Title: Accounting Education Transformation and Career Development Planning in the Era of Digital Economy
Author: Xu Yude Liu Di Fan Kexin
Units: Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences, Graduate School of China Academy of Fiscal Sciences, China Journal of Finance
Issue: Journal of Fiscal Science, No. 12, 2021
Executive Summary
The digital economy is profoundly and extensively affecting the development of the global economy, changing the traditional production management model, promoting the continuous innovation of economic formats and business models, and accounting work will also undergo major and profound changes in terms of functions and responsibilities, organizational methods, processing processes, tools and means. As the main participants of market players in the digital economy era, accounting practitioners are facing the realistic requirements of reshaping the accounting environment, transforming functions and improving capabilities under the background of the rapid development of emerging technologies. This paper analyzes the impact of the new round of information technology reform on the traditional accounting industry, accounting practitioners, accounting education and talent training, elaborates the accounting education and talent training path that adapts to the development of the digital economy, and puts forward relevant suggestions for the career planning of accounting practitioners under the new situation.
Keywords: digital economy accounting education talent training career planning
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In today's world of scientific and technological innovation and industrial change, digital technology is fully integrated into the various fields and processes of human economy, politics, culture, society and ecological civilization construction with new concepts, new formats and new models, making all things data a reality. Digital technology breaks the boundaries of information technology and economic development and achieves deep integration with the real economy. The vigorous development of modern information technology driven by the "Great Wisdom Migration Cloud and Material Zone" as the core, and extending its tentacles to various fields of production and life, has also driven the development and transformation of the accounting industry, giving it a new connotation and model in the context of the digital economy era. From the development of accounting computerization, the comprehensive promotion of accounting informatization work is developing towards accounting automation and intelligence. A new generation of ERP, RPA (robot process automation) is gradually replacing a large number of standardized basic accounting work, electronic invoices and electronic files to achieve financial paperless office, big data technology, data middle office will expand the accounting function from focusing on basic accounting to budgeting, analysis, decision-making, etc. Affected by the new round of information technology revolution and the new business model in economic transformation and upgrading and innovative development, accounting work has undergone major and profound changes in functions and responsibilities, organizational methods, processing processes, tools and means. In order to meet the objective needs of a new round of scientific and technological changes and the economic and social development of the mainland, the Ministry of Finance's "Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan for Accounting Reform and Development" clearly proposes to actively promote the digital transformation of accounting work, deepen and expand accounting functions with digitalization as the support, and promote the high-quality development of accounting work. In this context, clarifying the impact of new formats, new models and emerging information technology development in the new era on the traditional accounting industry, accounting practitioners, accounting education and talent training in colleges and universities, repositioning the training goals and training programs of accounting professionals in applied colleges and universities, and putting forward targeted suggestions for the career planning of accounting practitioners in the high-quality development of the new era, which is conducive to cultivating professional composite talents who meet the development needs of the times and meet the requirements of transformation and upgrading in the field of finance and accounting.
The development of the digital economy has a profound impact on the accounting industry
(1) The development of the digital economy reshapes the accounting work scenario
Under the development and penetration of the digital economy, industrial digitalization and digital industrialization are deeply integrated, promoting industrial change and business model transformation and upgrading, and giving birth to a new financial working environment. In response, Procter & Gamble CEO Robert MacDonald was the first to propose the "VUCA Era" (VUCA) to describe today's new business world. VUCA, i.e. volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, describes the high degree of uncertainty and instability faced by the business management environment. The complex and changeable business environment breaks the original stable "pyramid" structure of the enterprise, so that the internal departments are interconnected and interconnected, and gradually evolves to a hierarchical and flat management model. Correspondingly, the requirements of "digital intelligence", "precision" and "real-time" are also put forward at the level of enterprise strategic collaboration, which has become an important guarantee for improving the adaptability of various management modules of "business-finance-decision-making". The traditional financial system focuses on financial management after the fact, and there are outstanding contradictions such as information lag, decision lag, and action lag, which are incompatible with the development of emerging businesses, and it is urgent to transform to strategic finance, business finance and digital finance with management accounting as the core. By combining management accounting with digital intelligence technology, which emphasizes the main role of accounting practitioners, we will build a connection to achieve the integration of industry and finance, as well as the integration of technology and finance, and the integration of people and finance. The strong integration of big data, artificial intelligence and other digital intelligence technologies and accounting not only promotes the coupling of accounting and analysis, but also integrates the tax, fiscal and financial systems of its intelligent platform to achieve real-time and deep links between accounting, accounting management and economic business, which is of great significance for promoting the high-quality development of enterprises and creating corporate value.
The implementation of the national big data strategy and the national strategic requirements for the construction of digital China provide a solid guarantee for the deep integration of information technology and accounting development. The application of emerging information technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain in accounting information systems not only promotes the standardization, process and centralization of accounting functions, but also brings the accounting functions into greater value in strategic management, operation management and risk management, and realizes the transformation of the core value of the financial department of enterprises from accounting finance to business finance and strategic finance. The vigorous promotion of electronic archives and electronic invoice technology has gradually landed paperless offices, realized the automation of the whole process of information collection, transmission and management, reduced operating costs, improved the efficiency of examination and approval, and compressed the space for fraud and fraud, so that accounting files developed in the direction of refined management. The application of big data technology in the accounting industry makes financial data and business data accurately docked and fully reflects the value of data; real-time transmission of data is possible, making up for the limitations of traditional financial reporting relying on post-reflection, and the data content is expanded from structured financial data to semi-structured and unstructured data that tends to be comprehensive. Blockchain technology will change the way audit data is stored, which will promote the audit work from sampling audit to overall analysis audit, reduce the overall uncertainty inferred from the audit sample, and more systematically and comprehensively reflect the overall situation of the audited unit. The deepening application of information technology has reshaped the accounting work scene and brought about major changes in the content and way of work of accounting practitioners.
(2) The progress of information technology promotes the transformation of accounting practitioners
Driven by digital intelligence technology, accounting informatization work is booming, and the focus of accounting practitioners has shifted from focusing on basic accounting to financial sharing, intelligent finance, accounting data processing and meeting the requirements of international development of enterprises, and the social demand for traditional accounting positions is decreasing sharply. In the information age, the boundaries between business and finance are gradually blurred, and the value of semi-structured data and unstructured data other than traditional structured data has gradually emerged and been valued, and its importance has become increasingly prominent. Enterprise financial data and business data interconnection, data analysis, judgment, processing to support financial analysis, decision-making is gradually becoming the basic work of financial personnel, financial personnel from digital recorders, accountants to digital organizers, miners, to management, digital intelligent talent transformation has become an inevitable trend.
However, at present, the effective supply of accounting practitioners in mainland China is obviously insufficient, and there are serious structural contradictions. In terms of the overall number, the supply of accounting practitioners is greater than the market demand; in terms of supply structure, most of the personnel engaged in basic bookkeeping and accounting are insufficient, and the supply of high-end talents is insufficient; in terms of supply quality, the supply of financial accounting is excessive, the supply of management accounting, informatization ability and professional quality is insufficient, and there are problems such as difficulty in adapting to the update of laws and regulations and changes in practice, slow changes in talent training programs, and disconnection between the demand for enterprise talents and the supply of talents in colleges and universities. In the digital economy environment, the work priorities and work values of accounting practitioners have undergone profound changes, and it is urgent to transform into a digital and composite direction. First of all, the focus of accounting work shifted from basic accounting to corporate strategy, risk management, financial analysis, etc. The automation and intelligent processing of basic accounting work have been basically realized through the deepening application of information technology, and the accounting work focuses on the full-value process management mode of accounting and accounting, post-accounting extension to budgeting, control and supervision, analysis and decision-making. Second, accounting practitioners make accounting information more valuable through financial analysis and decision-making. The value of the work of accounting practitioners is no longer just to record and account for accounting information, but also to participate in the comprehensive management of enterprises and provide professional decision-making through financial analysis, adding value to accounting information and creating higher efficiency. The intelligent financial system will fully cover the accounting process of the enterprise, replacing a large number of standardized, standardized and repetitive basic accounting work. And master the deep self-learning function, the accumulated work experience into machine thinking logic, and gradually realize human-machine collaboration. Finally, digital skills become a must-have skill. In the future of deepening development of the digital economy, the skillful use of digital skills is as important as the mastery of solid accounting professional skills. It is necessary to integrate digital skills and professional skills, and widely use them in the collection, processing, transmission, analysis and decision-making of financial data to form a more convenient and efficient series of financial activities that can carry out continuous and dynamic financial activities in real time, and provide more scientific and systematic support for the ultimate information decision-making goals.
(III) The reform of the accounting industry has provided new ideas for accounting education
The profound changes in the environment of the accounting industry require accounting talents to have comprehensive ability and quality, compound knowledge structure, and clarify the ideas and directions for the training of accounting talents in the era of digital economy. The pain points of traditional financial work are mainly concentrated in labor-intensive finance, single-dimensional value information reflection and lagging analysis, accounting practitioners often only understand the knowledge of vertical fields such as accounting, taxation, law, etc., lack a comprehensive grasp of the overall business activities of enterprises, rarely master the digital mining, processing and analysis capabilities of handling massive data of enterprises, and it is difficult to use accounting means to effectively integrate financial management with information technology and digital resources to expand and realize accounting functions and strategic value in the era of digital economy. Therefore, in order to give full play to the decision-making function of accounting, accounting practitioners need to improve their comprehensive quality and meet the needs of future intelligent financial management positions. Cross-border integration, people-oriented, innovation-driven is an important feature of the era of digital intelligence, insight into data, creating value for enterprises is the core of the future training of accounting skills compound talents, accounting practitioners must not only understand business, data, analysis, tools, but also master management, statistics, operations research, finance and other extended areas of knowledge. The integration of professional knowledge and the diversity of vocational skills have challenged the training mode of innovative and change management accounting talents, and put forward higher requirements for the current accounting talents to seek breakthroughs in interdisciplinary and cross-border integration.
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