Shimamoto has not formally surveyed the profession. However, he says that the trend is obvious from those attending sessions that he has presented, although it is still definitely a minority.

A frequent speaker at CPA events and a consult to firms, Shimamoto attributes the trend to the spread of cloud technology because firms need to understand the data and the process. But the pure technology has been handed off to the companies providing the cloud applications.

The accounting technologists, Shimamoto says, "become the technical experts on the cloud apps."

It is also obvious that the preferred method is to name an accountant to the position. "It's easier to teach accountants IT than to teach an IT person accounting," he says.

Positions created are usually at the manager level and named via department. Audit operations have IT auditors and client accounting services often apply the name accounting technologist. "I haven't seen them much in tax," he notes.