Abstract

The digitalisation of processes is a current topic in accounting. New technologies can change activities which in turn may require different skills from accounting graduates. This paper aims to shed light on the changes that digitalisation brings about in various areas of accounting by assessing the types of activities (non-routine and routine) and corresponding competences in the context of progressing stages of digitalisation. In addition, it is analysed how different technologies are used in these activities and where their execution is placed within the supply chain. The systematic literature review shows a lack of expertise in the field of digitalisation that enables graduates and employees to successfully manage respective processes in the workplace. While routine activities are continuously being automated or digitalised, non-routine activities and the corresponding skills have a similarly increasing importance for employees in accounting as the acquisition of general digital competences.

Introduction

In the context of digitalisation, it is part of everyday life for customers to purchase products and services with the aid of an application online and in physical stores. The streams of products and finances within and between companies are also highly interconnected when they are based on digitalised processes (Appelfeller and Feldmann 2018). Digitalisation thus encompasses the entire supply chain of a product or service. Accounting is one area of the company that documents these processes with customers and other companies, enables these processes, supports them technically, and connects them with internal and external interfaces (Bleiber 2019; Klein and Küst 2020). In this context, companies nowadays face the challenge to make decisions on the introduction of new technologies and digitalised business processes into the area of accounting, among others (Appelfeller and Feldmann 2018). Digitalisation can address various stages, from substitution (e.g., self-check-out counters in retail shops) to business process innovation (e.g. automated storage and payment with RFID chips; see for these examples e.g. Litfin and Wolfram 2010). It is expected that not only costs and productivity are essential decision criteria for the introduction of technologies and digitalised business processes (Ashoka et al. 2019; Chen et al. 2012) but also the extent to which employees can master and employ technologies and possess the competence to fulfil new or evolving tasks (Aepli et al. 2017; Bonin et al. 2015; Cong et al. 2018; Egle and Keimer 2017; Seeber and Seifried 2019).

Results

Bibliographic information and main foci of publications
The majority of publications are in German (n = ۵۱) and in English (n = ۱۹). The dominance of German publications occurred due to the exclusion criteria. In our original set of 190 possibly relevant publications (Fig. 2), the distribution was fairly balanced with 98 publications in German and 92 in English. However, we excluded those publications which dealt with IT in a general manner (missing a direct link to accounting) and those which focused on other aspects of accounting but did not explicitly mention accounting activities. Most of these publications were in English, hence the large difference in the final data set. While most publications are either book chapters (n = ۲۲) or journal articles (n = ۲۱), whitepapers (n = ۱۷), books (n = ۵), and university publications (n = ۵) constitute the minority. Looking at the year of publication, most sources were published between 2015 and 2020 (Fig. 5), fewer sources between 2000 and 2005. This rapid increase in publications indicates that digitalisation in accounting has gained popularity within the past five years and is now a leading topic in accounting publications.