Everyday AI: Examples and Use-Cases for the Modern Accounting Firm

How is AI transforming the day-to-day operations of accounting professionals?

In this episode of Accounting for Innovation, Jody Padar and Matt Tait discuss the practical integration of AI into everyday accounting tasks. They focus on how AI tools streamline operations, enhance data processing, and improve client relationships, making it an exciting time to be in the accounting field. The conversation also touches on the importance of adapting pricing models in response to AI efficiencies to ensure sustainable business growth. In this episode, you'll learn:

• How to define AI in the context of accounting and common misconceptions
• The evolving role of AI in enhancing data processing and advisory services
• Practical examples of AI tools and their benefits in daily accounting tasks
• Strategic considerations for integrating AI-powered communication aids
• The necessity of adapting pricing models to account for AI-driven efficiencies

This episode is sponsored by SysCloud. Get a 50% discount on QuickBooks Online backup. Contact us at https://www.syscloud.com/ to learn more.

This episode is brought to you by Decimal and the Radical CPA.

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Accounting for Innovation podcast, where we explore cutting edge strategies and insights into the world of accounting and finance. Presented by Decimal and the Radical CPA, each episode dives deep into industry trends. Whether you're a seasoned professional or a budding entrepreneur, join us as we unpack key concepts and share practical tips to drive success.

Jody Padar: 0:26

Integrating AI and AI in everyday life. So today I'm pretty excited because we're going to be talking about everyday uses of AI and how, um, firm owners are doing things with AI every day and what that looks like in your firm, how it should be impacting your everyday jobs, and it's not just accounting, right? Like we're going to be talking about things beyond accounting and how you can use these tools to really. Um, increase efficiency in your firm, kind of change up efficiency, make yourself, uh, I would say, uh, a lot more customer service friendly and really reduce time. I think that's the biggest thing that AI brings to us, uh, in our everyday life, even if we're not ready, quite ready yet to, you know, use it from a financial standpoint, but what are some of the tools that you can use every day in your firm? And, uh, so Matt. You know, what are you thinking about when you think about AI every day?

Matt Tait: 1:26

You know, I, I kind of bucket what we all do into a few different places and you kind of hit the nail on the head. There's definitely AI in general accounting work. Hey, we get into the numbers, we get into the books, we get into the advising, whatever it is, there's that, but there's also communications and there's also research. And to me, when you talk about communications, sales, marketing, research, That's where AI can really have an immediate impact. And. I think you said it really well when you started talking about AI is being a time saver, because I think it is that. I also think it's, it's an idea generator, you know, one of the hardest things to do is get off of go in some things, talking to an accounting firm owner the other day, small firm. He's like, I wanted to get into the habit of writing a blog every two weeks. But I sit there for hours thinking about what to do. And I was like, Hey, let's pop it up. I'm Put it into chat. GPT. Let's come up with an idea for a blog. And within minutes he had something. What ended up posting looked nothing like what chat GPT did, but it got the momentum going and it got him off of go. And so I think AI is a time saver and content and writing things that traditionally accountants aren't necessarily the best at is a really good starting point.

Jody Padar: 2:48

Yeah, so I think it's good from an idea perspective, right? Like if you're, um, needing clarity for things, right? Like, so a lot of times the way I use chat GPT is I'll have like things spinning in my head, which things spin all the time, but I will start to put them into prompts and I will give context around them. So like the. The way to use chat GP is the best way is to talk to it. It's just like, it's a friend, right? Like just don't think of it as prompts. Think of it as like, I'm talking to the person sitting next to you and I'm giving it all the instructions and all the detail around the instructions. And if you just kind of talk to it that way, you're going to get really good answers. So anyway, so I talked to it like it's a friend and like, I asked it for clarity around like things that I've been like kind of, I don't even want to say struggling, but just thinking about, and what happens is, is it seems to organize things in my head. Well, it's not in my head, but it's organizing things on paper that I necessarily couldn't get organized in my head without maybe taking, you know, You know, another two days to do, or like kind of really like sitting down and thinking about it, whereas I can use chat GPT to really bring clarity into my thoughts and kind of put them in like a more organized way than my thoughts. So maybe that's just my brain, but that's the way I see it as being really like an amazing help for me.

Matt Tait: 4:19

Yeah, and look, one thing I did just the other day was we needed to come up with a graphic for a new kind of column and blog that we're doing, and I put into chat GPT some general thoughts around it, and it came up with something that was fine. It was okay. It was a little messy, and I gave it some more prompts. I said, Let's make it clear. Let's make it black and white, and let's make it with this title. And all of a sudden it did it. And four or five more prompts later, it got to exactly what I needed it to be. And, and I think that's where, when you, when you say talk to it, it's also criticize and help it. Think of it like that intern that works for you that comes up with the first work product and you want to be really nice to it, to the intern, and you're like, okay, When you came up with this, let's try this. Try tweaking that. Try changing this. What do you think about that? And if you treat it in that way, it can come up with really good work product for you in a way that's exceptionally beneficial. And, and I think that's just from a content, like one of the things you and I've talked a lot about is how hard it is for a lot of people that run their own accounting firm or that are doing business development to actually get out there and to do the things they need to do to generate business. And part of that can be just creating content. And a good way to do that for content is to use chat GPT as a starting point and or something like it. There are a million other things out there like chat GPT. But I use that as kind of a catch all that everybody knows. It's like Google search. You could also search on other places.

Jody Padar: 5:53

Right. Well, and it too, like when you're writing emails, right? There are so many other tools too, that are starting to pop up right in the tools you're using. Right. And they have the AI like built right in. And it's funny because. For some of them, I'm a little bit like, I don't want to say nervous, but it's like, do I actually want to put something in there? Right. Like, is it, cause you know, like you're in a SAS tool and the next day, like it changes, right. And you're like, Ooh, like, should I press this button or not? I think a lot of accounts have this feeling like the whole thing's going to blow up. But, um, that, that's what I found too. Like, um, in notion, I don't know if anyone's used to using notion, but notion is, Um, basically it's like an organizer or a date timer on steroids. And I mean, I know it's more than that, but that's the way I use it as. And like, you can put in a graph, you can tell it how you want to organize like an organizational chart, and it will come up with the prettiest like boxes and. Organization and flow charts and everything. And you don't have to like sit there and move the box here and then draw the arrow. You just say, Hey, you know, this is the relationship between this entity and that entity, and, um, this is what they're going to do. And this is how it's all going to come together. And they. Build this beautiful flowchart for you that prior, I would have probably spent, I don't know, four hours and boxes and like trying to get the arrows right. Especially for people who are a little bit less PowerPoint friendly or do you know what I mean? Like, and I think that's like amazing that you don't necessarily need a person who's a PowerPoint expert now to build you something. You can do it right in, in a tool that's like you're already using.

Matt Tait: 7:43

Well, and I think talking about AI already being built into tools, number one, in my email, we use front, but Google and Microsoft also have a version. I'll sometimes get done putting the kids to bed at night. And I'm like, I got 10 emails. I just need to reply to, I will immediately hit AI reply to all 10. And it creates the email for me. I'll edit it almost every time it likes exclamation points. Points more than I do. Um, but it's a good starting point and it cuts my time down by two thirds. And so I'm able to get away from my computer a lot quicker because AI starts the prompt on these emails because it reads a whole string, it contextualizes, it listens to me, it picks up my tone, but I also think there in accounting tools like carbon are also adding AI into their workflow system. Uh, a really cool one I was just talking about the other day was, um, Of all places, uh, spark from, uh, right works. Is a really good research tool within, um, within right works platform. And, and you don't typically think of right works that hosts, hosts, QuickBooks, desktop, and does all this stuff is ahead and AI, but they've really built a great tool and there are other companies that are out there that are doing it, that make using the tools that already exist. Easier,

Jody Padar: 9:05

right? And I think the interesting thing about it is, is if you, and I know like this is accounting for innovation. So we have a very progressive listener base, but I know that there are firms out there who have banned AI in their firms, right? So I can date myself, but that was kind of the way the internet was banned. In firms when it first came out, like you weren't allowed to use the web, right? And so there are firms that have said, no, you're not allowed to use AI in the firm because they're very concerned about privacy. And, and again, I understand those concerns, but if you're not allowing your Your employees to use it. I guarantee they're using it on their phones anyways. So don't think that just because you as the firm owner is not comfortable with it or is not used to it or hasn't created a policy around what's acceptable use and what's not acceptable use of it, that your employees aren't using it themselves because. they're figuring out how it's saving time to do their jobs faster. So I think that's a really important thing to think about.

10:17

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Matt Tait: 10:50

you mentioned customer, let's call it client success, customer service earlier. And there's something that we started doing that, that I think this is also impacting, by the way, I think it's extremely short sighted and sad that firms ban AI, um, like you said, it's like banning the internet that didn't work out well for them and it's not going to work out well.

Jody Padar: 11:11

But it did happen. I mean, like, does it, Oh, I agree. Like the evolution of technology, right?

Matt Tait: 11:15

I agree. And rules always evolve after technology and you should, you should be concerned about security, you should be concerned about privacy and safety and all of that stuff. So I'm not saying that, but I think that there are other ways that you can start to use things. And to do it carefully and cautiously. One of the things that we started doing that I think is really impactful is we have a, we use chorus to record calls and there are lots of other tools. There's gong, there's fathom. There are a million of them out there. I've been on calls with fireflies and fireflies, another great one. And, and you'll have like eight different. Note takers join. What you can do with these note takers right now is they are all integrating AI in to listen to the call and to pull out the important points post call. And what we've been training our staff to do is after a client call, copy and paste that into an email, edit it, make sure it's correct, send it within 15 minutes after the call. You are doing something that you haven't been able to do. You're sending a quick synopsis to dues for both sides. And it's a great, and it takes almost no time to do. And you're providing a lot more to your client in terms of just helping show that you care and understand.

Jody Padar: 12:34

The other thing about those note takers, which I find fascinating is when. I like kind of always get caught in a lot of the detail, right? Cause like I, I follow the detail and when you see what AI comes back to as being the, like the main point, it's kind of like, well, that wasn't what I took away. And so it's interesting to me how the AI filters through a lot of the stuff that we don't always filter through that we kind of get sidetracked by. And so it's been interesting. To me to, to kind of align with what the AI thought was important versus what I thought was important and make me sometimes think, well, gee, is what I like focused on really what I should have been focusing on. And, um, it's, it's not always correct. But I think it's an interesting perspective from a self awareness as to like when you come out of a meeting to see what it thought was important versus what you thought was important. So I'm learning from the AI a lot. Like I see it teaching me things, which I think is, Amazing from a curiosity standpoint and a learning standpoint as to how I see the AI actually evolving me a lot better. And the other thing that is pretty cool is in chat GPT, you can ask it, um, like personality things about yourself. So you can say based on the conversations we've had, what do you think are my strengths? What do you think are my weaknesses? And then it comes back and you're like, Wow. And it, it, it's pretty smart too. Like I was like, it's like one of those personality tests and you're like, wait, how did it know so much about me? But if you're talking to it all the time, you know, and it doesn't hold back, it tells you exactly what it's thinking. So I think those have been like really interesting things for me. To see and learn from, you know, AI and these conversations that I've been having with the AI.

Matt Tait: 14:28

You know, I think it's interesting is there are so many different ways that we're just now seeing AI come to light. And, um, and really be able to help us and a lot of times I'm very focused on the client success, sales, marketing, bookkeeping side. But Jody, you've got a lot more insight into a more traditional accounting market, whether it's audits or tax or whatever. What are some of the other places that you're seeing or see that I could have an impact?

Jody Padar: 15:02

Well, I think if you think about it from a tax perspective, like the OCR, what we call OCR, um, which was basically, you know, you would scan a document and then it would take all that information and it would place it somewhere. Um, that when it's enhanced by, by AI, cause I don't think it's all AI. I think there's OCR and AI compared to it. Like, Um, the ability for the tools to read documents now are getting almost near perfect, which is like amazing. So when you think about tax prep or anything else that or invoices or anything else that needs, um, data being read into, into something, um, now it can isolate data a lot better. So let's say you read an invoice. It could pick up everything that's on that invoice instead of just like address being like, you know, three lines and that's the address. Now it like picks up that. The number of the address and it picks up the street and it picks up, you know, the avenue or whatever, right. It, it's able to like, um, break up the data a lot better. Right. And so what happens is, is when it can break up that data and can read it. Now, all of a sudden your database becomes 10 X more powerful because everything is its own piece of data, as opposed to, you know, a chunk. of data, right? So when you see these new tools, and I get to see a lot of stuff behind the scenes and you, um, that, but when you see how these new tools are being built and you see the ability of them to manipulate the data because of the AI and where it's going, coming. That's the stuff that gets me excited, right? But that's, but that's not every day yet, right? Like that's kind of future. Um, when I think about every day, like I love Blue Jay. Um, You know, I'm an advisor to them, so I take that disclosure for what it's worth, but like ask Blue Jay is tax research on steroids, right? Like you can ask it a question and it gives you all the tax. Uh, it gives you not just an answer, um, but it gives you all the documentation, all the regs, all the court cases, everything and supporting documentation behind it. So you can go double check it. And you can go figure out if it's right or wrong and you have substantiation for it. And in the old days, and again, this will date me, right? We learned how to do tax research, like, well, similar to the way you learned how to do research and legal research, Matt, like in the books and reading, you know, like having to do legal research. Right. And then like Google came around. And Google really didn't teach legal research the way that it was taught the way we were. And like a lot of people learn, I'll say half tax research, right? Cause they didn't really learn the, the full way of going to, to grab all the sites and all the citations and the source docs and everything else. Right. And now we're back to like it where now you can actually go back and you can read all those cases and you can really like think through it now, now for every tax situation, you don't necessarily need all that. But for a lot of them, it gives you a lot more opportunity to spend the time not being so worried about, did I find everything? But actually, you know, reading the, the cases and seeing how does it apply? So like when you look at research from that perspective, I mean it, it's amazing.

Matt Tait: 18:34

I think it is. And look, as we've covered a lot of topics. And. You know, for, for a lot of accountants, for a lot of firm owners, it's a lot of information and you and I are barely scratching the surface here. We're, we're kind of giving the synopsis of the synopsis on what is available, what is coming, what you can do, any of that. If, if I'm somebody listening. If I'm an accountant, I'm a firm owner. I'm somebody who's interested. What are some of the best ways to really keep track of the advancements in AI and, and how I can start to implement them into my daily life?

Jody Padar: 19:12

Well, I think it starts with just being aware that it's out there and like, just looking, because like all the vendors now are. Like marketing it. Right. So like you can see something that they're marketing. Right. But I also think like definitely sign up for a chat GPT or for something, um, similar to that, a tool similar to that and pay the 20 bucks or whatever it is a month. Don't go with the free version. It's worth the 20. Um, yeah, you can also get it inside of Microsoft. I think copilot's an extra 20 bucks or something. Google's got it. I. Like, they all have like the, the add-on. So, so get one of'em and just start experimenting and, and take a breath when it comes up in the new screen and it says, Hey, would you like to use AI and try it? It's not gonna blow up your machine. I know, like that was kind of the fear that I had. But like just start putting things in it and start talking to it because that's the only way you're going to learn it. It's not like people are having courses where like you like here it is and then go do it. Um, but you would actually even ask the AI to teach you how to do it. Right. If, if that's what you wanted to do, but just talk to it, like it's your friend and see what it starts spitting back out. And then realize that like, you have to learn how to have conversations with it. But the more you use it, the easier it becomes. It's not, it's not hard. It's just something you have to learn how to have a conversation with. And it's, it's the Alexa you always want it right. Like we were so disappointed in Alexa when she first came out and now like she's okay, but she's still like pretty lacking, but like chat GPT really can have a conversation back with you.

Matt Tait: 20:54

Chat GPT has conversations with my children all the time. you know, one of the things as we wrap this up, that stands out to me, I used to never read product update emails from the products that I was using, whether it's front or Salesforce or Gmail or whatever, skim those from now on. Skim those for AI updates because you'll start to learn where they're integrating AI and it's worth the time not to spam them now because they're coming out with things that can be really usable for you. And number two is just start passively listening on LinkedIn or Twitter or wherever you consume. You'll find a lot of people like Jody and I, Who are talking about AI and AI and accounting. And so I think learning is the new role that if you want to start integrating AI in, it's time to start learning. And as Jody said, doing so with that, Jody, I think we've had a great conversation about how to integrate AI into daily lives. and I'm excited to see where this goes over the next few years.