Accounting and Technology by Siti Aisyah Mohamed
Accounting is the process of recording financial transactions for a business. The accounting process
includes summarizing, analyzing, and reporting these transactions to oversight agencies, regulators,
and tax collection entities. Accountants rely heavily on technologies for these processes. Before the
Internet age, accountants rely solely on calculators, ledgers, and record receipts to process these
financial transactions. However, nowadays, the advancements of computers technology and the
World Wide Web have massively improved the speed and flow of tasks accountants can manage,
enabling them to handle complex calculations unseen before the Internet age. Computer programs
such as Microsoft Excel can be programmed to calculate for users with the right coding without the
need to bring ledgers and calculators anywhere. Information can be stored in the cloud and can be
accessed by any Internet-connected devices such as laptops, tablets, and even smartphones,
bringing flexibility and accessibility to accountants.
As one of the many advantages of the Internet, accountants can do any business transactions
without the need for any face-to-face interactions with their clients. Calculations of transactions can
be made in Microsoft Excel and sent through email with a simple push of a button. The delivery will
almost be instantaneous. Any new orders or jobs can simply be texted through the Whatsapp app
for smartphones and can even be voice mailed. Nowadays with the dawn of 5G, a true high-
definition online meeting is possible without any stutter or hiccups, with almost hundreds of
participants can be in the same meeting if necessary.
For students that are studying in the field of professional accountancy, information or knowledge
about their subjects can be obtained very easily. Students can simply search for the information by
searching it up using a search engine such as Google or Yahoo and instantaneously multiple websites
and research papers will be shown to them. Classes also can be held online for students in the
comfort of their homes. This is the dawn of a new age for education as the future of education will
be online education thanks to the rapid advancement of technology, with the added convenience of
a learning experience tailored towards their schedule. Online students can choose to access their
course information and complete their assignments at any time. This allows students to fit their
study time around their work, family, and other commitments. This also means that students who
wish to continue working while studying do not have to put their careers on hold.
At INTEC Education College, we encourage our professional accounting students to have digital skills
especially in advanced spreadsheets and advanced presentations. These skills can be obtained
through ICDL courses offered at INTEC. ACCA and ICDL have also signed a partnership together for its
affiliate to have computer skills certifications from ICDL before qualifying as a chartered accountant.
In the end, the rapid change of technology brings a lot of benefits to chartered accountants.
Students need to be quick-witted and open to learning new things to keep up with the market
demands of chartered accountants.