Accounting firms resisting the transition to automating manual processes are potentially damaging their profit margins, according to Becki Roberts, national head of cloud accounting at UHY Hacker Young.

Roberts says adopting automation technologies can be beneficial to practices’ bottom lines, as they free up accountants from repetitive activities to tackle value-added tasks.

“Anywhere where we’re doing things over and over again, there’s an opportunity for some of that human element to be taken out of it,” she explains.

“Then there’s your bottom line. If you’re paying qualified, intelligent people to do processes that they don’t need to be doing, that’s going to have a massive impact on your profit.

Roberts adds that the manual completion of repetitive tasks can be attritional for staff, and that this can negatively impact retention.

The ICAEW’s head of data analytics and technology, Ian Pay, agrees, noting that automation is now vital to success in the modern accounting sector.

“We’re rapidly entering an ‘evolve or die’ world when it comes to embracing tech and automation – it’s brutal but it’s true,” he argues. “That demise could come in the form of pricing yourself out of the market through labour-intensive processes, or losing clients who move to firms who can deliver more from their relationship, as their staff are freed up to engage in meaningful conversations.” Read On: