Is the accounting fraternity falling apart?

If the guardians of financial discipline themselves begin failing repeatedly, who then protects the integrity of the financial system? Sri Lanka’s recent payment failures should not merely be viewed as isolated operational incidents. They should serve as warning signals for the entire accounting and finance profession. Because when financial trust collapses, the damage extends far beyond numbers. It affects institutions, economies, governance, businesses, and ultimately society itself

• A critical reflection on Sri Lanka’s growing payment failures

If we keep politics aside and look this more open mind, in every organisation — whether a government ministry, state-owned enterprise, private company, bank, or welfare institution — the final responsibility for handling money ultimately rests with finance professionals. Treasury payments, salary disbursements, supplier settlements, welfare transfers, loan processing, banking reconciliations, and financial controls are all deeply rooted in accounting principles and financial discipline.

For decades, accounting professionals were regarded as the guardians of financial accuracy, integrity, and trust. The profession was built on principles such as precision, accountability, prudence, internal control, segregation of duties, reconciliation, verification, and ethical responsibility. Yet, recent incidents in Sri Lanka raise an uncomfortable but necessary question:

Is the accounting fraternity falling apart?

This is not merely an attack on accountants. Rather, it is a broader concern regarding the deterioration of financial discipline across institutions that are increasingly dependent on technology, automation, shortcuts, and weak governance structures.

Recent events in Sri Lanka have shaken public confidence in financial administration.

The widely discussed Aswesuma welfare payment error resulted in duplicate payments to beneficiaries due to a payment file reportedly being uploaded twice during manual processing.

Similarly, allegations surrounding treasury-related payment diversions, SriLankan Airlines transaction irregularities, postal remittance discrepancies, and banking sector system and internal control failures have created serious public concern regarding the reliability of financial control systems. Reports also highlighted investigations into large-scale transaction discrepancies involving financial institutions and public sector entities.

When such incidents happen occasionally, they may be dismissed as human error. But when payment fails repeatedly across multiple sectors — government departments, banks, airlines, welfare systems, and financial institutions — it signals something deeper than isolated mistakes.

It suggests systemic weakening

The worrying reality is that almost every payment process today is handled or supervised by individuals with accounting or finance backgrounds. Even when systems are automated, accountants and finance professionals remain responsible for designing controls, approving workflows, validating transactions, reconciling balances, and ensuring compliance.

Technology itself is not the problem.

In fact, accounting systems today are far more advanced than those used decades ago. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, banking integrations, automated reconciliations, artificial intelligence tools, and digital approval workflows should theoretically reduce errors. Yet paradoxically, major payment mistakes appear to be increasing.

Why?

One possible reason is the gradual erosion of foundational accounting discipline.

Many organisations now prioritise speed over verification. Financial departments are pressured to process thousands of transactions rapidly while operating with limited staff, unrealistic deadlines, political interference, or poor oversight. The traditional accounting culture of “check, recheck, reconcile, verify, and authorise” is slowly being replaced by a dangerous overreliance on systems and assumptions.

But systems do not think.

People do.

A payment file does not upload itself twice. A suspicious transaction does not approve itself. A reconciliation mismatch does not ignore itself. Somewhere within every financial breakdown lies a human failure — either negligence, inadequate competence, weak supervision, poor internal controls, or ethical compromise.

Mistreatment of finance departments

Another uncomfortable truth is that many institutions increasingly treat finance departments as operational support units rather than strategic control centres. Experienced accountants are often replaced with cheaper staff, overburdened teams, or individuals trained merely to operate software instead of understanding accounting fundamentals.

There was a time when accountants were feared for their discipline.

Today, in many organisations, finance teams themselves are under pressure from management to “make things happen quickly,” sometimes at the expense of proper controls. In such environments, questioning unusual transactions or delaying payments for verification may even be viewed negatively.

This creates a dangerous culture:

• approvals without scrutiny,
• reconciliations without investigation,
• system dependency without understanding,
• and compliance without accountability.

The consequences are severe.

In private companies, such failures damage profitability, liquidity, and shareholder confidence. In banks, they weaken depositor trust. In government institutions, they erode public faith in state administration. When welfare payments fail, the impact goes even deeper because the victims are often the most vulnerable citizens.

Normalising incompetence

More importantly, repeated financial failures slowly normalise incompetence.

Society begins to accept “system errors” as routine. Institutions issue explanations, committees are appointed, investigations are launched, and eventually the public moves on — until the next incident occurs.

But trust, once damaged repeatedly, becomes extremely difficult to rebuild.

The accounting profession therefore faces a critical turning point.

The issue is not whether accountants know accounting standards such as IFRS, tax law, or auditing techniques. Sri Lanka still produces highly qualified accountants and finance professionals. The deeper issue is whether the profession is losing its traditional culture of responsibility, scepticism, discipline, and moral courage.

Protecting financial integrity

An accountant’s true value is not merely preparing financial statements.

It is protecting financial integrity.

That requires more than technical knowledge. It requires independence, ethical strength, attention to detail, professional scepticism, and the willingness to challenge irregularities — even under pressure.

The profession must therefore ask itself difficult questions:

• Are finance professionals becoming too dependent on systems?
• Has automation weakened human verification?
• Are institutions compromising internal controls for convenience?
• Is commercial pressure overtaking professional ethics?
• Are organisations valuing speed more than accuracy?
• Are experienced finance professionals being sidelined?
• Has accountability disappeared behind the phrase “technical error”?

Most importantly:

If the guardians of financial discipline themselves begin failing repeatedly, who then protects the integrity of the financial system?

Sri Lanka’s recent payment failures should not merely be viewed as isolated operational incidents. They should serve as warning signals for the entire accounting and finance profession.

Because when financial trust collapses, the damage extends far beyond numbers.

It affects institutions, economies, governance, businesses, and ultimately society itself.

(The author is a Professional Accountant and could be reached via email at [email protected])