Big data for small accounting firms

Accounting firms often hear about the promise of data analytics and leveraging "big data" to drill down for insights to help their business clients. However, many smaller accounting firms don't have access to such technology, not to mention data scientists, analysts and researchers, to help their small business clients analyze vast databases to find ways to increase revenue, streamline operations, forecast more accurately, and better manage inventory to hold down costs. Hitendra Patil, director of practice development at AccountantsWorld, sees ways that data analytics and other advanced technology such as artificial intelligence can be leveraged by even the smallest accounting firms. "Audit technology seems to be the faster-moving one towards the future," he said. "One of the reasons is that audit is done on the existing data and information. Everything is already in various systems, so it's all a defined data set. It's easier to implement analytics and AI on audit data rather than future transactional data for accounting. Audit will definitely move faster. That's my personal take on where the technology is going to make a massive impact in the next 12 months or so."