% of them have already
adopted cloud-based practice management solutions for project management and
communication with clients. QuickBooks, a cloud-based accounting software, has
2.55 million subscribers online at a global level.

The global accounting services market is expected to grow from $574.4 billion in

2019 to $734.7 billion in 2023 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.3%.
The use of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence to analyse and
quickly identify irregularities in the data is expected to drive the growth of the
accounting services market in the forecast period’’.
As technology offers conditions to diminish human failures, it has become much
more difficult to have problems such as loss of data, for example. This is important
because it avoids the non-fulfillment of tax obligations, fines and inspections. This is
a significant advance, especially if we compare it to past times when this type of
procedure took much more time and required much greater energy expenditure.
Consequently, we see changes throughout the market. With improved processes,
the requirements for the professional in the area have increased, because now, in
addition to dealing with the technical knowledge inherent to their function, it is also
recommended to be able to use increasingly modern devices for procedures.
Therefore, these technological developments have brought more practicality to the
work of accounting professionals such as; meets clouds freedom; run a smarter;
faster; better informed business. The company stays with the management tools stay
connected fully integrated with less administration and more productivity to the
development and growth of the company, as demonstrated in the article published
by yahoo, with all that we have to most advantageous to work with reliability.
References

1. LinkedIn (2020). Job Vacancy. [online] Available from:

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search/?
currentJobId=1726634389&f_E=1&keywords=accountant. [Accessed 25th April
2020].

2. Marr, Bernard. (2020). 10 Business Functions That Are Ready To Use Artificial
Intelligence [online]. Available from:
https://www.forbes.com-/sites/bernardmarr/2020/03/30/10-business-functions-
that-are-ready-to-use-artifi-cial-intelligence/#2a15b75a3068. [Accessed 26th April
2020].

3. Pesenti, Jérôme and Wendy, Dame Hall. (2017). Growing The Artificial
Intelligence Industry In The UK [online]. Available from: http://ftp.shujuju.cn/-
platform/file/20171018/782c432045784854a04e458976aef0bf.pdf. [Accessed 23th
April 2020].

4. Thomas, Keir Bryant. (2019). 5 positive ways artificial intelligence will impact
accountants. Sage [online]. Available from: https://www.sage.com/en-
ie/blog/artificial-intelligence-impact-accountants/. [Accessed 23th April 2020].

5. Todora, Eleonora. (2018). How Artificial Intelligence Is Challenging Accounting

Profession. Journal of International Scientific Publications [online], 12(1), pp 2.
Available from: https://www.research-gate.net/profile/Eleonora_Stancheva/-
publication/333728223_HOW_ARTIFICIAL_INTELLIGENCE_IS_CHALLENGING
_ACCOUNTING_PROFESSION/links/5d00ff16299bf13a38500807/HOW-
ARTIFICIAL-INTELLIGENCE-IS-
CHALLENGINGACCOUNTINGPROFESSION-.pdf. [Accessed 25th April 2020].

6. Ware, Emmanuel Opoku. (2015). Computerized Accounting System an Effective

Means of Keeping Accounting Records in Ghanaian Banks: a Case Study of the
 Ga Rural Bank. International Journal of Research in Business Studies and
Management [online], 2(11), pp 5. Available from:
file:///C:/Users/leno_/Downloads/Computerised_Accounting_System_an_Effect
%20(1).pdf. Accessed 24th April 2020].
7. Yahoo finance (2020). Cloud-based Accounting Software to Enhance Efficiency
in The $574 Billion Accounting Services Market, Reports TBRC [online]. Available
from: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cloud-based-accounting-software-enhance-
140500134.html?
guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_ref
errer_sig=AQAAAKceJyFjyutpp_seeO2KnLYFANCCpl5geBkfwGLWCuL5MO29f
TuTpo5VywVv6ZtuS4XxzFpYtmAxKQpW6DwfOvCbkllFOyUZQBtTLY2fadyTctF
XYC05DhmJStRZk7tO4_nzvRF5o1prWo9E_OQFEPDQXHx_kKBU7esLBvI-m8.
[Accessed 27th April 2020].

8. Zehong, Li and Li Zheng. (2018). The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on

Accounting. Journal of Atlantis Press [online], 181(1), pp 814. Available from:
file:///C:/Users/leno_/Downloads/25903730.pdf. [Accessed 26th April 2020].