An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Ac­coun­tants are be­ing urged to look be­yond the num­bers.

That’s the ad­vice from Desmond Di­al, chair and coun­cil mem­ber of the In­sti­tute of Char­tered Ac­coun­tants of T&T (ICATT), who said the pro­fes­sion must in­clude up­hold­ing ethics.

“We must en­sure that we pre­serve the trust and cred­i­bil­i­ty that are the bedrock of our work. Ex­cel­lence in ac­count­ing means more than tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise; it re­quires a com­mit­ment to the high­est stan­dards of pro­fes­sion­al­ism and eth­i­cal con­duct,” he said.

Speak­ing at the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s an­nu­al con­fer­ence, which took place at the Hy­att Re­gency yes­ter­day, Di­al not­ed sus­tain­able busi­ness prac­tices are now a key dri­ver of growth, in­no­va­tion, and re­silience in a rapid­ly chang­ing glob­al econ­o­my.

“We are unique­ly po­si­tioned to help or­gan­i­sa­tions nav­i­gate this new fron­tier. To do so, we must be­come pi­o­neers of ex­cel­lence. ICATT has set out to chal­lenge us not on­ly to be ex­perts in our field, but to be vi­sion­ar­ies who an­tic­i­pate the fu­ture and set new stan­dards of ex­cel­lence for our­selves, our or­gan­i­sa­tions, and our pro­fes­sion,” Di­al said.

Look­ing to the fu­ture, ICATT’s pres­i­dent Maris­sa Quashie is ad­vis­ing ac­count­ing pro­fes­sion­als to use tech­nol­o­gy to speed up process­es and im­prove qual­i­ty.

“Au­toma­tion and Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence have al­ready be­gun to trans­form the way we process trans­ac­tions, pre­pare re­ports and con­duct au­dits. These tools can help re­duce er­rors, speed up process­es, and im­prove qual­i­ty. But tech­nol­o­gy on its own is in­ef­fec­tive. It is how we, as pro­fes­sion­als, in­te­grate and adapt these tools that will de­ter­mine every suc­cess that is achieved,” Quashie de­tailed.

This shift, she said, re­quires that ac­coun­tants em­brace in­no­v­a­tive think­ing.

“For ex­am­ple, con­sid­er how firms lever­age pre­dic­tive an­a­lyt­ics to help clients nav­i­gate un­cer­tain­ty. Rather than just re­port­ing on past per­for­mance, we can now fore­cast fu­ture trends and make da­ta-dri­ven rec­om­men­da­tions to shape strate­gic de­ci­sions,” she said.

Quashie stressed that lead­er­ship in ac­count­ing is about serv­ing the greater good and en­sur­ing the in­tegri­ty of the pro­fes­sion is up­held and that the ac­coun­tants are lead­ing by ex­am­ple.

“The cred­i­bil­i­ty of the pro­fes­sion, and the stan­dards which it is­sues, is cru­cial­ly de­pen­dent on so­ci­ety recog­nis­ing that the pro­fes­sion should, and does, act in the wider pub­lic in­ter­est.”

The an­nu­al con­fer­ence con­tin­ues to­day.