As an accounting firm coach, consultant and mentor I interact with a lot of accounting firm owners and managers. Two of the hot topics of discussion for some time now have been Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA).
In many ways there has never been a more exciting time to be an accounting firm owner or manager. The massive changes in technology over the past decade have removed much of the tedium of repetitive tasks (often compliance related) and theoretically created more time for the advisory work that I believe clients need and love.
RPA
There are essentially three ways I see RPA playing out at present inside accounting firms:
- Through RPA / automation functionality embedded in some of the software applications you use
- The implementation of bots / robots / digital employees (choose the language you like) via a third party who provides RPA as a service
- Similar to above but built inhouse
- RPA functionality embedded in software applications we already use
A really good example of this would be in FYI which has an “automation engine” that allows users to set up a rapidly increasing number of automations. If you look for it you will most likely see example of automation in pretty much every software tool you use today. - RPA as a service
I have a number of clients taking this approach. Many of you would be aware that RPA is ideally suited where a task is repeated a lot. A classic example of this is the preparation of Business Activity Statements. I am aware of a few firms getting up to 80% of that work being completed by a bot.
Typically the RPA as a service provider will help you identify tasks where there will be a strong business case to deploy RPA. Remember, your digital worker can work very long hours, never complains and set up right, doesn’t make mistakes! It’s not hard to see the attraction. The two providers I am seeing pop up quite a bit are Valenta and iaAutomate. - Inhouse implementation of RPA
My experience is that this is less common. It requires you to have a team member with the skills to work with one or more of the automation platforms and write the code to create the bot. The platforms used for this are promoted as “low code” but even so there is a pretty decent level of smarts and experience required to implement a useful bot. The three automation platforms I hear about most are:
- Automation anywhere
- UI Path
- Blue Prism
I predict a lot of growth in the number of firms building inhouse capability in respect of RPA.
The AI explosion
Prior to the worldwide launch of Chat GPT in November 2022 it’s fair to say that AI was the domain of the geeks, scientist and sci fi writers. Since then we have seen the most extraordinary explosion in the number of tools offering AI functionality and the capability offered.
Similar to RPA I see AI playing out at present inside accounting firms in three ways:
- Through AI / automation functionality embedded in some of the software applications you use
- Through the use of off the shelf AI tools
- Building of bespoke systems
- AI functionality embedded in software application we already use.
Some great examples of this include in Digital Rapport, XBert, Aider, Xero, QBO and Caseware. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find any modern application being used inside an accounting firm that does not have some form of AI embedded in it, or about to be embedded. When looking at new software applications ask the vendor to explain what AI they have embedded in their product. - Off the shelf tools
No question – first mover Chat GPT is the one I hear the most about. Co-Pilot from Microsoft is rapidly gaining in popularity and for firms that use SharePoint for document storage there is the enticing option to have Co-Pilot relatively easily interrogate those documents. Gemini from Google, Perplexity, and Claude from Anthropic are other tools I am seeing mentioned quite a bit. There are specialist options for creating images, such as Dall E or Midjourney which could be useful for marketing activities for example. I wrote last month about the AI note taking tools and you can see that article here: Using Generative AI Note takers in your meetings – Planet Consulting - Building of bespoke systems
We’ve seen the big accounting and legal firms go down this path and if you are reader of the Australian Financial Review you will have seen regular articles with leaders of these firms extolling the virtues of their latest AI tool. One law firm leader said AI was helping graduate lawyers complete some tasks in 1/8th of the time previously taken. Impressive! I don’t see this as the preferred option for small to even medium sized accounting firms at present due to the cost and need for a pretty decent amount of inhouse capability to manage it all.
A pressing need for education
It’s clear to me that as professionals we must educate ourselves and our teams on RPA, AI and I’m going to add Microsoft 365. The latter is used by most accounting firms in Australia and has so much functionality that is probably not being accessed because you don’t even know its there! Or if you do, the knowledge of how to use it is lacking. I encourage you to take every opportunity you can to soak up information about these three topics. Get a few of your younger team members excited about this stuff (hopefully they already are) and give them the time and space to research like crazy, play with stuff and come back to you with ideas. But as the leaders in your firm don’t ignore the value of you playing with and understanding these tools better too.
One key thing to understand with any option you look at is how confidentiality and privacy can be managed. There are plenty of options to ring fence your data and protect client confidentiality and they almost certainly don’t involve the free version of the off the shelf options!
If you are using AI or RPA in your firm today, I’d love to hear about the specific ways you are using them. Send your example to [email protected]
This is a pretty high level overview with the goal to get you inspired to invest more time and $ into exploring the opportunities that are here today.