Impacts and challenges of eSocial in the accounting environment

Abstract

In an increasingly technological world, accounting professionals cannot be left behind and must be constantly updated. An example of this advance is eSocial, a tool created by the Federal Government in the SPED project to submit labor information. Thus, both the accountant and the supervisory bodies needed to adapt to this reality and the internal and external environment. Thus, the study aimed to analyze the perception of accountants about the effects of contingency variables in the implementation of eSocial. The sample involved 103 accountants enrolled in the Regional Accounting Council of the state of Santa Catarina (CRC/SC), predominantly female. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, information entropy, and Pearson correlation. The results show that most respondents agree that their work environment has undergone organizational restructuring and cultural changes. Still, they are not sure about the impact of the implementation of eSocial by the government or that they are 100% prepared to manage the information generated by eSocial. Regarding the technology contingency variable, accountants believe it helps communicate between accounting and the tax authorities and between accounting and companies. Still, it also partly bureaucratizes the implementation of eSocial. It was also possible to observe that there is no agreement on the lack of technological improvement by the government, and most do not believe that the accounting software they use helps in submitting the eSocial. There was a mean relationship between the contingency variable that makes up the environment and the implementation of eSocial. It was possible to perceive a mean relationship between the technology contingency variable and the implementation of eSocial. Given the above, it can be concluded that contingency factors, even if moderately and even if often without the knowledge of accounting professionals, are present in accounting offices, especially in the implementation of eSocial. Thus, the study contributes to the scarcity of research linking contingency theory with eSocial. And yet, in a complementary way, it contributes to the government seeing through the eyes of accounting professionals what were their main difficulties with eSocial and their critical view of the government’s management of this data.