Lakhasly

It is now widely accepted that information technology (IT) has been, and still is, a major driver for accounting to become a knowledge service profession (Granlund, 2011).Thus, inadequate technology can potentially corrupt the very outcomes of an AIS, namely reports and decision- relevant information (Ghasemi et al., 2011), leading to incorrect, unreliable decisions.IT impacts the quality of the AIS (measured in terms of scope, timeliness, aggregation, reliability, flexibility and usefulness), which, in turn, impacts the quality of accounting information (Wisna, 2013).To become the enabling and empowering tools AIS are expected to be, they require the technological infrastructure or 'underpinnings' that facilitate their smooth operation (Ghasemi et al., 2011; Wisna, 2013; Gelinas et al., 2018).Inadequate technologies underpinning AIS can burden a firm with extra maintenance and data recovery costs and issues with data reliability, security and privacy.

It is now widely accepted that information technology (IT) has been, and still is, a major
driver for accounting to become a knowledge service profession (Granlund, 2011). Accounting information systems (AIS) have grown into complex decision- support systems (DSSs)
whilst increasing the speed and accuracy of more traditional accounting tasks (Gelinas et al.,
2018). IT impacts the quality of the AIS (measured in terms of scope, timeliness, aggregation, reliability, flexibility and usefulness), which, in turn, impacts the quality of accounting
information (Wisna, 2013). To become the enabling and empowering tools AIS are expected
to be, they require the technological infrastructure or ‘underpinnings’ that facilitate their
smooth operation (Ghasemi et al., 2011; Wisna, 2013; Gelinas et al., 2018). Inadequate technologies underpinning AIS can burden a firm with extra maintenance and data recovery
costs and issues with data reliability, security and privacy. Thus, inadequate technology can
potentially corrupt the very outcomes of an AIS, namely reports and decision- relevant information (Ghasemi et al., 2011), leading to incorrect, unreliable decisions.
In the remainder of this chapter, the general relationship between AIS and technology is
detailed. Further, networks are revealed as a necessary technological feature of AIS. Then,
the components that are aligned to build and run an AIS are discussed, namely hardware
and software. Networks, hardware and software must work together to provide a reliable
basis for any AIS to perform and provide reports and decision- relevant information. Finally,
the focus is moved to the emerging technologies of blockchain, the Internet of Things (IoT)
and artificial intelligence (AI) that have started to heavily impact AIS in recent years. Later
chapters home in on some of the topics covered here in greater detail.