The tech you need to work efficiently in 2021 – and beyond

From fast-forwarding take up of virtual client meetings and paperless processes, to boosting usage of automated bookkeeping tools, Covid-19 has triggered a marked increase in digitalisation in the financial services sector.

American body the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants believes that “accountants and finance professionals around the globe have learned many lessons about how to embrace digital transformation” as a result of the pandemic.

And Craig Moore, director of CJM Associates in Staffordshire, agrees.

“The accountancy world has been transitioning into a more tech-focused, cloud-based approach for many years,” he said.

“But the challenges faced during the pandemic have escalated the need for accountants to embrace technology and use it to their advantage.”

So let’s take a closer look at how Covid-19 has changed the accountancy sector, and highlight some of the digital tools helping bookkeepers, tax advisers, and auditors do a better job.

The pre-Covid status quo

Not all accountants were racing to digitalise their operations pre-Covid-19.

While big companies were already investing heavily in technology – with KPMG, for example, earmarking $5 billion (£3.6 billion) for tech investments in the five years from 2019 – figures suggest that many smaller firms were quite happy to stick with more traditional practices.

In early 2019, a report from technology provider Sage found that only 35% of accountants in the UK thought their firms were “early adopters of technology”, with the majority only spending on essential tools.

The “pandemic effect”

When the pandemic hit, accountancy firms faced a raft of unexpected new challenges, the first of which was usually to find a way for their employees to work effectively – and communicate successfully with clients – from home.

As for companies across the country, video conferencing tools such as Zoom therefore became indispensable to many accountants’ everyday operations. So it should come as no surprise that Ofcom’s statistics show the number of Zoom users in the UK shooting up from 659,000 to 13 million between January and April 2020.  

Within the finance sector, cloud-based accounting software packages also became an immediate must-have. “Having already moved to more cloud-based financial systems was a big help once we had to start working remotely due to Covid,” said Dairin O’Donovan, operations finance manager at Shell Energy Retail Ltd.

“We were working towards becoming a paperless office for environmental reasons; when the pandemic started, that happened overnight.”

The longer-term view

Even though restrictions are now easing, the repercussions of the pandemic continue to be felt, with many accountants expecting at least a percentage of their meetings to remain virtual post pandemic.

“Replacing many face-to-face interactions with online meetings has made it easier to get hold of colleagues because they are at their desks more,” O’Donovan said. “It has also made it easier to find the balance between what needs a meeting and when an email will suffice.”

Many accountants also expect to keep using automated bookkeeping tools such as Xero, Freeagent, and Quickbooks, while cloud-based inventory management systems such as Brightpeal and Cin7 are tipped to enjoy on-going success.

This shift will offer various benefits, including that companies prepared to integrate remote working into their business models will be able to scout talent from a much wider geographical area.

Greater digitalisation can bring greater risks, however. Employees working remotely are more likely to be targeted with scams such as “phishing” and “vhishing”. So companies may have to spend a bit more on online security training to avoid leaks and breaches.

The hi-tech future

As well as escalating take-up of technology within accountancy, the pandemic has triggered a wave of new development.

So what technological solutions might be helping accountants do their jobs in a few years’ time? At the big accountancy firms, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software that can manage day-to-day business activities such as client and project management, procurement, and human resources is a major focus.

At Deloitte UK, for example, chief financial officer Donna Ward has been working hard to avoid the pandemic derailing the rollout of software group SAP’s latest ERP system, which uses artificial intelligence to improve business processes.

Across the industry, more companies are also expected to sign up to cloud-based Customer Relationship Management software programmes designed to streamline client services.

And elsewhere, audit analytics tools that can turn auditing into a continual process – rather than an end-of-year one – look set to become more common over the next few years.

In summary

Love them or hate them, the digital tools that have helped the financial services industry through the pandemic now appear to be here to stay.

“It’s really now a case of being left behind if you fail to embrace technology in the workplace,” Moore said.

As we ease out of the pandemic, hopefully for good, the key is therefore to stay open to change, and take advantage of the tools best suited to your business and your clients.

Further reading

• The future of accountancy will have digital at its core
• Start marketing your business with these 3 tools
• 4 things that could reshape the future of audit

Jessica Bown is an award-winning freelance journalist and editor.