Edward K. Zollars, CPA
For the fourth consecutive year, I have been invited to be one of approximately 30 members of the American Institute of CPAs from across the nation to participate in a project to name the 10 most important technology issues, applications and underlying technologies for the accounting profession in the United States. The issues represent those opportunities and problems that we have to deal with due to technological change in the coming year.
More information about this AICPA project, include streaming video presentations describing the project can be found at the AICPA's Top Ten Technologies web site.
While the 2001 list I will work on will not be published until early next year, the issues selected as the most important for the year 2000 were the following:
Top Ten Technology Issues
- E-Business
- Information Security and Controls
- Training and Technology Competency
- Disaster Recovery
- High Availability and Resiliency of System
- Technology Management and Budgeting
- Electronically-based Financial Reporting
- Net Issues
- The Virtual Office
- Privacy
In addition to their impact on accounting and tax functions, these issues will impact businesses in other areas as well.
The panel also produced two other "top ten" lists, dealing with specific technologies and applications based on those technologies
Technologies represent the basic building blocks that we use in putting together applications. The ten most important specific technologies in accounting for the year 2000 were:
Top Ten Technologies
- Security Technologies
- XML (Extensible Markup Language)
- Communications Technologies - Bandwidth
- Electronic Authentication Technologies
- Electronic Authorization
- Wireless Communications
- Agents
- Remote Connectivity Tools
- Database Technologies
- Information Appliances/Network Business Appliances
Technology applications are what we build with the technologies. At a simple level, a technology application would be a web browser (like you are using now) or a word processing program. For 2000, the ten most important technology applications for accounting were determined to be:
Top Ten Technology Applications
- E-Business
- Web Applications (web-based & web-enabled)
- Intrusion Detection
- Knowledge Systems, Knowledge Management
- Application Service Providers (ASPs)
- Extranets
- Telecommuting Applications
- ERP -Enterprise Research Planning (SAP, JD Edwards, etc.)
- Intranets
- Data Mining & OLAP (Online Analytical Processing)
For those of you who might wonder how the last one would affect you if your primary accouting concern is taxation, I would note that it has been reported in the press that the IRS is now installing a data mining system to help identify tax cheats.
Finally, the group looked at five emerging technologies that could become important over the next two to three years. The selection in that area was as follows:
Top Emerging Technologies
- Subscribed offerings
- Continuous audits/assurance
- Portals/vortals/wireless portals
- Electronic bill presentment
- E-procurement
We are ready to assist you in dealing with these issues as they impact your business. Please call us with any questions or concerns you may have.
Edward K. Zollars, C.P.A. is a shareholder in the Phoenix CPA firm of Henricks, Martin, Thomas & Zollars, Ltd. He has served on committees and task forces on the national and local level for the American Institute of CPAs and the Arizona Society of CPAs. He has lectured at a number of continuing education presentations, most recently at the AICPA’s National Conference on Federal Taxes and Virginia Tech University’s Annual Accounting & Auditing Conference. Ed has written articles published in the Journal of Accountancy and The Tax Adviser, as well as being cited as a source for articles in Investors Business Daily, Forbes, and Worth. He also is a regular contributor to the Internet newsgroup misc.taxes.moderated. He can be reached at (602) 955-8530 or via email at ed@hmtzcpas.com.