Automation and Digitalization of Business Processes – New Challenges Arising, Inter Alia, from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The scientific and technical progress is unstoppable. Information technologies have an impact on every spheres of social life, including accounting. The automation of business processes is a common part of business and accounting practice. Manual, regularly occurring transactions, which are made by accountants nowadays, are gradually being replaced by information technologies and automatic robotic systems. The accounting entities fully use cloud storages, artificial intelligence, blockchain technologies, etc. It is even assumed that some professions, due to robotization and automation of business processes, will gradually disappear within a few decades. The digitalization and automation of business processes have recently been accelerated in many cases by the crisis related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper focuses on the assessment of the level of automation in different types of accounting entities, with an accent on automation in accounting practice, as well as on new challenges arising from it, many of which are the result of measures taken in the last two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.