ARTHUR GOLDSTUCK: Accountants must steer businesses' digital future
Changes are coming that will make greater demands on the accounting profession to change its role
Jennifer Warawa doesn't have a crystal ball but she has seen the future of the accounting profession. It helps that she is senior vice-president in charge of partners, accountants and alliances at global financial software giant Sage. In this role, she has watched the evolution of accounting technology from packages loaded onto computers to cloud computing. What happens next, however, is not a mere technology shift but a complete change in the accounting business model. "When I first started at Sage, 10 years ago, the focus was purely on accounting," Warawa told Business Times in a telephone interview. "At the time, remote assistance was the next big thing: the idea that accountants wouldn't have to drive to a client's office, but use software to assist them remotely. "For the next decade, Sage spent a lot of time talking to accountants about the shift to the cloud, and we're still working with accountants on that shift. But we found many of them were merely doing what they had alwa...
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