Accounting and Finance Emerging Issues (Essay Sample)

Artificial Technology (AI) in Accounting Field
Technology has established itself as a significant factor for humans. Healthcare, business, governments, military, education, and energy, among other crucial environments, employ technology in their various daily tasks. Technological advancement has given rise to specific trends like artificial intelligence (AI), which has evoked mixed reactions from stakeholders in every environment it has proved applicable (Balakrishnan, Prakash and Ramesh, 2019). AI has proved effective in numerous human environments. In the business platform, nearly all tasks can be performed by AI or with the support of AI, making it a crucial element for organizations in all industries. In accounting practices, AI has proved effective in various roles. Some business firms already have adopted AI for all functions that could be performed by computer systems, whereas others are setting up the infrastructure necessary to involve AI. Ideally, all accounting organizations and business firms employ at least some aspect of AI technologies in their accounting operations.
Accounting remains an essential practice for all business firms. The reports are used by various stakeholders, including the government, stockholders, and managers, for internal and external purposes. Like other environments, AI in accounting is both an opportunity and a threat from various perspectives. Some stakeholders feel that the technology may negatively affect accounting quality, while others see it as an opportunity to attain excellent accounting levels (Lee and Tajudeen, 2020). Having already been adopted in some accounting work, AI impact can be evaluated using existing information. Prediction of its implications when fully adopted is also possible because there is already a framework for the future of AI. It is predicted that AI in the future will be more capable and can take much more tasks than it is currently. This raises the question of whether the technology will replace or coexist with accountants (Losbichler and Lehner, 2021). Meanwhile, the impact of replacing professional accountants with AI has to be put into consideration. Although AI has proved very effective in handling various accounting tasks, and its future version is promising, various impediments or considerations put the idea of replacing accountants with AI at scrutiny as it is thought to be unable to handle some accountants' duties (Mohammad et al., 2020). This paper investigates AI technologies' current impacts on the accounting environment and potential advantages, and disadvantages should it entirely replace accountants.
The Impacts of AI on Accounting
AI is applicable in all routine accounting tasks of invoicing, preparing purchase orders, compiling expense reports, and recording and preparing accounts payable and receivables, among others. It has been about four decades since AI technology was first introduced in accounting environments. As time goes by, AI becomes an essential factor in the accounting platform. Several positive and negative impacts have been unveiled, and more are anticipated when the involvement of AI in accounting increases in the future. The vital positive impacts that have been established include; improved accuracy, reduced costs, and increased productivity. The key negative impacts revealed so far include taking some accounting jobs to leave some accountants jobless, encouraging unethical accounting behaviors, and risking sabotage of accounting information.
Positive Impacts of AI in Accounting
Using AI for recording, storing, processing, and analyzing accounting data has proved very effective on time. The technology can operate for much longer hours than humans and handle huge amounts of data per given moment. For instance, when an accountant wants to use receipts and invoices to calculate the total amounts of receivables and payables, thousands of data can be processed quickly. This would take much more time if the conventional calculation devices were used by accountants to process such information (Miao, Humphrey and Qian, 2017). Organizations that use AI for processing and analyzing their data do not go through any hustle because the technology does it much faster. Information collection through AI is also much faster than using other conventional accounting materials. It scans and takes every detail about a product, unlike in the manual data entry method, where the accountant will have to set rows and columns and manually record every detail about the product.