VIRTUAL REALITY IN FINANCIAL REPORTING: ARE ACCOUNTANTS AN ENDANGERED SPECIES?

Careers in accounting can vary from entry-level positions of bookkeepers up to the executive level of Chief Financial Officers. Disregarding different career paths, disruptive changes are inevitable for all of them due to the advancement of technologies entering the world of accountancy and financial reporting. Enhanced computational power, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and even social media hand in hand with rapidly changing business processes and their automation are clear signals for accountants reminding them of the necessity to take the future into their own hands and reskill and upskill themselves to stay competitive and in demand. The objective of this paper is to identify, analyse and critically evaluate new trends, changes and challenges for accounting professionals and accountancy per se. A global survey of 3,000 accountants complements the paper with selected research data offering valuable real-world insight into the landscape of the accounting profession as it is preparing itself for the coming decade. The changing role of accountants towards uniquely qualified strategic business consultants who understand important implications of data requires mastering an additional set of skills ranging from critical thinking to advanced levels of judgement and informed decision making, IT literacy, data visualization, or project management. Therefore, the background of experiential learning is explained and it is suggested to design and implement experiential learning activities into tertiary education accounting courses.