Every few years someone predicts the death of the accountant or the bookkeeper.
First it was software.
Then automation.
Now it is AI.
Think of it as a trinity
The businesses that thrive over the next decade will not be relying on just one or two of these. They will be combining all three. A bank provides the real-time financial data. The money coming in and going out. Accounting technology turns that data into something usable, in a format that helps businesses operate and comply.
And the accountant or bookkeeper provides the judgement, challenge and context that makes those numbers mean something.
Why accountants still matter
No accountant or bookkeeper? Well, what do those numbers actually mean? Yet the market often tells a different story. We hear it all the time. Accountants are expensive, software is cheap. But entering numbers into a piece of technology is not bookkeeping. It is data entry. And data entry is not the same as advice.
We celebrate AI categorising transactions, matching data and reducing admin. Quite rightly. But if accounting is just data entry, software wins. If accounting is judgement, experience and helping a business owner make better decisions, then the accountant or bookkeeper wins every time.
That is why accountants remain such a critical part of the triangle. Technology can tell you what happened. A great accountant or bookkeeper can help you understand what it means.
The evolving role of banks
After all banks sit on some of the richest real-time financial data available to SMEs. Increasingly, they are using it to offer insight, not just transactions. That is a positive move.
But banks do not replace accountant or bookkeeper any more than accountant or bookkeeper replace banks. They each play a different role in the same system.
Where AI fits in
Of course, there are still gaps. Many businesses do not understand the importance of accountant or bookkeeper in a world where parts of the role can be automated. Large language models can generate confident answers. That does not mean those answers are correct.
The debate now is where the line should be drawn. Because there is a world of difference between automating a transaction and advising a business owner on whether to take on a new member of staff.
Get it right and businesses get confidence
But that is not just on SMEs. The industry has work to do too. Banks need to be clearer about what the technology they are offering can and cannot do. Software providers need to be honest about where human judgement still matters.
And accountant/bookkeepers need to continue moving the conversation beyond compliance and into commercial value. Because if we are being honest, most business owners do not care whether an insight came from a bank, a piece of software or their accountant. They care about making better decisions.
That is why I keep coming back to this idea of a trinity. The future is not banks replacing accountants/bookkeepers or technology replacing either. It is banks, accountants/bookkeepers and technology combining their strengths around the SME. Get that right and businesses get far more than bookkeeping: they get confidence. And when a business has that, it can do almost anything.
