What does artificial intelligence mean for accountants?

Anthony Wolny, Communication Business Partner of IRIS

Accountancy practice management software has come a long way. Today, features like automated billing and reconciliations are easily integrated into the day-to-day practice workflow of Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting UK customers.

Our employees work side by side with our customers to create and manage these solutions – driven by a deep understanding of their needs and addressing the rapid changes in their environment.

However, it’s often hard to look beyond improving performance in day-to-day operations. Amid Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic and other disruptions, accountancy practices and their clients are dealing with an unpredictable economic landscape. Future business planning can appear daunting.

However, technology can support accountancy practices (and their clients) in making informed business decisions, and planning for the future. In the first part of our Accountancy Practice Management for Future-Fit Growth series, we’ll explore how they can use technology to define and easily track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Doing so gives practices closer control of performance tracking, and deeper insights that will inform strategic growth plans.

Saving Time

For several decades, business technology platforms have enabled practices to track performance metrics that they have customised. This highlights areas that qualify for improvement and underpins strategic planning.

Contemporary technology, such as CCH KPI Monitoring, makes setting up KPIs faster and easier for accountancy practices than ever before. This is vital today. The current business landscape demands that firms assess and amend KPIs more frequently, based on fresh market variables. KPIs such as client retention rate and business time-to-recovery have become increasingly prominent performance indicators in the past year. If clunky technology makes KPI management difficult, practices have less time and insight to plan future growth.

Reducing Risk
CCH KPI Monitoring makes it far easier to track KPIs and report on them. This is fundamental in minimising risk. For example, if a KPI is set to track and escalate debt filtered by overdue dates, the ability to easily set alerts and automatically generate reports is critical to practice performance management.

Some practices are manually running monthly reports to measure KPIs. Others are running real-time reporting engines, a key feature of CCH KPI Monitoring. This latter solution allows practices to review essential data at any time – covering both performance management and compliance requirements. They can do so remotely or on-premise.

This means that firms can assess issues before they become problems, and thus act proactively. Real-time reporting is a true asset in building a future-fit practice.

The Proof is in the Practice
A number of Wolters Kluwer customers have been using CCH KPI Monitoring for several years now. Our customers look to us when they need to be right. Ryecroft Glenton has successfully integrated CCH KPI Monitoring with its own system. This consolidates information from several sources, including CCH Central and CCH Practice Management.

“We can use the year end date to trigger a sequence of reminders. Have we asked for the books? Have they been received? If a request to a client has been outstanding for a certain period, the partner will receive an alert via email. For limited companies, we can monitor the corporation tax and Companies House filing deadlines – as well as the different deadlines for pension schemes”

– Ian Smith, partner at Ryecroft Glenton

Corporate events agency who benefited from greener graphics initiative

“Apogee are not just aprinting company, theyconsult with us and go onto deliver a full end to endservice from concept toinstallation. They go aboveand beyond and we lookforward to continuing ourjourney with them”

Corporate events agency who benefited from greener graphics initiative

“Apogee are not just aprinting company, theyconsult with us and go onto deliver a full end to endservice from concept toinstallation. They go aboveand beyond and we lookforward to continuing ourjourney with them”

Corporate events agency who benefited from greener graphics initiative

“Apogee are not just aprinting company, theyconsult with us and go onto deliver a full end to endservice from concept toinstallation. They go aboveand beyond and we lookforward to continuing ourjourney with them”

Corporate events agency who benefited from greener graphics initiative

“Apogee are not just aprinting company, theyconsult with us and go onto deliver a full end to endservice from concept toinstallation. They go aboveand beyond and we lookforward to continuing ourjourney with them”

Undoubtedly, we are now in an era characterised by rapid technological advancements, with the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into various industries becoming increasingly explored.  

The accountancy industry is no exception.  

Despite being a sector which historically has struggled with the adoption of technological advancements, we are now at a crossroads where AI has the potential to be a game-changer. However, can AI truly live up to the hype?

AI is already being used…
A logical starting point for this topic is covering how AI is currently used in accountancy.

It’s true! AI has been used in the audit space for a while now.  

Historically, audits would be done with samples, but AI has enabled auditors to run all data digitally through algorithms with audit and AI rules to make sure financial statements give a fair and true view of a company.  

Now, the hype that has consumed the working world and prompted the industry to further jump on the bandwagon is generative AI – a form of artificial intelligence which can generate text, images and other media.


An industry hesitant of change
Despite the promises of technology, the accountancy industry has historically been resistant to change, with areas such as cloud and MTD adoption still in their early stages.

In fact, IRIS research found that 60% of accountants still struggle to automate admin tasks due to budget owners holding tech investment back.

Additionally, with enormous amounts of media attention focused on the negative aspects of AI, such as potential job losses and a lack of humanity in service-based occupations, it’s no wonder many accountants remain wary.  

Ultimately, for AI to be adopted, people’s habits and mindsets need to change, but what benefits are even on offer to entice firms?

What are the benefits of AI for accountants?
Despite initial hesitancy, those willing to embrace AI can obtain a whole host of benefits, including:  

Automating costly, lengthy, mundane tasks: automation-based AI can help with tasks such as data entry, reconciliation and invoice processing, which are all prone to human error.

Staff upskilling: generative AI can support new starters as firms could utilise chatbots, enabling instant responses to any basic questions (should a question be more complex, it can then be escalated to a human).

Untapped expertise: AI enables accountants to embed learning models into their systems so they can review new opportunities. For example, using pattern matching and trend analysis, firms can identify similar clients to their existing client list which they can target in new business outreach to offer advisory services.

Better training: there are also AI-powered training tools that you can use to record your speaking pitches. The AI then reviews these recordings and provides feedback which can help you improve your pitches to clients.

What are the potential risks of AI in accountancy?
While there are concerns generative AI could replace human jobs and services, the truth is that the technology is still in its infancy.  

But there are things to watch out for.

Generative AI, in particular, has been garnering the reputation of being an authoritative liar, with examples of the information provided containing errors and falsehood.

In an industry where trust is so valuable, simply taking the outputs of AI at face value is extremely risky.

Additionally, making the most of AI requires its own set of skills.

Without knowing what the right prompts are to ask generative AI, accountants won’t get the best value out of the technology – a certain level of technical skill is required, which many don’t have time to cultivate.

The bottom line
There’s exciting potential with AI and its uses for the future, but a full job takeover is unlikely.  

UK accounting firms that embrace AI will be better positioned to navigate changes and provide superior client services.

We expect to see AI plug-ins added to common tech tools in the near future, supporting rather than replacing what accountants do on a day-to-day basis.

Perhaps the most immediate risk surrounding AI is not educating accountants about its potential benefits or training them on how to get the best out of it, because, like it or not, AI is simply the next evolution of technology.

Aug 2023

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