31 August 2023 – Mindelheim
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Low data quality and lack of client-side interfaces are obstacles
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Artificial intelligence a game changer
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New Lünendonk Survey 2023 available
Throughout the industry, a certain impatience surrounds the digitisation of the audit. Although investments in relevant systems are increasing annually over and above day-to-day IT operations, more efficient accounting design requires equally sustained development on the part of clients. A full 91 per cent of respondents to the new Lünendonk Survey 2023 ‘Audit, Tax, and Advisory Companies in Germany’ see the lack of client-side data quality as a central obstacle to auditing by accountancy firms being fully IT-supported. These are the findings of the new Lünendonk Survey, available now.
The industry also continues to complain about a degree of ignorance or reluctance on the part of clients – be it for reasons of cost or competence or due to data protection concerns. This may be another area of consultancy for audit and advisory businesses – providing structured and preparing unstructured data.
AI a game changer
Artificial intelligence will be a game changer within the provider field –developments are advancing rapidly. Given broad public access since the end of 2022 to text generation programmes such as ChatGPT or image programmes such as DALL-E or Midjourney, enthusiasm has mushroomed around the technology, while there have also been warnings with regard to copyright and disruptive forces.
One thing is certain: massive increases in data and computing capacity are giving rise to new possibilities. Whereas a few years ago AI systems were trained to optimise for just one task, large language models like ChatGPT are able to generate answers to a wide variety of questions. ‘This is why it is crucial that audit firms integrate into their companies new AI strategies for the future at an early stage,’ asserts Lünendonk managing partner and Survey author Jörg Hossenfelder. ‘In tax consulting in particular, we can now see the first successful business models, and large companies such as McKinsey and KPMG have recently demonstrated their own internal AI tools.’
The detailed Lünendonk Survey 2023 ‘Audit, Tax, and Advisory Companies in Germany’, based on a poll of the structures, strategies, plans and limitations of the 25 leading and 43 medium-sized and smaller auditing companies as well as 13 networks/alliances is available at the price of €2,400 (plus VAT) from www.luenendonk.de/en.
