An outdated approach to pricing means accountants have fallen behind other professions and continue to be paid inappropriately for the work they do, according to the head of accounting at Intuit QuickBooks, Shaye Thyer.

The latest data on pay from recruiter Seek — which shows accounting salaries rising slightly ahead of the pack — was good news and overdue.

“I absolutely celebrate that accountant salaries are increasing above average,” said Ms Thyer on this week’s Accountants Daily podcast. “I think this is a correction – I think this has been coming for so many years.”

She said the problem stemmed from an overdue reliance on pricing by the hour.

“It’s so limiting — it doesn’t reflect the value of what we’re doing whatsoever. 

“I don’t know what the exact answer is, but I would love to see some more thinking around the way we structure these things because at the end of the day, we do need to pay our accountants better. And we will need to figure out a way to make that work commercially.”