Technology trends in Accounting and Finance Today

Technology has redefined business functions. Accounting and finance are no different. Technology has powered data explosion in recent times. Professionals in the finance domain must be aware of these technology trends. Awareness of the latest technology trends will help finance professionals with business strategies. Knowledge will help derive more value from technology solutions.

Significant technology trends in the finance world

Let us look at some of the significant technology trends in the finance world.

Greater computing power

There is an acceleration of cloud-based accounting solutions. The pandemic has induced remote working leading to rapid digital transformation. Cloud providers like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft provide affordable and scalable cloud solutions. SaaS applications power accounting and invoice management today on the cloud. With cloud technologies, mobile apps, and SaaS applications providing continuous real-time transactions, companies can move from batch processing to ‘continuous accounting’ for operational efficiencies. Quantum computing is showing good progress, and it will provide services and solve issues that are a challenge with traditional computing.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Procedural and repetitive activities like processing accounting and finance documents, invoices, etc., are mundane and time-consuming. RPA automates these tasks. Accounting staff can focus on advisory and other value-added work. Intelligent automation (IA) today can pick up inferred meaning in communication too.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial Intelligence is improving the productivity of finance professionals. The AI-based algorithms help automate time-consuming, repetitive, and redundant tasks. AI-based applications extract information from invoices, detect fraud and duplicates. They also perform automatic routing of invoices to the next stage of processing. Finance professionals can use the saved time for delivering more value-added tasks. The new AI-based applications will streamline digital transformation. It will make traditional accounting processes more efficient. Clients today have different expectations, and finance teams should deliver results with speed and efficiency using technology to remain competitive.

Big data

Accounting professionals have been diving into excel sheets for their needs. Applications today provide data in structured and unstructured formats. Data provides valuable real-time insights, gives detailed analytics and actions to create a better experience. Audit processes are digitized. Digitizing data improves process efficiencies and boosts revenues.

Internet of Things (IoT)

Interconnected devices and sensors lead the Internet of things. The intelligence in the Internet of things helps finance professionals track records, ledgers, and transactions in real-time. Audits become streamlined due to continuous monitoring.

Blockchain

Blockchains are digital and distributed ledgers of transactions. One can securely store data in a blockchain and has many applications for accounting and finance. 

Blockchain has the potential to improve accounting by reducing the costs of maintaining and reconciling ledgers. They provide absolute certainty over the ownership and history of assets. Widescale adoption of blockchain post regulatory challenges will benefit businesses. Cost reduction, along with enhanced security and increase traceability, will help all companies.

Conclusion

Most modern automated accounting solutions offer bank integration and automatic data capture from invoices and documents. Speed is the essence of the digital future.