I and E:

1) Agreed on one statement stating that “we can’t automate everything. This is a debate not only in the accounting field, because software, computers … lack the human factor. So, no we cannot achieve 100% automation”.

I and C:

“We will always need that accountant, the one who critically think, analyse, communicate, have ethics, it will only be those repetitive tasks to be automated and which’s basically called bookkeeping”.

I, E and C:

1) All agreed that repetitive tasks will be the first to go.

2) The use of cognitive skills like judgement is highly needed.

Evidence statements:

“Nowadays, when a company purchases an asset, an accountant should estimate the useful life, it is a matter of judgment, the accountants give data to the system based on their own judgment.”

C:

“Automation doesn’t mean to dispense of the person who is working, at the end, he is the one who is offering the right data which without it no results to be produced, for that reason there will be no 100% automation in the future.”

S:

They manifested high worries of full automation and their responses were divided as “3 highly concerned and 2 somehow concerned” when addressing the concern that automation could make their preferred accounting role redundant in the next 20 years.