The end of the accounting profession as we know it?

The accounting profession will face significant changes in the next three decades, and professional organizations, their members, and educational institutions should respond

Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) research—Drivers of Change and Future Skills—has explored these important changes, expected to be encountered by the year 2025. I was privileged to have been part of the team from Uganda discussing the future of the Accounting profession. One of the highlights was on the need to have professional Quotients and below is an excerpt from the report.

PROFESSIONAL QUOTIENTS (PQ): This analysis suggests that to add value for their employers and clients, the professional accountant of the future will need an optimal and changing combination of professional competencies: a collection of technical knowledge, skills and abilities, combined with interpersonal behaviours and qualities. By 2020, all professional accountants will need to develop and balance the necessary professional quotients to fit their role and stage of career.

Each accountant’s professional quotients (PQ) will reflect their competency and skill across seven constituent areas. Technical skills and ethics (TEQ) and experience (XQ) will be combined with intelligence (IQ) and digital awareness (DQ); interpersonal behaviours, skills and qualities will be reflected in quotients for creativity (CQ), emotional intelligence (EQ) and vision (VQ). Just as individual IQ scores can be raised (sometimes significantly) by appropriate teaching, experience, training and development, so too can TEQ, CQ, EQ, VQ and XQ.

Although technical expertise is vital, and will remain so, over the period to 2025 some areas of technical knowledge and skills will increase in value, others will decrease, and new knowledge and skills will be required. What is considered the ‘optimal’ mix will vary across specialist domains, roles, organisations, industries and geographies, and it will evolve in response to change.

The requirement for professional accountants at all levels of seniority and in all roles to maintain the highest levels of ethical conduct, independence and professional sceptism will remain constant.

"As the world changes and finance becomes an ever increasing priority for most organsations, there is a recognised need for the role of the finance professional to change. No longer can the finance professional sit behind a spreadsheet or spend hours simply playing with a chart of accounts. There is now a need, and in a lot of cases a pull from the business, for a finance professional to play a greater part in the strategic decision making and planning within a business.This has created the developing role of the Finance Business Partner." ICAS #Quote

The Accountancy 360 program is designed to mentor an Accountant into a strategic Business Partner.

Program: (each session includes a QuickBooks module)

Session 1: Traits of the indespensable Accountant 

Session 2: The Financial Dash Board

Session 3: Financial Health Check 

Session 4: Essential Controls to plug financial leaks

Session 5: The Taxation and compliance Game

A business owner can attend sessions 2 to 5 of this program to understand the key accounting principles they need to inform strategic decision making.

Fee: Ugx80,000 per session or Ugx360,000 for all the 5 sessions

Venue: Business Development Centre, 3rd Floor, Forest Mall, Lugogo, Kampala

Time: 10am to 12pm

Duration: Every Saturday from 1st September to 29th September 2018

RSVP +256 782305125/ 759330706 (Limited slots available)