Basic Accounting Software

Accounting Softwares VERSUS Professional Accountants?

Can ordinary people with extensive knowledge in the Accounting Softwares (e.g. QuickBooks Pro and MYOB) available in the market replace the Certified Public Accountants in their normal day to day accounting (e.g. Bookkeeping) jobs?

Public Comments

1. Basically, yes. The accounting software are developed to assist anyone who has an accounting background, be he a novice or an expert, be he an accounting graduate or not. The important thing is he knows the basics/standards/principles of acctg. But dont tell the CPAs these because they are going to lose their jobs and be phased out from the surface of the earth. hahaha! CPAs on the other hand can come in handy in a sense that they can still do accounting tasks with or without an accounting software.
2. I would say it depends on the scope that you are talking about. If it is just a simple business with few accounts and few oddities (can't think of a better word for it) than sure accounting software is fine. But I would say that accountants are needed for companies that have something that makes their situation somewhat different or somewhat unique. Think about it, although accounting software does have a lot of versatility there is no way that it can take into account every difference between every business. For instance if the business does trade in different countries there are countless factors (such as money exchange, different standards of accounting, how stuff is counted, depreciated, etc.) that need to be taken into account, these factors are different in virtually every country and few if any of the accounting programs can take all of this into account. So to make a long story short, I would say it depends on the scope of the business. On kinda a side not, still goes with the point though, depending how well the specific people working with the software know GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles). If they do not know exactly how the different accounts work than they can put things in slightly the wrong account, open up unnecessary accounts, etc.. Than in the end the CPA will have to go back and clean up all of these little mistakes and you may or may not end up behind. But those are my two cents.