Remember Mr Anchovy, the accountant in Monty Python’s careers advice sketch? Well, the hapless bean-counter, played by Michael Palin, wanted to get out of a rut by retraining as a lion tamer until John Cleese put him right.
But you’re ideally suited to accountancy, he told him. Why? Your aptitude tests came back and confirmed you as “an appallingly dull fellow … tedious company and irrepressibly drab and awful”.
That may or not have been true once upon a time but it certainly wasn’t an image I recognised a few decades later.
Quite the opposite, in fact, by the time I joined a webinar on the changing role of corporate accountancy. It was in the later stages of the first Covid lockdown and, given it was hosted by the Cloud software giant oneAdvanced, much of the discussion centred on emerging technology and the massive advances taken since the days you were seen as an expert if you could use Excel.
From my perspective as an editor of a finance title, I was more focused on the emergence of the broader book-keeper-turned-FD concept we were increasingly beginning to recognise.
I was, admittedly, full of ‘back-office to top-table’ soundbites but hopefully made the deeper point that the traditional focus on recording and monitoring past events had given way to greater levels of forward and strategic thinking while recognising the role that tech, particularly AI, had played in driving that.
What has taken that a further step forward is the growing recognition of how important SDG has become, moving its implementation from a voluntary, narrative-driven concept to one requiring the same rigor and assurance as is routinely applied to financial reporting.
New AI-driven platforms automating complex data collection and analysis were suddenly helping the modern FD to measure their company’s carbon footprint, identify emission hotspots, and ensure audit-ready compliance with many emerging and rather complex regulations.
And these days it goes even further, or to use modern parlance, takes a ‘deeper-dive’ into things such as the way blockchain technology records supply chain performance, and goes about verifying ethical sourcing and fighting attempts at greenwashing.
In other words, it’s less about crunching numbers and more about taking a holistic view of performance. Savvy ones will help a small business see sustainability not just as a cost, but as a vital investment in innovation that opens new market opportunities.
‘Old habits persist. I was surprised when profiling an automotive firm, the boss suggested he’d need to get data from his book-keeper’
The bigger thinkers at Ernst and Young recognised a while back the rate of evolution which now carries an expectation that the new generation of FDs will become strategic advisors, technology innovators and champions of social responsibility, which is why they committed $1 billion over three years to, in their words, ”revolutionise” the experience of early career professionals.
Similarly, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants recently announced a redesign of their gold standard ACCA Qualification, redefining accountancy as one with a new focus on ethics, sustainability, and technology.
In a joint article detailing how accountants are driving SME growth and resilience, ACCA CEO Helen Brand and colleagues argued that “the role of professional accountants has evolved and expanded to meet the transforming needs of the small business sector. Accountants are now acting as strategic partners and trusted advisors. By immersing themselves in every aspect of a business, they’re uniquely qualified to provide valuable strategic insight and guidance while driving positive change that delivers lasting success”.
Like abacus beads and ledger books, some old habits persist though. I remember being surprised when profiling a new-kid-on-the-block automotive firm, the boss suggested he’d need to get data from his “book-keeper”. Mind you, this was the same one operating in the age of multi-media and social sharing that asked how I got on with his “press agent”.
OK, so not everyone is up with the times. Or perhaps they’re just fans of singer and comedian Rocky Paterra, who sang about how he avoids unwanted attention by telling people he was “just an accountant”.
To be fair, it gave him his own numbers to crunch. It attracted two million Tik-Tok views, went viral and was viewed twice as many times elsewhere, made no.2 in the itunes comedy chart and became a byword for anyone working in rather more interesting jobs they’d rather not talk about.
And to be clear, that usually means sex workers. Not lion tamers.
