Australia needs more accountants...and more intelligent organisations.
Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand recently released independent research by Oxford Economics Australia examining the contribution of the accounting profession—and whether Australia will have the capability it needs for the future (link in footer below)
The headline numbers are significant.
The accounting profession contributes an estimated $82.4 billion to the Australian economy each year, equivalent to approximately 3% of GDP. It supports more than 365,000 jobs and, if treated as a standalone industry, would rank as Australia’s 13th largest.
More than two-thirds of that value is attributed to accountants working inside organisations rather than in accounting firms.
That is an important point.
Accountants are embedded throughout Australian businesses, government agencies and community organisations. They support investment, allocate capital, safeguard assets, manage risk, provide assurance and help organisations understand how they are performing.
Accounting is not simply a profession. It is part of Australia’s economic infrastructure.
But the research also contains a warning.
The capability gap is coming
Demand for accounting professionals is expected to grow by approximately 20% over the next decade.
At the same time, Australia faces declining accounting enrolments, an ageing workforce, constrained skilled migration and high attrition.
Oxford Economics forecasts a shortfall of 17,900 accounting, audit and finance professionals by 2035.
The largest projected gap is not among bookkeepers or transactional accountants. It is a shortage of approximately 9,200 intermediate finance managers with three to seven years’ experience.
That may be the most consequential finding in the report.
Because these are the people organisations increasingly depend upon to interpret information, connect financial and operational performance, challenge assumptions, manage risk and help executives make better decisions.
In other words, the greatest numerical shortage is expected in precisely the layer where technical accounting capability should be developing into commercial judgement and business partnering.
This raises a question that extends beyond the future of the accounting profession:
If experienced financial capability becomes increasingly scarce, how will organisations continue to make informed, responsible and timely decisions?
Can AI close the gap?
The obvious answer may appear to be artificial intelligence.
The report expects AI and automation to take on more routine, rules-based work, including data entry, transaction coding, reconciliations, invoice processing, tax preparation and basic financial reporting.
This could improve productivity, reduce administrative effort and release accountants to focus on higher-value activities such as financial analysis, strategic advice, risk management and business partnering.
That is certainly the opportunity.
But there is an important caveat: the report acknowledges that the potential impact of AI has not been explicitly reflected in its workforce demand projections because that impact remains uncertain.
The forecast shortage is therefore not an AI-adjusted prediction.
Perhaps AI will allow fewer accountants to manage substantially more work. Perhaps it will reduce demand for some existing roles while creating entirely new ones. Most likely, it will do both.
But there is also a deeper issue.
Automating accounting work is not the same as creating accounting capability.
Removing a reconciliation from someone’s workload does not automatically transform them into a strategic adviser. Giving an accountant access to an AI assistant does not automatically provide them with commercial judgement, influence, curiosity or the confidence to challenge a decision.
Technology can create capacity.
It cannot determine how an organisation uses that capacity.
The missing operating-model question
For decades, Finance transformation has promised to release accountants from transaction processing so they can become better business partners.
Yet many Finance functions remain constrained by familiar problems:
fragmented systems;
inconsistent processes;
unreliable or inaccessible data;
unclear accountability;
duplicated manual work;
limited analytical capability; and
reporting that explains what happened without helping the organisation decide what to do next.
AI may dramatically increase the potential to address these problems. But putting AI on top of a poorly designed operating model might just make the problem move faster.
The real question for CFOs is not:
How can we add AI to Finance?
It is:
How should Finance operate when more of its routine work can be performed by technology, while experienced human judgement becomes increasingly scarce?
Answering that requires more than implementing software or training people to use new tools.
It requires deliberate choices about:
which work should be eliminated, simplified, automated or augmented;
which decisions require human judgement and accountability;
how trusted information will be created and governed;
how financial and operational information will be connected;
how roles, responsibilities and decision rights should change;
how people will develop the capability to interpret, challenge and influence; and
how the capacity created by technology will be redirected towards better organisational outcomes.
These are not merely technology or workforce questions.
They are operating-model questions.
The development paradox
There is another challenge buried within the research.
AI is expected to automate many of the routine tasks historically performed by junior accountants. At the same time, Australia is forecasting shortages of both junior accountants and intermediate finance managers.
That creates a potential development paradox.
For generations, accountants have built their understanding by working through transactions, reconciliations, reporting cycles and operational problems. Much of that work was repetitive, but it also helped people understand how information moved through an organisation, how controls operated and where things went wrong.
If we remove much of that work, how will the next generation develop the experience required to exercise judgement?
This is not an argument for preserving inefficient work.
It is an argument for redesigning learning and career pathways at the same time as we redesign processes.
Organisations will need to become much more deliberate about providing junior professionals with exposure to operations, decisions, customers, risks and experienced mentors. Development can no longer be treated as a by-product of completing thousands of routine tasks.
Otherwise, organisations may achieve short-term efficiency while quietly eroding the pipeline of experienced finance professionals they will need in the future.
From more accountants to greater organisational intelligence
CA ANZ’s report proposes five broad responses: strengthen the domestic talent pipeline, maintain access to global talent, build future-ready skills, support workforce participation and improve collaboration across government, educators, employers and the profession.
All are sensible and necessary.
But individual organisations cannot wait for the national supply problem to be solved.
They must also become more intelligent about how they use the financial capability they already have.
That means building an operating environment in which:
routine processing is efficient;
information is trusted and accessible;
accountability is clear;
technology augments rather than obscures human judgement;
people have the capacity and capability to interpret information;
insights reach the people able to act upon them; and
decisions translate into coordinated action and measurable outcomes.
This is what I think of as Organisational Intelligence.
It is not simply the intelligence contained in a model, system or individual expert. It is the collective ability of an organisation to understand what is happening, determine what matters, make sound decisions and act effectively.
Accountants have an important role within that system.
They bring technical competence, professional scepticism, ethical judgement and an understanding of the relationship between resources, risks and outcomes. They increasingly need to connect those capabilities with technology, data, strategy and operations.
But they can only do that effectively if the organisation around them is designed to support it.
Business partnering becomes possible when routine processing is efficient, information is trusted, accountability is clear and people have the capacity and capability to interpret information, challenge decisions and help the business act.
It does not emerge automatically from an AI implementation—or from changing someone’s job title.
The opportunity for CFOs
The Oxford Economics research makes a compelling case for the national importance of the accounting profession.
It also gives CFOs a reason to look more closely at the capability of their own Finance functions.
If experienced finance professionals are going to become harder to find, recruiting more people cannot be the only strategy.
CFOs will need to ask:
Where is scarce professional capability currently being consumed by unnecessary work?
Which processes can be simplified before they are automated?
Is our information sufficiently trusted and governed to support AI-enabled decisions?
How will we convert released capacity into better analysis, challenge and business partnering?
How will our junior people develop judgement when machines perform more of their traditional work?
Which decisions must remain subject to clear human accountability?
Are we redesigning Finance—or merely adding technology to the function we already have?
Australia will undoubtedly need a strong and sustainable pipeline of accounting professionals.
But the future will not be secured by workforce numbers alone.
The organisations that thrive will be those that combine professional judgement, trusted information, intelligent technology and clear accountability into a coherent operating model.
Australia needs more accountants. But numbers alone will not be enough.
It needs organisations capable of using their intelligence well.
Check out the post that inspired this article https://www.charteredaccountantsanz.com/news-and-analysis/insights/research-and-insights/accounting-skills-critical-to-australias-economy-and-future-workforce
Download the CA ANZ and Oxford Economics Australia report here https://www.charteredaccountantsanz.com/-/media/16769cec87e84707a8ed715449435379.pdf
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