april2021 - 33

FEATURE

HOW COVID CHANGED
THE ACCOUNTING
PROFESSION FOR GOOD

By Tom Hood

AS WE REACH the one year anniversary of stay-at-home
mandates across the nation, it's important to reﬂect on how
COVID-19 has changed the accounting and tax profession as
we knew it. For the past year, many of us have been waiting to
return to " normal, " and to how our work was conducted before
COVID-19. The reality is: we will likely never return to the old
" normal. " While it may sound alarming, it is actually a positive
step forward for the industry, and here's why.
INCREASED ADOPTION
OF TECHNOLOGY
The increased adoption of
technology within the tax and
accounting profession was
already a trend pre-pandemic,
but COVID-19 forced this
process to be significantly
accelerated. From the use of
the cloud to virtual client and
staff engagements and more,
accounting professionals and
ﬁrms - whether well-versed
in technology or not - were
quickly catapulted into fullremote practices.
There's an important distinction here between " doing
digital " - using technology
available - to " being digital. " It's
critical that the profession isn't
just implementing the technology and folding it into current
practices, but that we are using
technology to reevaluate our
processes. We need to invest
in how to use technology as a
way to transform our business
to be more effective, efﬁcient
and to scale better.

Those who thrived during the pandemic were ones
ahead of these technology
trends, and those who thrive
after will be the ones who
continue to stay on top of
innovations, and use technology as an impetus for change
and transformation.

FLEXIBILITY IS AN
ASSET
One important lesson we've
learned in 2020, is that ﬂexibility can be an asset. From more
permanent work-from-home
opportunities to shifting away
from the typical nine-to-ﬁve,
companies have found beneﬁt in
giving employees more leeway
with their schedules. Flexible
work will continue well after
the pandemic. This is another
trend that started pre-pandemic
and was greatly accelerated in
the last year. Many ﬁrms are
actively working on a permanent ﬂex-work policy by giving
employees 2-3 day work-fromanywhere options.

This work style can also
solve one of the profession's
most pressing issues: retention.
According to the AICPA, ﬁnding
qualiﬁed staff and retaining
qualiﬁed staff are two of the
top concerns for accounting
ﬁrms. With remote work and
continued ﬂexibility for staff,
we have the opportunity to
reach beyond our backyards
to hire talent across the nation
and the globe.

CRISIS BREEDS
INNOVATION
It's not just the tax and
accounting profession that
has innovated throughout the
pandemic - businesses across
many industries are using this
crisis to breed innovation. Businesses and individuals that are
struggling ﬁnancially are seeking ways they could do it better.
Because of this, our expertise is
needed more than ever. From
questions about the CARES Act
to adjusting business models
to needing general insights on

ﬁnancial health and resilience,
we can help current and new
clients ﬁnd the way through
the fog. COVID-19 has propelled
many professionals and ﬁrms
further into advisory services,
and this need will continue offering a great opportunity for
the profession.
COVID-19 has led to an
extremely difﬁcult year for
everyone across the globe.
Just as it's important not to
lessen hardships faced, it's also
important to recognize how we
have evolved for the better. The
accounting profession can use
lessons from the past year to
continue to ﬂourish this next
year and well beyond. This is
our deﬁning moment, to move
our profession from being
essential to indispensable. ■
By Tom Hood, EVP Business Engagement & Growth at Association of
International Certified Professional
Accountants; and Jasen Stine, Tax
& Accounting Education Leader at
Intuit.

APRIL 2021 ■

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