Navigating New Age of Accounting Means Balancing Books and Bots

The accounting profession today isn’t the one I entered in 2000. It’s not even the profession that some of my students entered just six or seven years ago.

Technology enhancements, including analytics and generative artificial intelligence, a dwindling pipeline of accounting students, and a generational shift in the population of accountants have forced structural changes on what has been typically seen as a hidebound and stodgy profession.

The good news is universities that educate future accountants are adapting to this brave new world so their graduates can handle these new demands.

For example, Brigham Young University created and released the EY EYARC Experience (under the EY Foundation)—a new learning platform with 14 interactive audit and tax cases using generative AI. Here at the University of Richmond (Robins), accounting students create and answer a unique accounting question with explicit permission to use AI tools at any step of the process to gain this vital experience.

Other business programs, including Indiana University Bloomington (Kelley), the University of Texas at Austin (McCombs), North Carolina A&T (Deese), and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (Gies), have licensed generative AI tools and deployed them throughout courses across their curriculum for both faculty and student use. In this way, faculty and students are collaboratively learning the technology in real time. AI isn’t relegated to a single course on the topic but are integrated throughout accounting and business curricula. The tools may be new, but the skills are familiar.

The focus on AI isn’t an academic exercise. Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC all announced nine-figure investments in proprietary AI tools. These investments combined with other analytics software already in use will elevate their auditors’ skills, so audit work for new accountants no longer will simply be the basic tick-and-tie exercises of yesteryear.

Audit staff will need to engineer meaningful prompts for the firm-developed AI platforms, then skeptically evaluate the output according to accounting and auditing standards.

Priming the Pipeline

Universities also have responded to the shrinking pipeline of accounting students and wave of retiring accountants by attempting to draw more students into their accounting programs.

Robins has created a director of accounting student engagement faculty position who develops and executes strategies to expose more students to accounting careers and boost student interest in the profession.

Kelley created an accounting certification for non-business students to draw students to their master of science program in accounting with data analytics. Gies and others have recruited more accounting instructors with deep professional experience to further “integrate real-world experience into the classroom.”

Deese takes a holistic approach to drawing students to their accounting programs. From articulating the value of an accounting degree for various stakeholders to ensuring that students are financially supported by scholarships, Deese highlights the important and evolving role of new accountants. Deese’s efforts to strengthen the pipeline also could increase diversity in the profession.

Many other accounting programs, including those at McCombs, University of Kansas, and University of Miami refreshed their introductory accounting courses to generate interest in the field at the start of students’ academic careers.

These programs boast intro courses that include case competitions, use of analytics tools for data visualization of real companies’ financials, and support for student-run businesses on campus. All this has helped relax formerly rigid structures around undergraduate accounting education.

Professional Partnerships

Universities are also answering the call to recruit the accountants of tomorrow by partnering with the professional world to create alternate pathways into the field and make the CPA credential more affordable with more diverse representation.

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and National Association of State Boards of Accountancy created the Experience, Learn and Earn Program and piloted it with Tulane University to help students earn the necessary college credit hours to qualify for a CPA license at a lower cost than other programs.

PwC partnered with Northeastern University to create similar programs for accountants to earn additional college credits while working to ease the burden and cost of the 150 credit hours. In conjunction with Hult International Business School, EY has developed a program to help interns accumulate additional credit hours toward licensure.

Meanwhile, states governments, including those in Minnesota, California, South Carolina, and Washington, are exploring legislation that would allow accountants to obtain their CPA license without satisfying the current 150-credit hour education requirement.

Pay Concerns

Academia can only do so much. When it comes to pay for early-career accountants, the profession must respond to early career professionals’ demand for fair compensation.

PwC reduced salary raises and curtailed other perks as it grapples with current business environment challenges. EY announced a double-digit pay hike to entice new hires, but it’s unclear how that plan would affect pay for other personnel in the firm.

However, salary isn’t the only way for the firms to attract personnel—remote and hybrid work arrangements initiated during the Covid-19 pandemic are still supporting work-life balance that the next generation of accountants expects.

I already see new accountants and accounting education adapting to the new industry landscape. The true challenge will be for the profession and firms to respond in kind.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg Tax, or its owners.

Author Information

Robert Pawlewicz is assistant professor of accounting at University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business.

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