In 2020, finance and accounting professionals will have spent most of their time dealing with new problems. Still, in 2021, CPA companies must be prepared and ready to execute long-term plans to ensure that their organization continues to grow and retain profitability. The growing trends in finance, as well as the possibilities that come with the start of a new year, require the investment of both time and attention by your accounting staff to guarantee success and development. In this article, you will learn about upcoming products in the accounting profession for the year 2021.
Emerging New Normal: Remote Work
To guarantee success and development, your accounting staff must be aware of developing financial trends and possibilities. Continue reading to learn about 2021 accounting trends.
One thing that emerges from the COVID-19 epidemic is how effectively financial organizations can collaborate with remote employees. Thanks to a mix of new technology and digital accounts, CPAs can still provide high-standard service for their customers across the distance. Even with a rising number of accounting organizations comfortable for their employees to continue to work remotely permanently, companies need to take cybersecurity precautions to prevent expensive data breaches. From the management of financial records to the analysis of data, many elements of accounting are digitalized. From home or the workplace, accountants remain accountable for helping customers strike a lasting and economic balance in the long term.
Reporting on Environmental, Social, and Governance Aspects in the Industry
Early on, ESG began to get renewed attention in contemporary organizations—and for a good reason: the pandemic was just around the corner. ESG reporting assists businesses in meeting customer demands for increased corporate responsibility while also serving as a critical measure for delivering higher levels of risk mitigation inside the organization. Apart from the continuous sharpening of the emphasis on sustainability and ethical problems inside corporate boardrooms, there has also been an increase in the popularity of responsible investment among external investors.
ESG criteria have emerged as a critical factor in determining how well a company is doing to measure its performance. As a result, businesses need to measure their environmental, social, and governance initiatives. For tomorrow’s accountants to be successful, they will need to combine their technical abilities with high professional and ethical standards to confront social and environmental problems front-on.
Automated Accounting
By 2021, effective automation has already contributed to improving compliance by more than 91 percent of businesses. Not only, but with the use of modern automation technology, accounts don’t have to spend more time, energy, or resources on tedious manual chores requiring tabletops or numbers. CPAs may devote time to value-adding activities requiring human-to-human contact and thorough analysis with automation.
The primary reason for automation to remain is its role in improving human accountants. Automation can remove confusion, decrease mistakes, reduce time consumption and make slow-moving operations a thing of the past with increased productivity.
Investment in Cloud-based Accounting
Accounting technology developments also go beyond automation. The cloud is quickly becoming a popular option for accounting companies because of its ability to distribute digital resources effectively and minimize the need for hardware. Linked closely to the trend of remote operations, companies have access to their system at any time. It’s recommended to run a rigid network performance test to ensure that the company can use the cloud efficiently.
CPAs are no longer linked to corporate networks or remote data centers. Accounting companies need to innovate and undertake digital transformation by 2021. Cloud-based providers assist accounting companies by taking charge of any software upgrades or systems integration, allowing internal IT staff the opportunity to concentrate their efforts on further vital responsibilities.
Digitized Payment
Globally, the fast transition to digital payment use changes the face of payments. The knock-on effect is a change in accountants’ financial environment. Accenture’s study predicts over 420 billion transactions to migrate from cash to digital payments by 2023 —and to continue growing to approximately 48 billion dollars by 2030. Although technology allows end-users to outsource costs and accountants to account for these transactions, the fast shift toward digital payments places further strain on banks.
Accenture research has also found that the urgency of their plans to modernize payment systems has risen by 75% of bank managers claiming COVID-19, demonstrating the significant change. Digital company payments prevent needless manual invoice processing, saving considerable time throughout the whole procedure. Digitization of payment procedures reduces the labor expenses of accounting.
Financial management has focused on digitalization and new and emerging technologies to improve operational efficiency and improve customer experience. Artificial intelligence, extensive data analysis, financial-management machine-learning applications are being transformed. There are four digital technologies now re-forming finance management: automation and robotics to improve processes; data visualization that allows the end-users to understand financial data in real-time; fundamental analytics that serves to guide accurate decisions; and intelligent systems that can help companies to reveal hidden shareholder value.
