AI's Stealthy Takeover: How Accountants are Embracing the Revolution

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is already firmly entrenched in the accountancy industry, whether practitioners realise it or not, according to experts speaking at Mercia’s latest member event.

The industry has come a long way from the ledgers that dominated in the pre-digital era. The advent of first Microsoft Excel then accountancy software such as Xero and QuickBooks, helped accountants calculate turnover, balance sheets, cashflow, tax and P&L with greater speed and accuracy than before.

Now, AI is streamlining these processes further and helping accountants and audit professionals to turn their attention to other areas of their businesses.

Under the radar

Many practices are already using AI, it’s kind of crept in under the radar. People are using it without realising it and it is becoming ubiquitous. It has become part of our lives. What ChatGPT and other tools have done is made it more interactive rather than something that happens in the background

Said John Toon, Technology Strategy Lead at Beever and Struthers

Toon was speaking at Mercia’s latest Insight from the Experts event, entitled Technology in the Accountancy Industry. Themes including technology trends, choosing the right partners, integrating new systems, developing new skills and the march of AI were all discussed on the webinar.

Toon continued:

The key thing to remember about AI is that we’re already using it. If you’re using an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tool for bookkeeping, you’re using AI because you’re using Machine Learning to extract the information.

Commonly used AI tools include those that have the ability to extract data from a PDF or a document or AI writers like ChatGPT or Bard.

Meanwhile, Jenesis streamlines company spending. By giving the app parameters and then interacting with it on Slack or WhatsApp, they can manage spend and payment through that rather than an approvals process.

Huge potential

The potential is huge. It reminds me of the Hemmingway quote about bankruptcy happening slowly at first and then suddenly. With AI it has arrived slowly, then suddenly

Said Tony Herbert, Technology Editor at AccountingWEB.

AI is already being used today in a few of the tools that are available. There are practice management tools that integrate with your inbox and allow you to filter emails by sentiment to judge the importance of which emails you want to reply to first.

It’s a starting point and it can also draft replies. Emails can be quite similar, particularly when dealing with a certain chunk of clients. The ability to quickly draft those emails will save you a bunch of time.

The ability to find documentation. If a client emails in and you’re looking for a couple of documents, if the AI is connected to your back office it can find the relevant documentation. Again, it’s a time saver and they all add up.

Replaced by robots

Every advance in technology has been accompanied by a mix of genuine fears and scaremongering and AI is no different. Firms must think carefully about how they keep their staff on board when some may be afraid of being replaced by a robot.

According to Toon, every single job is at risk of being replaced by AI of some description. So, the challenge is to adapt and change whether businesses or staff want to or not.

He continued:

Getting detractors on board is a huge challenge because if someone has the point of view that this technology is rubbish and a waste of time then how you structure around them and the practice to enable them to change their point of view can be really difficult.

If they’re at a senior manager/partner type level that can stop the business from moving forward.

It is key to have uniform, common messaging so that you have change that change comes from the top down. Don’t allow one partner to go one way and one another and wonder why you’re not moving forward at the pace you expect. You’ve got to look at what the opportunities are, and you’ve got to be positive.

Efficiency and staff retention

One area where accountants have been successful in adopting new technology is cloud-based tools. This has been accelerated by post-pandemic working patterns where many have not returned to the office and others are only at their desks from Tuesday to Thursday.

Cloud-based document management tools and practice management tools not only enable people to connect from anywhere, they also drive efficiencies.

Herbert said:

Looking for workarounds to get more efficiency, wring a bit more efficiency out of the business so people aren’t so staff aren’t so overwhelmed because there’s a staff retention play in there as well.

If the existing staff are overworked and exhausted they are probably more likely to leave for a job with better hours and then you start the recruitment cycle again. In a nutshell, it is workflow and efficiency tools.

Embracing the technology

Summing up the discussion Gavin Leake, Technical Lecturer and Consultant at Mercia, concluded:

Technology is going to grow at a faster pace. Before AI came on the scene I was of the view that technology is not going to reduce the number of people working in the profession but really elevate the work that people do. People are now embracing technology in a bigger way, but they have to be smart about it.

Take baby steps because this is a journey.