The digital transformation of accounting was very much necessary because several individuals in finance and accounting are having a tough time to handle the day-to-day tasks. According to a study by the IMA, one-third of accounting teams are spending anywhere from 51 percent to 75 percent of their time on repetitive, low-value tasks. Additionally, 56 percent of the surveyed accounting and finance professionals said they require automation just to keep up with their increasing workloads. Digital Transformation may look new, but there are several firms globally already taking help from basic automated accounting processes. Accounting tasks and processes that machines can do or streamline will help the professionals in finance and accounting to speed up the works.

As a long-standing function of business, accountancy has been continually refined by changes in technology. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus claimed over two-and-a-half thousand years ago, "the only constant in this world is change". This is still true today, and it is only becoming increasingly profound thanks to our cultural, societal, technological and physical evolution. So, when it comes to finance and accounting, what are the key drivers of change? Analysis of the business environment has long been a staple of any successful organisation's strategic management – whether it's to understand any possible opportunities and threats, making comparisons to competitors, or to support specific strategic feasibility.

Finance and accounting professionals are under constant pressure from the C-suite to elevate the strategic relevance of their function. At the same time, they are under day-to-day pressure to help their organizations stay ahead of audit and compliance requirements, report on financial results, and manage ongoing accounting activities. These activities are all critical for business growth. As enterprise resource planning is meant to be both the primary source of truth and technology used to perform these tasks, it can play a critical role in improving the ease and accuracy with which they are completed. Having the right ERP technology can make or break a finance team's ability to focus on the strategic instead of the tactical.

According to IDC, IBM leads the Worldwide Artificial Intelligence Market. Growing 35.6% to $28.1 billion, the artificial intelligence (AI) market experienced steady growth in 2018. The International Data Corporation (IDC), the premier global provider of market intelligence and advisory services for the information technology industry, has produced an objective study of worldwide artificial intelligence market revenue for 2018. Entitled'Worldwide Artificial Intelligence Market Shares, 2018: Steady Growth -- POCs Poised to Enter Full-Blown Production,' it finds amongst many other things that cost of the solution, lack of skilled personnel, and a bias in data have held organisations from more broadly implementing AI. On the other hand, automation, business agility, and customer satisfaction are the primary drivers for AI initiatives.

In a recent Deloitte Center for Controllership poll of more than 1,700 finance, accounting and other professionals, 52.8 percent say their organizations plan digital controllership improvements--leveraging process automation, analytics and other technologies for financial and accounting processes--in the year ahead. Using finance and accounting robotic process automation (RPA) to increase efficiency and internal controls is the top priority for such efforts (34.7 percent). "Finance and accounting process automation can really run the gamut. Simpler, enhanced finance automation can address common, industry agnostic accounting issues. RPA can build momentum by performing repetitive, manual financial and accounting processes. And, cognitive computing can be configured to adapt to non-routine, industry and organizationally specific needs," said Kyle Cheney, Deloitte Risk and Financial Advisory partner, Deloitte & Touche LLP.

In fairly short order, robots have begun taking over in the corporate world. This is nothing like the feared "singularity," that prophesied (if dubious) moment when machines become smarter than humans and then, to prove it, commence wiping us out. But robots are indeed infiltrating finance departments, some other functions, and operational areas in a number of industries. For the most part, robots are being deployed to automate repeatable, standardized, or logical tasks historically handled by people. In finance and accounting, think procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, and record-to-report processes.