Fifth of the Accountants in the UK Still using Paper Based Methods

Xero, an accounting software firm, started a research that has found that 94% business owners expect that accountants in this era of technology should be equipped with latest technological software and relevant tools for their services. Just 6% business owners commented that it is not that important.

Irrespective of this demand from the business owners, 78% accountants are still found to be using spreadsheets to manage their accounting tasks and other ledgers. 18% accountants are still using paper based sheets to prepare ledgers and accounts like it used to be in the early days of this profession.

Another report from the same firm, Xero, observed that only 48% of the accountants in market are considering that rapidly growing technology could be a problem for them if they fail to adopt it. 35% of the accountants in market blamed it on education and training facilities that there are not enough facilities available for accountants to learn new changing technology.

Director and Partner of Xero, Damon Anderson, commented that In the coming few years accountants and their customers would have to get equipped with this changing technology or they would face the risk of business closures. He further commented that their report found that one in ten business administrator and a fifth of accountants in practice are still working on paper based accounts, a process which was used in the start of accountancy profession and takes a lot of time for simple tasks. He stressed on the need of working smarter at end of his comments.

He further talked about the overall accounting market of the Britain by saying that this market is entering the new era of technology and innovation and tax is getting digital and payment processing has been improving lately. He stressed that accountancy firms should take appropriate measures to adopt this new changing technology to survive in this competitive market.

He said that It is the era of Artificial intelligence and many jobs can be done on computers easily but still those machines need human judgement and skills so humans should learn to work with those machines and programs.