The opportunity for AI in accounting is clear, with promise of efficiencies and scalability resulting in an abundance of new investments. But while many firms strive to capitalise on innovation, they are slow to adopt AI for resource management – the core of their business and their largest operational cost centre and profit generator.
What’s holding firms back from seizing this opportunity? Is it risk, readiness or investment justification? As 10+ year veterans of AI in accounting, we’ll take a close look at the pressing issues and showcase how we have listened to our customers to create a pragmatic AI solution that can deliver gains in resource management today.
Jamie Graves, VP Product, Dayshape
Jamie has over 15 years of product leadership experience in B2B SaaS, as well as extensive expertise in AI and big data technologies. He founded his first company in the Cyber Security sector in 2010. After exiting in 2018 to Fortinet Inc he worked as VP of Product & Security Analytics at the acquiring company before leaving to work as a product advisor with a range of start-ups and scale-ups across different sectors. Jamie joined Dayshape in 2023 as VP of Product where he works with the team to improve people's working lives through our market leading Resource Management tool.
Steven Cote, Product Manager, Dayshape
After beginning his career in market research, Steven transitioned into the world of product management and has applied his user centred approach across the tourism & hospitality, prop tech, and insurance sectors. At Dayshape, he is responsible for the main Gantt, its associated functionalities including its AI powered automation tool.
The UK accountancy market is facing an unprecedented resourcing crisis driven by an ageing workforce, a decrease in graduates/college leavers entering the profession and a clear message from those within the profession that daily repetitive time consuming manual tasks do not inspire them to stay. For the last 3 years, FD Intelligence have been utilising Intelligent Automation within accountancy practices to eliminate the “heavy lifting” and allow the team to focus on the more complex and stimulating tasks. At “Not just AI in AIT”, we are extremely excited to showcase the most significant change within tax processing since Self Assessment. Utilising the latest capabilities in AI combined with RPA, we will present the fully automated end to end personal tax return journey from data collection requests to filing the return resulting in reductions in processing time of up to 80% !
Mark Purdue, Head of Compliance Products, Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting UK
Mark has worked in tax and accounting for over thirty years. He started his career at HMRC, and was then in practice for a number of years specialising in high net worth individuals for an in-house tax department for a Stockbroker. For the last 16 years he has been working as a Product Manager providing compliance solutions to accountants, and is ACCA, AAT and ATT qualified.
Andy is a highly experienced professional with 25 years’ experience in delivering effective and innovative IT solutions to the accountancy market. He has a passion for business improvement through IT, which led to Andy founding FD Intelligence in 2019. He has led the FD Intelligence to being recognised as a leading UK provider in Intelligent Automation, pushing the boundaries of what automation can do and the benefits it can bring to any business. FD Intelligence specialises in automating routine and repeatable Tax and Accounting tasks, providing clients with more time to focus on strategic activities that can enhance their business. With a commitment to delivering measurable results, FD Intelligence is dedicated to helping clients achieve greater efficiency, productivity, and profitability through automation. Outside of work, Andy has a passion for skiing, surfing and having fun.
DAVE CLOUGHCustomer Success Director, FD Intelligence
David is an experienced C-Level executive with exacting standards of client service and product delivery, with specialist knowledge of the UK professional accountancy sector. He has over 20 years’ experience delivering solutions to this market through product management and development, training and consultancy. What Dave enjoys most about the automation projects conducted at FD Intelligence is that they can really “take the robot out of the human”. All those repetitive and soul destroying tasks can be given to the FDI intelligent robot to complete whilst the accountancy professionals develop their skills and focus on challenges that are both more demanding and rewarding (for them and their clients).
The presentation delves into the transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the realm of accountancy. Highlighting the pivotal role of AI, it underscores the prerequisites for its effective implementation: abundant high-quality data and cutting-edge technology. While AI promises a competitive edge to early adopters, the presentation emphasizes the paramount importance of ethical usage. Despite AI's capabilities, human judgment remains irreplaceable in decision-making processes.
Stephen Crisp, CEO & Co-Founder, Arreoblue
Stephen works with retailers & manufacturers to support their digital transformation agenda's, moving them from data validated to data driven. Focused on industry solutions to solve some of the most pressing challenges that can improve profitability through better data decision making.
Stephen has had fantastic fun working with some of the largest enterprises on these challenges and making it easier for them to extract value from data quickly. Passionate about making data a commodity where all areas of the business can have safe access to and answer the critical questions.
Kyle has spent his entire career supporting customers in the Professional & Business Services industry as they go through technology transformations. He started his career as a technology consultant helping large organizations through global Project & Portfolio Management (PPM) rollouts, then moving into presales helping professional services organizations as they evaluate Professional Services Automation (PSA) solutions. Kyle joined Workday over 3 years ago to help grow the PBS industry vertical. Having worked with hundreds of PBS organizations of different sizes across many subindustries, Kyle is passionate about the Services industry and helping customers achieve success.
Aurelio is the Chief Executive Officer and has more than three decades of print industry experience.He is a seasoned leader driven by results, achieved through teamwork and empowerment.
Aurelio has been a senior HP Inc. executive for 18 years, most recently as the Global Head of Owned Channels and the General Manager of HP’s A3 Solutions Business. Earlier in his career at HP, Aurelio created from the inception the HP Graphics Page Wide Press business, taking it from initial idea to become a significant and profitable business for HP. Prior to HP, Aurelio led the Inkjet Printing Business for Olivetti before co-founding Yminds S.A. in Switzerland, an engineering firm specialising in advanced micromechanics and colour science.
Aurelio currently serves as a member of the International Board of Directors for Apogee Corporation Ltd and Simpress.
Julian Broster, VP of Strategic Business Development, Apogee
Julian has over 8 years of invaluable knowledge having joined Apogee in 2013 as a Pre-Sales Consultant, mirroring Apogee’s own journey of growth, Julian has developed from this role to join the Apogee ELT in 2021. He has extensive experience working with organisations from all sectors, helping to identify opportunities for growth and innovation through digital transformation.
Julian’s entrepreneurial mind-set and experience of creating solutions combined with being able to show clients the true value Professional Services can deliver has had a hugely successful impact on our clients in recent years. He is a well-respected figure both within Apogee and within our industry and in Julian we have the perfect role model of what can be achieved here at Apogee with the right dedication and determination to succeed.
How Crowe built a scalable vendor risk process
Did you know that over 60% of organisations have suffered a security breach through a third party? It’s understandable – our current methodologies are ineffective and offer little protection against breaches. However, many companies are utilising a new process that's allowed them to get their risk assessments done in hours not days, scale their supply coverage and effectively stay on top of regulations.
In this presentation, Haydn Brooks, CEO of Risk Ledger will:
- Analyse the current status quo of third-party risk management and identify its key shortcomings.
- Provide a case study from Crowe on how they built a new TPRM process that allows them to proactively manage vendor security, quickly onboard suppliers and stay on top of regulations
- Discuss the new ‘defend-as-one’ methodology that the NHS & UK Water companies have implanted in order to reduce cyber attacks and show how the accountancy industry could replicate it.
Haydn Brooks, CEO, Risk Leader
Originally a big 4 cyber risk consultant Haydn experienced the day to issues that came with running a supply chain assurance programme. He found that current programmes were far from frictionless and actively caused clients and their suppliers' headaches.
These pain points led him to found Risk Ledger. Risk Ledger is a technology platform that combines a security governance platform with a secure social network. Now one full-time employee can run an entire assurance programme for over 1000 vendors, quickly see where their supply chain concentration risks are and identify potential third-party vulnerabilities.
In the last couple of years, Risk Ledger has gone from strength to strength, receiving 2.1 million in seed funding, winning the Cyber Den/Most Innovative Cyber Company Award and being named as one of Forbes’ Tech Champions of 2022. In addition, Haydn was featured on the Forbes 30 under 30 list.
Generative AI: Sorting the Fact from Fiction
"Generative AI: Sorting the Fact from Fiction" delves into the revolutionary application of generative AI in the field of tax, drawing on insights from an in-depth research project involving three distinct use cases. While results show immense promise, the talk also emphasizes the technology's optimal role as an enabler for 'automation to the point of review' rather than a full-automation solution. The talk further extrapolates the potential of generative AI, underscoring its broader applicability across the multifaceted landscape of tax and finance.
Russell Gammon, Chief Solutions Officer, Tax Systems
Russell has worked in the field of Tax Technology for 13 years, having started his graduate career at Deloitte in 2008. Since then, he has gained 10 years of “Big 4” experience, spent some time at a start-up and has been with Tax Systems since May 2020 in the roles of Chief Innovation Officer and most recently Chief Solutions Officer.
Russell is passionate about building products that improve users’ experiences, whilst ensuring that they meet the high-quality Tax Systems is known for. More recently, Russell has been leading the charge in the exploration of using generative AI in the tax industry.
Following the Global Caseware State of Accounting Firms survey, this presentation looks at current trends and how new technologies can provide the industry with opportunities to address some of its biggest challenges.
Natasha Kobrak, Head of Product, Caseware
Natasha Kobrak has 20years experience working with Cloud Products for Compliance-focused industries.For the last 8 years her focus has been on the Tax, Audit and Accounting marketand it's journey to cloud.
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