Artificial intelligence is changing accounting faster than universities can update their curricula. The profession is experiencing its biggest skills shift in a generation with AI now doing much of the routine work.
When information is cheap and automated tools are everywhere, the real differentiator becomes what people choose to do with that information. This means universities must rethink how they teach, what they assess, and how they prepare students for an environment where AI is embedded in everyday work from day one. Large language models have made AI accessible to everyone and that accessibility is transforming the nature of accounting work. AI can now automate routine tasks, and this shifts the competencies the profession has traditionally relied on as skills that once required years of training are now generated in seconds.
As automation increases, the role of the accountant moves firmly toward judgement, interpretation, oversight and strategic thinking. The profession is shifting away from memorisation and towards the ability to ask the right questions of machines, evaluate responses and understand when an AI-generated answer is wrong.
AI is not replacing accountants, it is redefining what “accountant” means. What’s happening is like what spreadsheets did to the role of bookkeepers in the 1990s. The work didn’t disappear; it moved up the value chain. Tools like Xero, QuickBooks Online and Sage Intacct are rapidly automating functions like capturing invoices and receipts, bank reconciliations, VAT coding suggestions, payroll processing and draft financial statements. This is the traditional bread-and-butter work of many small practices and junior staff.
AI is weak where judgment, interpretation and commercial thinking are required. This is where the future accountant will thrive. AI can process transactions, but the future accountant must interpret what the transactions mean for the business, AI can produce reports but the future accountant must explain the story behind the numbers, and AI can detect anomalies, but the future accountant must advice on business decisions impacted by those anomalies.
The role of accountant will shift from a historian to a strategist, which will be a massive value jump, and clients will pay far more for it. Skills like data interpretation and analytics, tax interpretation and structuring, cash-flow modelling and forecasting, systems advisory, business model understanding, communication and storytelling with numbers, risk identification and commercial advisory will matter much more than debits and credits.
Manual bookkeeping departments, large junior teams doing processing, low-fee compliance-only clients and time-based billing for routine work is likely to disappear from accounting practices in future. Contrary to this, services such as virtual CFO or outsourced financial data services, tax advisory and structuring, management reporting and KPI design, business performance advisory, systems and process consulting and data-driven decision support are likely to explode in demand. This means that accountants who aim to help business owners make better decisions using their numbers will become more valuable in future.
South Africa’s SMEs are under-advised, poor at using financial data and strong on compliance but weak on insight. AI will remove the compliance burden which will create space for advisory. The accountant of the future is likely to have 30% accounting knowledge, 30% tax knowledge, 30% business advisory knowledge and 10% AI and systems fluency knowledge. This indicates that the future accountant will not be a technician but rather a financial strategist for SMEs.
AI will replace tasks, not replace accountants but it will replace accountants who only do tasks. There will be a move in the role of the accountant in future from a focus on processing to interpreting to advising and ultimately strategising.
Please feel free to contact Horachio Scheepers at horachio@bkaudit.co.za for any assistance.
Source: Accountancy SA website: https://www.accountancysa.org.za/focus-ai-and-the-accountant-of-the-future/