An Accounting Information Systems Perspective on Data Analytics and Big Data The panel was generally of the opinion that although the accounting profession has been identified in the popular and business press as a field facing an increased risk of automation (Dhar 2017), the accounting tasks likely to be automated in the near term could be described as bookkeeping. For instance, Walmart announced in 2016 that 7,000 jobs were cut due to automation (Nassauer 2016); these positions were hourly accounting and invoicing jobs. However, automation can reach beyond bookkeeping. In an analysis of 702 occupational categories, Frey and Osborne (2017) not only identified bookkeeping, clerical accounting jobs, and tax preparation as among the fields most susceptible to automation (with a probability of 98–99 percent to be automated), but they also identified the jobs of accountants, auditors, and tax examiners as being in the 47 percent of the U.S. job market that faces a high risk of automation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicting the impact of automation on any profession is difficult. In 2016, Davenport and Kirby (2016) expected that some tasks performed by audit and tax accountants would face increasing automation (similar to some tasks performed by lawyers, financial advisors, and professors). However, only two years earlier, compliance work performed by auditors was experiencing high growth and was considered as a career with a bright future (Millman and Rubenfeld 2014). Contradictory predictions about the future of professions are common; views among economists and academics diverge as to whether robotics and technology will eliminate many professional jobs (Rotman 2013). The impact of automation in the accounting profession remains to be seen