Pace of change

The AAT Annual Conference was held on 10 and 11 June at the Metropole Hilton in Birmingham. I was only able to attend for a short time so I cannot give a detailed review of everything that went on; besides there were nearly 30 separate sessions and I would soon run out space if I attempted to say something about each of them. Instead I will give some brief impressions of what appeared to me to be a highly successful event.

Changing technology

Running through the whole conference was the pace of change in the accounting profession brought about by technology. The keynote address by Gary Turner of Xero ‘Future proofing the profession: the cloud and accountancy’ set the scene well. What struck me in particular was his comment ‘find disruption before it finds you’. He referred to the fact the largest hotel...