‍If it’s done nothing else, Making Tax Digital has put the discussion of digital technology in the accountancy profession firmly on the table. 

Although MTD has now been delayed, the government is still clearly committed to taking as many services as possible online, not least because of the significantly lower cost of transacting its business that way. So what challenges – apart from purely technical ones – are likely to face an IT director looking toward this new, digital future?

Managing organisational change 
Cultural inertia is often the biggest stumbling block to tech adoption and IT directors are therefore used to dealing with it, but the digitalisation of the entire tax process represents a much greater challenge than the computerisation of individual tasks, like electronic timesheets or online filing.

As Sean Farnell of Burgis & Bullock observes: “As a result of digitalisation, I believe pure tax compliance work will in time disappear as a separate job. Those who currently only do VAT or tax returns will need to get other skills if they’re to remain in the accountancy profession.” 

And whereas most IT projects run to a timetable decided by the practice, MTD is running to the government’s schedule (albeit now somewhat delayed). An externally imposed timetable reduces scope for personal control and can leave staff feeling more resistant to change. For these reasons, it may be best to treat digitalisation more as an organisational or cultural change than a technological one.

Meeting new security challenges 
Accountancy practices have always taken the security and confidentiality of their clients’ information very seriously, of course. But with MTD, practices could be handling more data, more often, potentially through more channels and from more sources. And GDPR introduces new rights for clients and new responsibilities for practices (not to mention much heavier penalties for non-conformance).

Software vendors like Wolters Kluwer will be making whatever changes are necessary to enable compliance with GDPR, but practices need to consider how security policies and staff training should be revised in light of the new regulations to cover the collection, processing, storage and transmission of all affected data.

“GDPR introduces new obligations over and above the current Data Protection Act, some of which will be very significant for IT directors in accountancy practices,” says Paul Brace, Head of Business Development at Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting UK. “For example, GDPR obliges data processors to erase an individual’s personal data if requested, including data held in backups, and to offer the export of data into a format that allows portability to other data processors. These obligations go way beyond simply keeping data safe and accurate and they represent significant technological and organisational challenges for accountancy firms.” 

Image taken from https://firstvoice.fsb.org.uk/first-voice/making-tax-digital-too-much-of-a-burden-on-small-firms.html

Dealing with clients 
In February of this year the UK200Group published the results of a survey showing that only 35% of its members’ SME business clients currently use software to manage their accounts; 16% rely on giving their accountants or bookkeepers a shoebox of information.* 

No matter what decisions you take about your own practice’s IT strategy, you have no direct control over what, how or even whether your clients use IT. But there are a number of ways in which you might have some influence on the outcome, for example by recommending suitable software or mobile apps that your clients could use, by running events or by offering training.

For James Gifford, IT Director at Old Mill, forward planning has been vital to success. “We starting thinking about the impact of digital on our clients about two years ago. Originally we looked at it more in terms of the efficiencies for us and making it easier to collaborate with our clients. Then with MTD it became obvious that a lot of our clients would have to start digital record keeping. We held roadshows and demos to show how they could benefit from online accounting which generated a lot of interest. So far, we’ve moved about 300 of our clients onto an online accounting system, though there are still a lot more to migrate.” 

Digitalising the tax and accounting process 
Even after the recent adjustments to the MTD timetable, it’s clear that digital is here to stay. But, as we’ve seen, many of the real challenges to digitalisation aren’t principally technological, they’re organisational and people-related. 

The good news for IT directors in accountancy practices is that they’re already well-used to dealing with these kinds of issues – just think about the challenges you may have faced introducing online timesheets, or promoting a “less-paper” office, or dealing with the demands of mobile and home workers. The chances are that many of the hardest issues revolved around users themselves rather than their hardware or software.

That’s not to say that the technical challenges are trivial, but with the right technology partners in place, IT directors can be confident that the move to digitalised tax and accounting is fully achievable.

* See the UK200Group website