Keeping up with the Changing World of Accounting

This issue of Australian Accounting Review updates readers on six of the key areas in which the world of accounting is changing: artificial intelligence (AI); the impact of reporting key audit matters; measuring inventories at fair value; the importance of staffing for audit quality; barriers to the usefulness of not-for-profit reporting; and setting an agenda for research into corporate human rights. In all of these areas it is interesting to note that, while the context and the language are changing, many of the fundamentals of accounting will continue to be relevant into the future.

Our lead article is the address delivered at the 2022 Australian Accounting Hall of Fame Awards held in March 2023. Weber (2023) gives us the author's view of the future of AI: what it can and cannot do, what humans will still be needed to do, and how the world of accounting will adopt and adapt but not be dominated.

Two articles discuss different aspects of auditing in our changing world: the readability and informativeness of reported key audit matters (Gambetta et al. 2023), and – perhaps not so much a new aspect of auditing as a timely recognition of what has always mattered – the importance of appropriate staffing of audits, and matching the staff to the client (Wu et al. 2023).

This issue continues to address topical questions for today, with an article that questions whether fair value measurement for inventories is value-relevant (Badenhorst and von Well 2023). Readers may be interested to know that while the fair value component of the balance sheet value is not found to be value-relevant, changes in both the historical cost and fair value measures are.

Gilchrist et al. (2023) show the diversity of the changing world of accounting, asking directors, preparers and auditors about factors that undermine the usefulness of not-for-profit financial statements.

Our final update on the changing world of accounting will break new ground for many readers. Accounting for human rights is an area of corporate social responsibility that has not received much attention to date, but will become increasingly important in the future. ElKelish (2023) identifies particular aspects of human rights that will require rigorous and practical research in the future.

This issue highlights that skilled accounting practitioners with an ability to apply traditional accounting tools to new situations will continue to be relevant in the changing world of accounting. It also highlights the need for careful research to better understand that changing world, and the value of conversations between practitioners and research on these topics. We hope that this issue of Australian Accounting Review will encourage such conversations.