Technology is advancing at a rapid pace impacting many industries including accounting and auditing industries. Technological development has enabled implementation of automated accounting systems that make it possible for firms to shift from traditional accounting to automated accounting. This change in record keeping has a direct influence on audit firms. As record keepings changes, it puts pressure on audit firms to implement systems that cater for the change in their clients’ systems. This promotes automated auditing where the use of tools such as data analytics and AI are of importance. There is prior research related to accounting system, automated accounting, automated auditing and the impact of technological development on various industries and professions. However, the impacts of automation on the audit process remain unexplored, especially in Swedish audit firms. As there is only a little literature on the subject, in spite of considerable amount of discussion inside and outside academia about how automation impacts the audit process, the subject is seen as current and interesting. Therefore, the main purpose of this research is to discover how automation impacts the audit process in Swedish audit firms. The research question for this thesis is “How does automation impact the audit process?” The audit process is seen as being closely related to audit quality, audit efficiency and competence and skills of auditors. Thus, as sub-purpose, this research also aims to find out how the mentioned aspects are impacted by automation. In this thesis a qualitative approach was taken. Semi-structured interviews were performed with various auditors in order to explore the subject in question. Empirical findings of this thesis suggest that the execution stage of an audit process will be impacted the most by automation. The shift can already be seen but in the future the emphasis will be even more on testing internal controls than substantive procedures. It was also discovered that audit quality and audit efficiency are expected to increase because automation is believed to decrease the amount of human errors and speed up the audit process as well as help auditors draw better conclusions. Competence and skills of auditors were found to be as important in the future as they are nowadays, but the findings suggest that a higher level of IT knowledge and skills are desired in the future as more technology will be integrated in auditing. This research offers theoretical, practical and social contributions. This research extends the existing knowledge on the subject in question. It also helps accounting and auditing firms to understand the impact of automation in the field as well as gives them an opportunity to prepare in advance for changes that may occur. Additionally, the findings of this research can give educational institutions an indication in which way the curriculum in universities should be adjusted. On a national level the findings can be used to encourage continuous learning.  Furthermore, this research can be used as a point of departure for future research.

The technology development within the accounting field has grown tremendously during the last years and generated great impacts to the accounting firms and led to an enormous change in how accounting consultants conducting their daily tasks. The continuous development has now entered a new phase, where automation of accounting processes is now perceived as the current major trend and it will affect the profession even more. Automated accounting may bring both positive and negative impacts to the accounting firms and their consultants, but many threats may also come to light where questions have arisen about the need of accounting consultants if the procedures are automatic. Studies on automation in various fields have been conducted over the years, but the impacts of automated accounting on accounting firm and their accounting consultants have been neglected in previous research. Moreover, since the consultants are affected as well, their attitude toward such changes and corresponding impacts are of interest to understand their stance to these changes. Thereof, the interest in how accounting firms and their consultant will be affected resulted in these two research questions: 1) What are the potential impacts of automated accounting for accounting firms and their accounting consultants? 2) What are the accounting consultants’ attitudes towards automated accounting? The purpose of this thesis is to extend the current knowledge of the potential effects and explain the phenomena of automation in the context of accounting firms and their consultants. The aim is also to extend the knowledge of the accounting consultants’ attitude towards automated accounting and what they perceive as threats and opportunities. This thesis answers the research question by a qualitative method where empirical data has been collected from interviews with accounting consultants from different accounting firms in Umeå. The findings from the empirical data shows that automated accounting may lead to a decreased need of accounting consultants if the accounting firms do not extend or diversify their services. Moreover, advisory and analytical services will dominate the industry because automation will lead to more financial misstatements, which drives the need of analytical services. To comply with these changes, the future accounting consultant needs to possess more technical knowledge. The accounting consultant assistant will most probably be replaced by IT-consultants and in the long term, all consultants will be salespersons rather than accounting consultant. Regarding the attitude, the majority of the accounting consultants are positive towards automated accounting and their impacts, even though some tend to show a negative attitude to certain impacts.

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Bakgrund och problem: I takt med att automatiseringen blir alltmer integrerad inom redovisningsarbetet så försvinner allt fler rutinbaserade arbetsuppgifter som tidigare utfördes manuellt av redovisningsarbetaren. Automatiseringen beskrivs vara i sin inledande fas och en fortsatt utveckling är förväntat. Dess utveckling har hittills medfört både positiva effekter för redovisningsarbetet och samtidigt haft en negativ inverkan, då arbetstillfällena samt behovet av den mänskliga arbetaren minskar. Automatiseringens effekter har vidare bland annat mynnat ut i att högre krav ställs på redovisningsarbetarna för att de ska fortsätta vara relevanta på arbetsplatsen. Attityderna är därmed viktiga här för att bilda sig en uppfattning om hur automatiseringen upplevs av den mänskliga redovisningsarbetaren. Attityden är avgörande för hur väl automatiseringens omfamnas och utnyttjas för att uppnå dess fulla potential. Syfte: Studien syftar till att identifiera redovisningsarbetarnas attityder mot automatiseringens effekter i redovisningen. Som ett resultat av detta kommer även sättet deras arbete präglas av automatiseringen att redogöras för. Metod: Syftet har uppnåtts genom att ha tillämpat en abduktiv ansats och en kvalitativ undersökningsmetod i form av semistrukturerade intervjuer med respondenter inom redovisningsbranschen. Genom detta har vi samlat in data som analyserats med hjälp av en egenritad teoretisk attitydmodell som består av ABC-modellen och ett antal faktorer från Unified Theory of acceptance and use of technology-modellen. Slutsats: Slutsatsen som dragits är att det generellt är en positiv attityd mot automatiseringens effekter. Den positiva inställningen visar sig bero delvis på den ökade effektiviteten, de tidsbesparingar som uppnås samt möjligheten till personlig utveckling, som respondenterna uttryckt. / Introduction: As automation becomes increasingly integrated within the accounting practice, more and more routine tasks that were previously performed manually by the accounting worker are disappearing. The automation is described as being in its initial phase and continued development is expected. Its development has so far brought both positive effects for the accounting work and at the same time had a negative impact, as the job opportunities and the need for the human worker decreases. The effects of automation have also resulted in higher demands being placed on accounting workers, in order for them to continue to be relevant in the workplace. The attitudes are therefore important here to form an idea of how automation is perceived by the human accounting worker. Their attitude is critical to how well automation is embraced and leveraged to achieve its full potential. Purpose: The study aims to identify the accounting workers' attitudes towards the effects of automation in accounting. As a result of this, the way their work is shaped by automation will also be explained. Method: The purpose has been achieved by applying an abductive approach and a qualitative research method in the form of semi-structured interviews with respondents in the accounting industry. Through this, we have collected data that was analyzed using a self-designed theoretical attitude model consisting of the ABC model and several factors from the Unified Theory of acceptance and use of technology model. Conclusion: The conclusion drawn is that there is generally a positive attitude towards the effects of automation. The positive attitude turns out to be partially due to the increased efficiency, the time savings achieved and the opportunity for personal development as it has been expressed by the respondents.

Technology grows continuously within the accounting field. A lot of new technologies have been invented in order to make facilities for the accountants and increase the quality of their performance, but there is less research on what accountants need based on the characteristics of the firm that they work for. There are a lot of different kinds of obstacles to investigate and implement new technology. Sometimes it happens that a company implements a new “trendy” technology just to be up to date with the market, but after a while they see that the technology is not suited for their firm’s employees or the size of the firm. Therefore, both investors and technology creators need to be aware of the firm characteristics and its need. On the other hand, employees or graduating students need to prepare themselves for the real competitive market and it is necessary for them to know which kind of skills they need to know and which knowledge they need to learn in order to be able to enter the job market. Consequently, universities as a place that have significant roles to educate and skilling students and make them ready for the real market need to keep the curriculum up to date and in line with the market demands. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to extend the current knowledge of the potential effects of various firms’ characteristics on digitalization in accounting function and the need of new skills by providing an answer to these two main questions:➢ What is the relation between the level of digitalization in accounting function and the characteristics of firms?➢ What is the relation between the level of digitalization in accounting function and the need of skills among the employees of an accounting function?Findings from the empirical data show that accounting functions currently need to have an accountant with IT base knowledge and cloud computing knowledge besides the accounting knowledge. Moreover, results show that not all the firm characteristics have a significant role to develop and implement the new technologies within accounting functions.