IT Competences for Professional Accountants. A Review

Uncertainty in world economy in conjunction with the impact of information as a critical resource have reformed drastically the role and contribution of an accounting and finance professional. IT has modified the way data is collected, stored, processed and distributed between business stakeholders, and as a result accountants were strongly affected by this change. Nowadays, the use of IT in accounting is widely applied and has turned into an every day routine, so that it is no longer possible to perform most of the accounting and financial operations without the engagement of IT. This implies a significant transformation in the competences required from the accountants in order to successfully perform their tasks. This change has been acknowledged by both academic and practitioners. Several scholars attempted to investigate these new competences as well as a number of International accounting organizations proposed competences frameworks. However, a lot of concerns about the level of IT related competences required from the contemporary accountants has been raised by many business parties.In this article, the IT competences required by contemporary accountants are identified, based on a conciseliterature review in order to track all major changes realized during the last decades and develop an IT competency framework.