An Exploratory Study of the Digital Competences of Italian Accountants: Some Preliminary Results

Abstract

Purpose - This paper examines the current digital competences of Italian accountants and to what extent these competences are evident in their competence profiles.
 
 Methodology - In this study, 6,442 profiles of accountants, extracted from the professional social network LinkedIn, were analysed using the technique for the analysis of textual data.
 
 Findings - The results of the study reveal that the male users expose more often in their professional profiles the possession of information technology skills than female accountants. Moreover, the results highlight a limited development of data analytics skills, which are reported in only 13% of the LinkedIn profiles analysed. Furthermore, the findings also show that there is a gap between the digital competences held by accountants who belong to different geographical areas. The accountants living in northern Italy, in fact, report more digital competences in their LinkedIn profiles than those living in central and southern Italy.
 
 Originality - This study stimulates the ongoing debate on the competence’s changes of the accountants in the digital technology era.

Coding Skills in the Automation of Accounting Processes

“…The increasing digitization and rapid development of information systems in the field of accounting require the presence of professionals, who possess interdisciplinary knowledge and understand new taxonomies, methods, and tools (Santonastaso, Macchioni, 2021). In the tax reporting area, an example of digitalization are the sales and purchase records that must be sent in Poland monthly to the revenue office by electronic means, in the form of a SAF-T Standard Audit File Tax with a tax return file.…”

“…Global professional accounting bodies play a crucial role in the dissemination of new technologies (Santonastaso, Macchioni, 2021) and they also highlight that coding can benefit the finance departments of organizations. For example, an international organization that represents and supports accountants -the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) conducted research in November 2020 on a sample of 992 ACCA members, accountancy, and finance professionals.…”

“…Emerging technologies are transforming business and impacting all sectors of the economy. The fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) accelerated digitalization in enterprises and disrupted the role of accountancy (Santonastaso, Macchioni, 2021). The aim of accounting is to measure and record financial transactions in organizations.…”