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Ep: 11 Top experts answer: "What, if anything, will significantly change accounting in the next few years?"
The Accounting Answers Podcast, hosted by Rob Brown, asks critical questions of the experts, leaders and influencers who shape the decision-making of accountants, CPAs and finance professionals. Today we ask:
What, if anything, will significantly change accounting in the next few years?
You'll hear insightful and passionate answers from these 5 experts and influencers:
Jeff Gramlich | CPA, Head of Accounting at Validis and 40-year industry veteran
Jeff Phillips | CEO of Padgett, Founder of Accountingfly and accounting talent expert
Jeff Seibert | Angel Investor and Co-founder and CEO of Digits, accounting reimagined
Jennifer Warawa | President of QuickFee North America, accounting thought leader, fintech executive
Jeremy Clopton | Upstream Academy's Managing Director, leading transformational change in firm leaders
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Host Rob Brown is a renowned presenter, facilitator and chair of high-level conferences, panels and events globally for the accounting and fintech profession. He is retained by many professional networks, alliances, associations, practices and vendors to chair their events and provide high-level interview content for their communities. He is a dynamic speaker and accomplished expert on trust, reputation, employer brand, talent, career development, succession, gen z/generations, employee advocacy and executive presence. https://www.linkedin.com/in/therobbrown/
Rob is author of the bestselling book Build Your Reputation (Wiley) and his TEDx talk ‘The Personal Brand of You’ has been viewed over 300,000 times on YouTube. He is a stroke survivor, has epilepsy, is a committed Christian and has a black belt in kickboxing. He is based in Nottingham UK, home of Robin Hood, plays chess and backgammon, loves orange chocolate and is allergic to grapefruit.
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Rob Brown: Hi, I'm Rob
brown and welcome you.
Accounting finance professionals,
tech enthusiasts to the
accounting answers podcast.
We've embarked on a captivating
exploration of the future of accounting
and its profound connection to the
ever-changing technology ecosystem.
I think for a moment, how access to the
minds of a range of accounting experts,
influencers, vendors, and leaders would
keep you super informed about what's
going on in this wonderful profession.
You'd stay relevant and future focused.
You'd make better strategic
and career decisions.
If you know what forces are in play
and what factors are driving change.
To unravel the complexities
unenviable future of accounting.
I've personally interviewed 111
leading accounting professionals, tech
leaders, and industry influencers,
each bring in their unique.
Expertise and insights to the
table and together we'll delve into
the five critical questions that
will shape the accounting world.
Through the eyes and minds of people
living their accounts in life.
I'll talk into accountants every day.
We'll talk about five critical topics
that ignite in passionate debates
and stimulate minds across the globe.
We're mapping the transformative
trajectory of the accounting profession
and its symbiotic relationship
with the technological revolution.
We'll be asking about the next
gen accountants, how far down
the advisory line firms are.
What's going to change
the accounting world.
What their software vendors
and tech providers could do
better to serve accountants.
And what's coming up in the future.
Let's get straight into the
answers for today's topic.
Oh this week, we're asking the question.
What, if anything will significantly
change accounting in the next few years?
What changes are on the horizon?
A few doubt that weren't to go
in seismic shifts propelled by
technological and basements, the
rise of innovative business models.
And the ever evolving regulatory
landscape and this dynamic environment
presents many questions, challenges, and
opportunities that demand our attention.
It's good to stay informed.
So let's dive into here,
what our experts have to say.
I'm thrilled to introduce Jeff gremlin.
CPA head of accounting at Valdez
and a 40 year industry veteran.
Who's dedicated his career to enhancing
the reliability and efficiency of
financial reporting and analysis.
Jeff Gramlich: Ongoing regulation.
That'll change it.
and so maybe, an ongoing, government
and legislative demands whenever
there's more money moving, whether
it's through a business, or through
a service, you have to think through
who all wants a piece of that action.
And so that complexity, the Is going to
require new things, for the accountant.
I was just talking last week with
some folks about lease accounting.
And if you haven't done lease accounting
before the rules used to be pretty
straightforward, they're not so much
anymore and they're very involved.
And if you haven't done a lot of.
lease accounting yourself as
a CPA, you haven't done it.
And so there's constant things like that.
And that's for two reasons.
One, for the investing public that
really relies on us to, to issue an
opinion and be independent of management
and be independent of the company.
In fact, in appearance, it's important
that we, make sure that what the
company is revealing to the public
financially is true and accurate
to the best of our abilities.
Right?
so I think with increased regulation.
Typically, Rob has always come
increased complexity and some of
these rules just have to be looked
through at a granular level.
And the client doesn't
have time to do that.
And a great example of that was, here
in the States when COVID hit and we
had the, uh, the payroll protection
plan, PPP, as it was called here, There
was a process for applying for the
money, which some of the accounting
firms helped their clients do.
There was a process for usage of
the money and tracking, what the
accounting firms also helped them do.
Track where the money actually got used.
And then when we started forgiving
paybacks of the money, There was
yet a third process for getting
forgiveness of that, of which the
accounting firms helped them do.
So that's just one recent kind of
a broader public type example where
the CPA got very involved to help
their client do that, and in some
cases, keep their business open.
we knew what the word
pandemic meant prior to 2020.
I'm not sure most of us ever said it
much, or even thought about it much
because it was something that happened.
A long time ago, and we just
didn't, it never came up.
but, Bloyd came up in, in 2020 from
March onward, and we still talk about it.
And I know it's in the rearview mirror
for the vast majority of it, but
we still think about those things,
and people are already planning,
okay, what if this happens again?
What do we need to do differently?
And so that kind of forward
thinking is very important.
And, we've got some, and,
Some global conflicts that we
didn't have a few years ago.
I'm not trying to get
political here, but we do.
We've got some wars going on
different parts of the world and
things have to be thought about
differently from going concerned
from, from the ESG perspective, right?
And that's where the CPA frequently can
Rob Brown: welcome to Jeff Phillips
CEO of Padgett, founder of accounting
flight and accounting talent expert.
Who's revolutionizing the way
accounting firms attract and retain
top talent in a competitive market.
Jeff Phillips: What's going to change
accounting in the next few years?
And I'm coming from the perspective
from Paget, where we work with firms in
Canada and the United States that are
smaller and serving small businesses.
But I think across the global
profession, remote hiring.
Is going to be a major change that
we're going to see in accounting.
I believe that in the coming
years, 50 percent of hires.
Will be from, staff that work in your
country, but they can work in a different
city than where your main office is.
And when owners and partners begin
to embrace this work from anywhere
concept, they'll realize that
they can find somebody in a matter
of weeks, not months or years.
Another change is offshoring and that's
a little bit more embraced, but there is.
Much more room to grow, and I think
we're going to see a greater adoption
of offshoring tax accounting and payroll
work to other countries where you
might take advantage of labor costs.
Obviously, you're going to
see more automation and AI.
I think there's plenty of people that are
going to talk about that topic, but what I
get excited about is where can businesses.
Automate routine tasks
over and over again.
There are so many software
products globally that give
accountants the freedom to do that.
So you're finding another resource
you can delegate work to and these
changes are going to ultimately lead
the accountants to be proactive, to be
advisors, to have desktop alerts that
will notify them when issues might come
up for a client that they can get in
front of the client and let them know.
These are three changes I see happening
rapidly over the next few years.
Rob Brown: Let's explore the ideas of
Jeff cybered angel investor and co-founder
and CEO of digits, where accounting is
re-imagined through technology, offering
innovative solutions that transform
financial management of businesses.
Jeff Seibert: This is a fun
one because the cliche answer,
of course, is AI is going to
completely change accounting, right?
But let me go way deeper
than that as an engineer.
so a lot of what you've seen so far has
been driven by the sort of generative
hype train that started with ChatGPT.
And so now there's tools to
automatically draft client
engagement letters, summarize data.
write SEO content to attract new clients.
And those are nice.
I'm not saying those are bad and
they might help save some time, but I
don't think those are going to really
significantly change the industry.
if you look at it, most accounting and
bookkeeping work is not generative.
It is what we would call predictive.
And so transactions happen,
they need to be booked, right?
Statements and balances
need to be reconciled.
Invoices and purchase orders
need to be parsed and matched.
Ledger entries need to be reviewed
for mistakes or for fraud.
These are all predictive types of work.
And so there are new MI, ML, and AI
techniques that are starting to make
huge inroads into these core workflows.
And we have teams applying new
techniques like vector similarity search.
Leg out aware, large language
models, self critical agents,
which is the cutting edge.
and they're very effective at some
of these core accounting workflows.
And so I would say over the next few
years, what's really going to happen
is AI is going to start to open up
massive efficiency gains, allowing
accountants to spend a lot less time on
the tedium, allowing them to serve far
more clients with more time and more
attention and care to those clients.
And as the tedium falls away.
The client relationships are going
to become ever more important.
Rob Brown: now I'm thrilled to
welcome accounting royalty, Jennifer
Warwa president of quick fee, north
America and accounting thought
leader and a FinTech executive
who's driving evolution of payment
solutions for the accounting industry.
Jennifer Warawa: I would love to say
that a lot will change in the next few
years, but I said that 10 years ago,
and I think I said that 20 years ago.
And then when you go to keynotes at
large accounting conferences, or you
go and listen to podcasts, you're
like, wow, we were talking about
that 10 years ago or 15 years ago.
and so I think that.
we're still finding ourselves or
firms are still finding themselves
constrained with, on prem technology.
We have a lot of firms.
I'd love to get off of what I'm
using, but I'm so deep in it,
whether it's, practice management
solution or an accounting solution.
And, and so they're constrained
by those challenges.
And then you have a group of firm
partners who is getting set to
retire in the next few years.
And they're like, I hope that I can retire
before all of this has to get implemented
or any major change needs to happen.
So I think the change will
probably well summarized by
saying survival of the fittest.
The gap will continue to widen
between the innovative accountants
and accounting firms who embrace
change and adopt leading technology.
And those who cling to the status
quo.
At a recent BDO event, the big topic
was, this was an area meeting, but
the big topic was The challenges
attracting and retaining talent and,
it feels like a very today problem.
And Michael Horowitz from BDO said,
I just want to let you know that
if you came to the same meeting
10 years ago, this was the topic.
If you came to the same meeting
15 years ago, this was the topic.
So it's not, it feels new, but
it's still the same as before.
Rob Brown: Let's get ready to hear
now from Jeremy Clopton upstream,
Academy's managing director leading
transformational change in accounting
from leaders, inspiring a culture
of innovation and forward thinking
in the accounting profession.
Jeremy Clopton: Technology's
going to change, in the States,
especially right now, the entry
of private equity is changing.
A lot of the conversation, there's
a lot of the obvious stuff.
I really believe that one of the big
things that is changing the profession
over the next few years is how we work.
All right.
Firms finally moving away from
this idea that we sell hours.
We sell our time hours or our
inventory more hours is more success.
That mindset shift, that approach to
management, that fundamental change
to the business model that says we
don't generate value based on time.
But instead we generate value based
on the outcomes that we provide.
the successes that we help clients
achieve, the risk we help them mitigate.
That is going to be one of the
biggest changes in the next few years.
And there are some firms that
have already made that change.
I don't know anybody's
fully made that change.
There's still always pockets, right?
They latch onto the old model, but that
is going to be a significant change.
Because it's that mindset shift, that
business model shift that is truly
going to allow, in my mind, firms to
take advantage of all the other changes
that are out there, the technology, the
outsourcing, the, the different, talent
pipelines of different majors and the
different way to staff and structure.
But it's all contingent on the fact
that we stopped thinking that our
hours are what we're getting paid for.
And we recognize it's the difference
we're making for our clients.
That's what we're, that's
what we're getting paid for.
That's the value that we're
generating in the market.
And it has to.
if you think about all the other changes,
implementing AI, implementing analytics,
automation, process improvements,
getting folks that are, more specialized
and we reign in the processes and
we get more, lean Six Sigma, all the
things, all of those things are great,
but if we still buy into the fact
that we're getting paid for hours.
That's going to make us less successful
and that's a very bad place to be.
So, tech and all the other, those
are the easy changes, but we got to
figure out, we got to move upstream
and figure out, okay, what's the
underlying problem that has to change
so we can actually get the benefit of
Rob Brown: that.
So they have five great
answers to the question.
What, if anything will significantly
change accounting in the next few
years, every working day of the week,
Monday through Friday, we give you
the insights of five top influencers
in the accounting world on this
critical area of what is coming up.
Change wise for accountants
that's 25 valuable perspectives.
Viewpoints and best thinking every
week and with a fresh week comes the
first question and more thoughts from
the best influencers and leaders we
can find in the accounting world.
Thanks for listening to the accounting
answers podcast and sharing this brand
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If you want to join the conversation.
You can plug into our community of
influencers@accountinginfluences.com.
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Until next time, this is your host,
Rob brown, saying stay informed,
stay relevant and stay connected.