Accounting departments leverage technology to boost hiring

Accounting departments are finding that offering advanced technology like cloud computing is helping them attract staff, according to a new report.

The report, from Dimensional Research on behalf of close management software provider FloQast, surveyed more than 500 accounting and finance professionals about the challenges of finding qualified employees. It found that 85 percent of them said they are facing increased challenges in hiring and retaining talent.

Technology adoption has become an important strategy for attracting talent. Top strategies for solving hiring problems include adopting modern technology to enable staff to be more efficient (53 percent) and providing technology to enable remote work (49 percent).

An 81 percent majority of respondents feel that technology, data and systems skills are much more important than they were 10 years ago, while 99.7 percent believe technology has had a positive impact on the accounting profession, and 99 percent anticipate technology will change their job in the next 10 years.

Teams that adopt cloud accounting technology report greater job satisfaction, and are more likely to perceive technology as good for one’s career. They are also less likely to feel stressed from work. Seventy-nine percent of the respondents have cloud-based financial applications, while 93 percent agree cloud financial applications help to scale operations, and 81 percent said cloud financial applications increase job satisfaction.

“Accounting was among the first departments to rely on technology to perform their jobs embracing spreadsheets,” said Dimensional Research senior research analyst Diane Hagglund in a statement. “We’re seeing today that technology continues to change the accounting profession, requiring new skills and impacting the way teams hire and retain talent. We’re also seeing a new generation of “Cloud Accountants” that are taking advantage of new technologies and are all the happier for it.”

FloQast office exterior

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
Recruiting Cloud computing Accounting software
MORE FROM ACCOUNTING TODAY