What Business & Accounting Schools Should Teach About AI

Know about the importance of AI, Automation, Data Security, and skills in schools

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is rapidly changing how businesses operate around the world. The practical, efficient, and organizational benefits of artificial intelligence cannot be ignored, especially when it comes to the industries that deal with complex numbers such as accounting.

Today, artificial intelligence applications are so good when tasked with specific functions. They actually perform better than humans in most cases. For instance, businesses are using AI to extract data from their client contracts to see if it meets their requirements and complies with different agreed standards. 

These are tasks that are normally handled by accountants with a CPA (Certified Public Accountants) qualification. These accountants spent a considerable amount of time in business and accounting schools to gain the required qualifications. They also have to gain enough working experience before working for top businesses.

That notwithstanding, and with the recent disruption of the accounting industry by artificial intelligence, business and accounting schools need to introduce AI in their curriculum. Before accountants graduate, they need to have learned a number of things about AI, among them;

Automation

Some people might argue that AI has come to render accountants jobless. This is not true because AI has only come to make things easier and to streamline the daily work of an accountant.

Business and accounting schools need to ensure that they have taught their students about automation and the need to streamline business processes.

For instance, an accountant is tasked with providing all the payment details to an employee in a company. Let's take an example of a company with over one hundred employees at different grades of employment.

It will take the accountant a lot of time to detail the payment of every employee. Instead, they can use a pay stub maker that automates the whole process and makes it easy and straightforward.

Data Skills

Accountants are trained to deal with different clients. These clients use different systems, data, processes, and policies that have a direct impact on their financial data and the ways through which accounting is done.

This makes it quite complicated and accountants are supposed to deal with different sets of data as they serve different clients.

Due to this, business and accounting schools need to teach data skills and analytics to make it easy for accountants to work with different AI systems capable of handling these different sets of data. With that, accountants will be able to analyze the data generated by AI applications and work faster.

Story Telling Ability

Accountants should be able to look at different sets of financial data and generate a story from the data. This is an art and the story should be easy to understand to anyone who gets to read or listen to it. What does this mean?

This means that business and accounting schools should teach the ability to use data to convey a message and meaning through storytelling effectively. This is because although artificial intelligence can provide a lot of data, accountants need to be able to translate this data to everyone and make them understand with ease.

Data Security

Although AI makes everything easy and straightforward for accountants, they need to be careful about the security of the data that they handle. With advanced technology, cases of unauthorized access to data and cybercrime have increased.

Cybercriminals are finding new ways every day to infiltrate businesses and gain access to data that they can use fraudulently.

As such, business and accounting schools need to teach their students about data security and its importance. Accountants need to be aware of the different measures and applications they can use to ensure that the data that they handle is safe. This will go a long way in eliminating cybercrimes.

Conclusion

Artificial intelligence should be embraced in all industries including the world of accountants. It has transformed the role played by accountants, forcing them to learn how it works before even venturing into the industry.

If you want to succeed in your career as an accountant, make sure that you join a business and accounting school that has included AI in its curriculum.