How Blockchain Is Transforming Accounting, Auditing and Finance: A Systematic Review SpringerLink

Consensus is the agreement between all the network subjects who have access to the data exchanged through blockchain and allows all the actors to validate new blocks and nodes (Brown-Liburd et al., 2019; McCallig et al., 2019; Smith, 2018). Through the agreement between all the network components, consensus allows real-time data updating with copies of the changes (Benedict, 2019; Mühlberger et al., 2019). The process increases the actors’ attention to the quality of the data provided (Lemieux et al., 2020; Rien Agustin and Susilowati, 2019). Accountants can verify company financial data by including multiple vendors and clients in the exchange of accounting records.

• Reconciliation of accounts will be easier with improved efficiency and less occurrence of frauds.
• We used a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model, which is well-suited to providing a systematic and non-biased method of investigating a body of literature (Cai et al., 2019; El-Haj et al., 2019; Black et al., 2020; Bentley et al., 2018; Fligstein et al., 2017).
• Among the possible developments of this study in terms of the practical and theoretical applications of blockchain technology to accounting, we mention the possibility of overcoming the problem of data privacy through the use of public blockchains.
• Starting from reports by professionals and literature, they focus limitedly on governance, transparency and trust, continuous audits, smart contracts and accountants and auditors’ roles in the emerging blockchain ecosystem.
• Thus, many of the benefits and challenges of blockchain for auditing still need to be analysed.
• How cryptoassets and cryptocurrencies should be taxed is also open to question (Ram, 2018).

As cryptoassets are often characterised as a potential future economic benefit, their acquisition may lead to even greater discrepancies between the market and book values of companies, especially in markets with optimistic valuations of intangible assets. Accountants can also work as advisers to companies considering joining blockchains themselves, providing advice on weighing the costs and advantages of the new system. Accountants’ mix of business and financial nous will position them as key advisers to companies approaching these new technologies looking for opportunity. These judgemental elements often require context that is not available to the general public, but instead require knowledge of the business, and with blockchain in place, the auditor will have more time to focus on these questions.

Voluntary roles

But I think we’re now going to start moving into much higher percentages of firms that are getting their arms around this. I think the IRS rulings, the 10,000-plus letters that were sent out to many, many firm clients, has definitely woken people up. And people are saying, “OK, you know, how do I meet this compliance need” and there’s solutions that are in the marketplace. In the past, we’d use paper receipts for proof that a transaction occurred. With the introduction of digital payments came digital receipts, which are easier to tamper. Blockchain’s decentralized nature also helps act as proof that a transaction happened.

• For instance, we do not consider technical, legal or ethical issues, such as the security and privacy of data or the reliability of information entered in the blockchain.
• This subsection aims to investigate how authors have defined blockchain.
• Small-and medium-sized audits require additional organizational capabilities than large-sized audit firms to adopt robust security measures and interpret regulations and standards, given their limited resources and personnel.
• Alfieri et al. (2019) argue that Bitcoin is similar to common stock, has an excellent risk–return profile and represents an opportunity for portfolio diversification.

Reconciliation of accounting data will not be fully automated through blockchain technology as auditors’ professional expertise and experience is required to assess the accuracy of complex accounting transactions. However, the ability to trust that both parties are recording the same base transaction information and the real-time availability of this accounting data offers immense benefits for the efficiency with which accounting data can be reconciled and analyzed. Due to distributed ledger technology, blockchain technology eliminates the need for entering accounting information into multiple databases and potentially removes the need for auditors to reconcile disparate ledgers.

There is also an interest in the supply chain sector that seems to benefit from the technology’s properties. The blue shaded areas on the map represent research cooperation among nations. Additionally, the pink lines linking countries indicate the extent of collaboration among the authors. It is interesting to see which countries have the most publications on accounting, auditing, accountability and blockchain.

Student support and benefits

The distribution of the 93 items of the sample does not show significant concentration. However, Table 4 highlights the journals specializing in improving and facilitating the research, education and practice of advanced information systems, cutting-edge technologies and AI in the accounting, information technology and management advisory system fields. The interdisciplinary conference proceedings focused specifically on technological innovation. word invoice template The bibliometrix R package and biblioshiny app, widely used in the literature by several studies (Secundo et al., 2020), are used to analyze the bibliographic data for the first coding group (Aria and Cuccurullo, 2017). Finally, for coding analysis, we use the Deedose web application particularly suitable for ensuring that the inter-rater reliability (IRR) links with the degree of consistency in how the code system is applied (Talanquer, 2014).

Audit opportunities in cognitive, blockchain, and talent

In addition, BT features such as decentralization and security should enhance information quality and increase reporting and disclosure efficiency (Peprah et al., 2022). BT also validates asset ownership and liabilities, minimizes fraud and does audit traces, thereby saving time and cost (Lombardi et al., 2022; Abreu et al., 2018; Supriadi et al., 2020). Therefore, many BT solutions exist for auditing, such as Libra, Verady and Factom (Abreu et al., 2018). The qualitative study included 11 in-depth interviews with external auditors, and the results of the interviews and the literature review helped develop a survey collected from 58 auditors.

Table 6 identifies the top ten authors ranked by the number of publications. This study highlights the current state of the field, combining methodological approaches and providing valuable future research insights. Additionally, it is also a starting point for professionals to fully understand blockchain’s characteristics and potential with a constructive and systemic approach. As blockchain technology continues to advance and new and different uses are found, it will be up to the accountancy profession to ensure that its promises of transparency and accountability are fulfilled. Technical challenges and research opportunities”, Decision Sciences, Vol.

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It also may require the CPA auditor to understand and assess the reliability of the consensus protocol for the specific blockchain. This assessment may need to include consideration of whether the protocol could be manipulated. When implemented correctly, the blockchain provides a high degree of trust, which some accountants worry will reduce demand for traditional accounting work.

Figure 5 illustrates this process for four transactional records (Trans1, Trans2, Trans3 and Trans4). For an experienced practitioner, blockchain might create a feeling of déjà vu recalling the hype and excitement of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s. Many saw resources flocking to it and efforts to develop the best ideas. Blockchain technology development is still in its early stage, fraught with failures and will certainly look very different in a few years.

2 Tools of analysis

Their stablecoin and the white paper that they issued, and testimony by Mark Zuckerberg in front of Congress. Like everything, though, there’s lots of different opinions, but I think that’s great leadership. So that’s probably one of the things that is a very, very current topic.

Therefore, Egypt is collaborating with BT service suppliers to provide Ethereum [1] BT services in Egypt (Bartlett, 2022). Furthermore, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) developed an initiative to introduce BT in the remittance market, which holds the fifth-highest position in the global remittance market rankings (Papadaki and Karamitsos, 2021). Also, the CBE initiated a project called “Block Banking” in 2019 to adopt the BT in the banking and financial sector and support financial inclusion in Egypt. At least two commercial banks have implemented BT in remittance (Ahram online, 2023). Additionally, some startups are developing a blockchain-based accounting platform for accounting and auditing processes and transactions (Ahram online, 2023). Therefore, the accounting and auditing profession and regulatory bodies must be prepared to deal with the technology when BT is fully adopted in the business world (Cusack, 2018; Hashem et al., 2023).