The Accountant’s New World

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31724, 6 July 1968, Page 12

The Accountant’s New World

The average farmer or small businessman expects his accountant to keep his books and file his tax return: many public accountants still spend nearly all their working time on such tasks. Some may consider their president, Mr J. A. Valentine, an alarmist when he warns members that they will lose business to other professions if they do not “ catch up with the times ”. Mr Valentine particularly mentioned the loss of “ write-up work ” —preparing accounts for clients from their business records—to computer bureaux run by engineers, banks, and insurance companies, or by industrial and trade groups of unqualified practitioners. Many public accountants may feel they can afford to ignore this competition because nearly all their clients’ businesses are too small to warrant the extra expenses of “ computerised ” accounting. But the clients that they do lose will be their biggest or most progressive—and most remuner-ative-clients. The public accountant who confines his activities to write-up work and preparing tax returns will always have some clients, but he will always face competition from outside his profession. Only those who specialise in auditing and company secretarial work can be certain—unless the law is altered—that their profession will maintain a monopoly. Mr Valentine’s speech to the CanterburyWestland branch of the New Zealand Society of Accountants must have encouraged the more enterprising members of the profession. In the last 10 years the teaching of accountancy at the University of Canterbury has taken a completely new direction; bookkeeping is now a minor part of a course aimed at turning out management accountants. The new approach to accountancy is illustrated by the promotion and management by public accountants of one of the two Christchurch computer bureaux.

This is not to suggest that every public accountant must become a computer expert to catch up with the times, for the computer is only one of the tools available to the modem accountant — an expensive tool, and one quite inappropriate to many of the accountant’s tasks. But the modem aoproach to accountancy has a general application. While most of his clients may still regard him as a bookkeeper and tax expert, the public accountant may hesitate to set himself up as a financial adviser or management consultant. If he cannot raise his sights, and help to raise bis client’s sights, he will be confined to the minor role for the rest of his working life.