40% of Accountants Spending Half their Time on Manual Tasks
As many as 40 per cent of UK accountants are still spending half their working days handling manual tasks, according to a new piece of research.
With so many new forms of automation software now available to accountants, they could be focussing more of their attention on pursuing other activities.
But for now, around 30 per cent of accountants say they don’t have the automation tools at their disposal that would allow them to focus less on manual work.
The figures have been compiled by the pre-accounting platform company Dext, which found that only 43 per cent of accountants feel technology can make their working lives easier despite the scope there is now for manual processes to be automated.
A similar proportion (40 per cent) said they expect the use of technology across the accounting profession to increase in the coming years.
Clearly for many professional accountants, carrying out manual processes is not an issue that needs resolving but most of those with 15 years or more experience in the sector counted such tasks among those they least like doing.
From the perspective of Dext as a platform provider, there are certain aspects of accountancy and bookkeeping that could and possibly should be automated more than is currently the case.
“While manual admin tasks were a necessary part of the job 15 years ago, there’s no need for accountants to be drowning in administrative tasks anymore,” said Sabby Gill, the company’s chief executive.
“It’s shocking that despite the advancements made in the accounting software space, there are still so many practices that are not leveraging automation technology and struggling on unnecessarily.”
Mr Gill went on to argue that accountancy practices can benefit significantly from process automation because it allows their teams to spend more of their time focussing instead on “providing actionable advice to clients to ensure they are thriving”.
“It’s evident that there is a real appetite for change when it comes to streamlining accounting processes,” he said.
“Automation has the ability to improve the working lives of accountants and the value they can bring to their clients, both now and in the future.”
