Artificial intelligence is making its way into the daily operations of accounting businesses. CPAs are utilising AI tools to save time, organise information, write material, analyse data and do other mundane jobs.
But adopting AI technologies to your organization is not as straightforward as picking an application and telling staff to start using it.
Accounting businesses handle financial records, tax information, customer data and other sensitive information. This work calls for precision and professional discretion. A mistake from an AI tool can produce more work for the team and possibly impair a client’s work.
That’s why CPA firms need to think about how they’re using AI, not if they’re using it.
A clear AI strategy may help your company identify where AI makes sense, what people need to know, and what checks should be in place before AI becomes part of routine workflows.
Why CPA Firms Need an AI Strategy
Employees can easily begin using multiple AI tools independently. One person uses an AI assistant for summarising information, another uses a different tool to do research or to write.
The trouble is that the firm may not know which tools are being used, what information is put into them or how the outcomes are checked.
A firm wide approach provides everybody some direction.
Your AI plan doesn’t need to be difficult. It might begin with a few simple questions:
- What do we want AI to help us with?
- Which AI tools are approved?
- What information can employees enter into these tools?
- Who checks AI-generated work?
- What training does the team need?
- How will we know whether AI is actually helping?
Answering these questions provides your team with a starting point before AI becomes part of additional accounting operations.
1. Begin with a specific objective
The first step is decide What You Want AI To Do
Don’t go out and implement a tool because your competitors are doing it. Review what your team is already doing and see where AI could save time or make anything easier.
For example, you might want your firm to:
- Spend less time on repetitious administrative tasks
- Help employees to structure information faster
- Simplify internal research processes
- Minimise data handling by hand
- More time for accountants to do client-facing tasks
- Support the creation of new services
And having a particular purpose makes it easier to determine whether an AI tool is genuinely beneficial.
If the goal is merely ‘using more AI’, measuring the outcome can be tricky.
2. Give Someone Responsibility for AI
AI adoption can very easily become everybody’s duty and then nobody’s responsibility.
And there should be someone at the firm with a specific responsibility to help the team analyse and apply AI. It doesn’t necessarily imply employing a new individual.
This obligation could lie with a partner, manager or senior member of the team for things like:
- Reviewing new AI tools
- Identifying useful accounting applications
- Collecting feedback from employees
- Helping create AI guidelines
- Coordinating training
- Tracking how AI is being used
Larger organisations may have multiple staff covering different sectors such as tax, bookkeeping, audit or advice services.
When someone takes responsibility, it becomes easier to move from experimenting with AI to using it consistently.
3. Choose Your AI Tools Wisely
Accounting businesses have access to more AI apps than they’ve ever had before. New tools continually popping up and it can be tempting to add more software.
But more tools are not always better tech.
Before you add an AI application, ask yourself what problem it answers and whether your existing software can already do the task.
Consider:
- What will the tool actually be used to do?
- Does it work with your current systems?
- What information will it pull from the client?
- What security controls does it offer?
- Who will operate the tool?
- How much does it cost?
- Will anyone actually use it?
Managing a few tools that your team knows and utilises well is easier than managing a big list of applications.
4. Train Your Accounting Team
Without an explanation for the way staff should utilise AI, it can confuse them.
It is important that your staff knows the limits of your tools — what they can and can’t do.
Training may be in simple areas such as:
- How to write helpful prompts
- How to verify content produced by AI
- What NOT to put into an AI tool
- How to detect wrong or incomplete answers
- When there is a need for manual review
The firm has authorised the following AI applications:
Training should be relevant to the work people do.Someone doing financial reporting as an accountant can have distinct AI use cases than someone doing tax or bookkeeping.
We don’t want every accountant to become an AI specialist. It is to enable your existing workforce to work with new technology without compromising the professional expertise and judgement they already bring to their work.
5. Keep Human Review in the Process
AI is able to give beneficial answers, but accounting businesses can’t assume that every response AI produces is correct.
AI tools might give false information, miss essential details, or misunderstand the context of a task.
This makes review even more critical for accounting firms.
Your firm can establish simple checks for AI-assisted work, such as:
- Check important numbers and calculations.
- Check sources used in research.
- Check tax or accounting information before using it
- Ensure that client information has been handled properly
- Have an accountant check key work before it goes to the client
The amount of review will vary with the sort of job.
The evaluation required may be less for low risk administrative work than for tasks requiring financial statements, tax concerns or client advice.
6. Create Clear AI Usage Guidelines
Once your staff are utilising AI routinely, your organization should have some fundamental regulations on how it is used.
A policy on standard artificial intelligence may clarify what tools staff are authorised to use and how they should treat information from clients.
The policy could include, for example:
- Approved AI applications
- Acceptable uses of AI
- Information employees should not enter into public AI tools
- Required review of AI-generated work
- Data security expectations
- Who employees should contact with AI-related questions
- Training requirements
The policy should be revised as the firm’s technology and use of AI evolves.
AI is changing rapidly and a policy written once and never looked at again may not be helpful for long.
7. Assess AI’s Effect
It takes time and investment to embrace AI. So your organization should have a means to see if the modifications are providing good benefits.
The measures will be determined by what you are aiming to improve on.
You could monitor, for example:
- Time spent on specific processes
- Turnaround times
- Employee workload
- Client satisfaction
- Number of new services offered
- Revenue per employee
- Employee satisfaction
- Overall operating costs
You don’t need to measure everything.
Choose a few metrics that are closely tied to the goals you set at the start.
For example, if you want to cut down time on repetitious bookkeeping duties, compare the time necessary before and after the introduction of the new process.
The Role of a Remote Accounting Staff in an AI-Driven Firm
AI does not entail that all accounting tasks should be automated
But there will still be plenty of work that needs accounting expertise, evaluation, communication and human judgement. The bigger opportunity for many CPA businesses is to marry technology with the appropriate people.
For example, artificial intelligence may take over some of the repetitive operations and the accounting personnel do the review and accounting work around them.
Another benefit is that a remote accounting professional can also take on responsibility for basic bookkeeping and accounting duties, freeing up your in-house staff to spend more time on client relationships, advisory work and other higher-value obligations.
RemoteAccounting24x7 provides remote accounting staff for CPA firms and accounting firms that can help with things like accounts payable, accounts receivable, reconciliations, general ledger accounting, bookkeeping, financial reporting and payroll.
It offers another alternative for companies who are looking to enhance capacity while incorporating new technology into their workflows.
Combining AI and remote accounting support
AI and remote staffing address various issues.
Artificial intelligence can aid with some tedious or information heavy tasks. Remote accounting specialists supply personnel who can do accounting job, review information, engage with your team and follow the processes defined by your organization.
Using both does not mean you are replacing your current accounting team.
Instead, a CPA company can examine its workflow and state:
What should AI handle?
What should a remote accounting professional handle?
What requires an experienced accountant or CPA?
This method can assist organisations to allocate work by task type rather than simply automating everything.
For example, remote accounting professionals might do basic bookkeeping and data work, while AI tools might handle some administrative or research chores. This allows senior accountants and CPAs to spend their time on review, client contact, analysis and choices that require professional judgement.
Getting Started: A Practical Approach
Your firm doesn’t have to overhaul everything at once.
Pick one or two workflows where you can easily identify an opportunity to reduce time or enhance efficiency.
Then:
- Set a goal.
- Choose an appropriate tool.
- Decide who will be responsible for it.
- Train the people using it.
- Establish a review process.
- Track the results.
- Adjust the workflow based on what you learn.
Once you have the process up and running, you may assess if it makes sense to employ AI in another area of the organization.
FAQs
1. Is AI good for CPA firms?
Artificial intelligence can help CPA and accounting firms with some of the repetitious, research, administrative and information-handling activities. Its usefulness depends on the workflow of the firm, the tools they are using and how they review the findings.
2. Should accounting firms create an AI policy?
An AI policy can clarify for employees which tools are allowed, what they can be used for, how data should be handled and what needs to be reviewed. It might also assist the firm to have a more consistent strategy to AI adoption.
3. Are accountants replaceable by AI at CPA firms?
Artificial intelligence is able to do some things automatically or with some help, but accounting jobs still require professional expertise, review, communication and judgement. AI could be more valuable as a support for teams rather than a full substitute for accounting professionals for many organisations.
4. How do CPA companies get started with AI responsibly?
Start with a concrete business challenge, not with the concept of applying AI. Choose the right technologies, upskill your team, secure client data, audit AI-generated work and evaluate the results. Yes. Remote accounting professionals are able to use the same technology and workflows as their other accounting team members, as long as the firm provides them with the necessary access, instructions and security restrictions. AI will continue to transform the way accounting work is done. But successful adoption is more than merely having access to the latest AI technology.
Building an Accounting Firm That Is Ready for the Future
CPA businesses need to determine the role of technology, educate their staff, preserve client data, and retain oversight by humans in critical areas.
Same with personnel. Technology can decrease repetitious work and remote accounting specialists may provide capacity when the firm’s activity increases.
RemoteAccounting24x7 offers skilled remote accounting personnel to CPA and accounting companies in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Britain. The remote staff works with the firms throughout their normal business hours.
If your organization is seeking ways to enhance capacity, reduce routine workload or develop a more flexible accounting team, tapping into remote accounting support can be one piece of the solution.
