Accountant’s Role When Code Start Thinking

Introduction

When a sector grows, problems take time to occur. Profits cover incompetence. Speedily working hides weakness. The finance sector was one of them. As transactions became digital and volumes increased, systems suffered if they were not changed accordingly.

Economic Cycles

Every sector faces economic cycles. During the growth phase, verification delays were made. Reconciliation takes time, but business moves forward anyway. But there is pressure of audits, as audits were performed after transactions had already been created. This created a pressure point on the department. Transactions take place every day but also leave a risk. Decisions were delayed because data had to be verified manually.

Because of the manual verification, management moves to the next work, but there is still a risk of any error in previous managed accounts. Risk increased because problems were disclosed after damage had already occurred. When any sector touches the sky, there is always a recession phase. Every delay matters. Every error has a cost. Every missing trail built pressure.

Adam Rees

Adam Rees experienced this daily as an auditor. The same transaction appeared in different systems with small variations. One system showed different timing. Another showed different.

Daniel Moore

Daniel Moore worked in internal control and also faced the same issue because of repetition. Approvals passed through multiple layers. Reports were prepared, reviewed, questioned, revised, and reviewed again.

Friction

The real pain point was not workload. The verification process was carried out after the fact. Finance systems reacted to problems instead of preventing them. Errors were discovered during audits, not at the moment they occurred. Fraud risks were identified after losses had already been made. As volume increased, complexity increased. More transactions require more checks. More checks require more people.

Design Failure

Both Adam and Daniel realized something went wrong. Verification had become the core activity of finance. The system did not assume truth; it demanded proof every time.

At this stage, Adam and Daniel come to the point that it was a design failure. The problem was not that accountants were slow. The problem was that the digital economy still depended on a manual system. Adam Rees and Daniel Moore were trained accountants. Their workdays looked ordinary, with reconciliations and audit trails. They saw their routine repeating with delays, duplicated work, and dependence on verification.

Adam worked as an auditor. Daniel worked in internal controls and reporting systems. After a few years of work, they realized that verification consumed much time. Trust did not automatically arise; it had to be built again and again. Every system stores data. There is no 100% accountability. Adam Rees and Daniel Moore did not search for a faster accounting solution. They searched for structural trust. The system that is flexible as the volume increase capacity of the system increases side by side.

Discovery of Blockchain

Adam and Daniel are thinking of blockchain not as an innovation, but as an architecture. They know very well that: Blockchain does not eliminate accountants; it eliminates uncertainty. Accounting rules define how the system behaves.

Adam proposed something different at this time. He researched the blockchain technology. After research, he reached this stage where he noticed after a few modifications, we could deploy blockchain automation in our (finance) sector. It would help in recording, auditing, compliance and regulatory reporting, expense management, inventory and asset tracking, payroll and benefits, approvals and authorization, reconciliation, and risk and fraud detection.

Daniel focused on structure: shared ledger instead of duplicated records and real-time visibility instead of delayed audits, and this was how technology shaped finance. Firstly, they didn’t go for changing the whole system; they selected one narrow area: transaction authorization.

Adam and Daniel built a blockchain-based system where transactions were recorded instantly.

Structural Flow

When the system detects any transaction, the system verifies the transaction, and after verification, the system converts it into a cryptographic hash. After converting into a hash, the system was grouped into a block. A block contains transactions, a timestamp, and a hash of the previous block. The previous block’s hash is critical because it links the blocks together, forming a chain.

Once a new block is created, it stores the hash of the previous block. If anyone tries to delete or alter a previous block, the hash won’t match, and the network immediately detects tampering. Every transaction is stored in a shared ledger. This is how every action is traceable. All mistakes become visible. This was the first time that the “block” enforced discipline. The real breakthrough came with smart contracts.

Smart Contract

A smart contract is not a legal document written in complex language. In finance, it is a digital version of accounting and compliance rules that automate system. Instead of people checking rules after a transaction happens, the system checks rules before the transaction is made.

Adam described it simply: “We used to write rules for people to follow. Now we write rules for the system to follow.”

Adam translated accounting controls into logical conditions: spending limits, authorization hierarchies, and compliance thresholds.

Daniel translates these checks into system logic (smart contract). Every time a transaction is entered into the system, the smart contract automatically tests these conditions. If all conditions were met, the transaction was made. If any of the conditions failed, the system stopped the transaction. The system just follows the rules. This changed everything for the first time: controls were proactive, audits became continuous, and decisions were made earlier.

Change in Behavior

This created an unexpected shift in behavior. Earlier, people assumed that explanations could fix problems; now the system would not allow any transaction to violate rules. Audits changed as well. The question was changed: “Why was this transaction approved?” The question became, “Why did the system allow this transaction?” And after smart contracts, there are very few chances of this question arising. Smart contracts did not remove judgment or responsibility. They moved responsibility to a higher level of design, structure, and governance.

New Role of Accountant

What actually changed was not just how fast transactions happened but also how people started thinking about finance. The focus slowly shifted from checking numbers again and again to building systems that build trust from the start. Accountants were no longer buried in entries and reports. They started thinking about how rules, controls, and decisions affect real outcomes. The work felt quieter, but the responsibility was much bigger.

Adam no longer reviewed individual entries. He reviewed system behavior. Daniel stopped preparing reports. He explained patterns and risks to leadership. Their role upgrades naturally into system governance, ethical oversight, and strategic interpretation. They were not replaced by technology; they became supervisors. And the organization noticed that Adam and Daniel unintentionally created a new environment. Finance teams trust the data immediately, which makes the management faster, with more confidence, and audits shifted from inspection to assurance. Blockchain was no longer the system; it became an accountant as a leader, supervisor, advisor, and protector.

Limitations

Even though Adam and Daniel made the finance sector faster and more reliable, it also had side effects. Sometimes the accountant trusted the blocks too much and ignored small mistakes. The 90% chance of perfection made everyone confident, but the 10% risk was still there. Rules and regulations were tricky, especially in different countries; automated approvals could accidentally block something important. Bugs or glitches are also there. Adam and Daniel realized that blockchain worked best when technology got smart and humans stayed sharp.

Accountability

Accountants acknowledge risk, controls, and consequences. When systems execute logic automatically, blocks start to verify truth automatically. There was a question about who had to define what truth meant. This responsibility fell naturally to accountants who know the rules and reality. Leadership belongs to those who design the logic. Blockchain does not make accountants irrelevant. It removes manual work when accountants store data and record history. When blocks validate data, accountants supervise accuracy. Accountability became the main core due to automation. Errors no longer hide in layers of reports, and risks are proactively highlighted.

Conclusion

The story of Adam and Daniel is full of innovation. It is a blueprint of the future of accounting. In the era where blocks can think, accountants define the logic. In a world where machines enforce rules, humans set the standards. It is all about the courage to define reality for others to follow.

As financial systems grow more complex and technology becomes more capable. The accountant who adopts this technology becomes not just a recorder of history but a driver of the future. The one who leads the logic and guides the system, and those who think ahead, will always be beyond the surface. “And in that change from checking numbers by hand to shaping the whole system, the finance world begins to transform.

They stop waiting for mistakes to appear. They design systems that reduce confusion, help to make decisions early, and keep finance grounded in clarity, not fixing them after damage has been done.

Adam and Daniel did not lead because they adopted blockchain. They lead because they have earned trust. Because when blocks start thinking, accountants start leading. Not by authority, but by architecture.

Author: Muhammad Umer
Program: CAF Student (ICAP)

This article is submitted by author as part of the Nashfact National Writing Competition. Views expressed are the author’s own.