AI: Accounting Intelligence | Balancing AI and Human Insight in Modern Finance

Artie Minson, President and CEO of LeafLink, shares his journey from public auditor to C-suite executive in this insightful discussion. He offers valuable perspectives on the enduring importance of accounting and auditing in an increasingly complex business landscape. Minson also explores the potential impact of AI on the finance profession, emphasizing the continued need for human judgment alongside technological advancements.

• (00:00) - Introduction and Guest Welcome
• (00:39) - Artie Minson's Career Journey
• (02:28) - The Value of an Audit Career
• (05:26) - Future of Public Audit
• (10:04) - Impact of AI on Accounting
• (15:02) - AI and the Future of Auditing
• (21:54) - Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Learn more about Trullion

Connect with Artie Minson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/artie-minson
Learn about LeafLink
https://www.leaflink.com

Connect with Isaac Heller
https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacheller

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Creators & Guests

Host

Isaac Heller

CEO @ Trullion | Modern Accounting Technology

Guest

Artie Minson

What is AI: Accounting Intelligence ?

Join Isaac Heller as he meets with leaders in the accounting technology space to discuss how AI and automation are transforming the accounting industry, how technology has evolved, and how AI can help accountants work more efficiently. You’ll also learn how accountants can embrace innovations to improve their careers and lives and get forward-thinking perspectives on where the accounting profession is headed when it comes to new technologies and AI!

There may be errors in spelling, grammar, and accuracy in this machine-generated transcript.

Isaac Heller: Hey, everyone, this is Isaac. I'm CEO at Trillian. And today on AI, accounting, intelligence, we'll be talking with real people about real things related to AI and the impact on the accounting industry. Stay tuned.

Isaac heller: All right. Welcome everyone. Today I'm very excited. We've got Artie Minson here. Artie is a friend and advisor, an and investor and, [00:00:30] um, really someone who's an accomplished CFO and now CEO. So, Artie, good to have you. Thanks for being with us today.

Artie Minson: Thanks for having me.

Isaac heller: Um, I mean, tell us in a nutshell about this, uh, kind of amazing journey you've had. Obviously, we could read online, but in your words.

Artie Minson: Yeah. You know, I, I, uh, came up through the finance ranks, um, uh, x big six at the time. Started my career at, um, Ernst and Young in the audit practice. [00:01:00] Um, focused on really media and and tech. Uh, in the beginning, parts of my career eventually got my MBA and, you know, then came up through the the finance ranks at, uh, initially Time Warner and you know, through a series of years eventually became CFO of uh, AOL when Time Warner took that out as a public company, became the CEO there. [00:01:30] Uh, went back and became the CFO of Time Warner Cable. And then, uh, after we sold Time Warner Cable, sort of entered the startup world. Um, I was the the president and COO and then president and CFO and eventually became the CEO, co-CEO at WeWork. And then, um, about a year ago, I joined, uh, Leaf Link, which is basically the the regulated [00:02:00] marketplace for, um, uh, cannabis in, in the US. And we have about 50% share of the regulated cannabis marketplace in the US.

Isaac heller: That's awesome. So auditor, CFO, president, CEO um, that's a that's a, that's a dream journey. And then I must say between AOL, Time Warner, WeWork and now Leaf Link, you're at the crosshairs of a lot of cool stories and industries and and moments in history, let's say, like, I'm curious about going [00:02:30] back to that audit start, you know, the start in the public audit career. Ernst and Young tell me, I guess, a little bit about how the perception of audit you feel has changed, maybe for like, um, a university student coming out and becoming an auditor, you know, maybe for, I guess, adults. And now you're, you know, you're a parent with kids thinking about their career a little bit about the outlook and the and even the prestige of becoming an auditor now versus then. [00:03:00]

Artie Minson: Yeah. Look, it's it's an incredible, uh, training ground for, um, folks to, you know, spend, um, you know, a number of years in your career and some good friends of mine are still there as as senior partners, But you just get, you know, such great training, um, from an early age, you know, I think, you know, at, at at 23, you know, I [00:03:30] had staff, you know, reporting to me and I had, you know, very sort of set levels of sort of responsibility and things that I was responsible for. And I, you know, reported up to people, um, who were very senior at the firm. I interacted with senior members of our of our client, you know, and just things, um, you know, you couldn't have gotten if you went quote unquote, in-house, you know, at a, at a, at a very early [00:04:00] age. So for me, it was, it was just the the perfect training ground. The profession's obviously changed a lot when I went into it, you know. Um, you still had the ability to, frankly, go work for a client. Um, that's how I got my job at Time Warner. I, I had been on the audit. I they knew me. I'd done a good job. And when they needed to bring someone in, um, you know, I was sort of a proven commodity, obviously, that has that has [00:04:30] changed a lot over time, as has, frankly, the more hours, uh, required now to to get your degree and, and be certified. But, you know, I think that also and anyone who's sort of has been through public knows what it takes for someone to get certified spend, you know, three, five, seven years in public accounting and the training, um, that people get there. So I'm always sort of incredibly [00:05:00] respectful of, you know, the skill set that, you know, will we go out and hire and I get, you know, a resume from someone who's who's been at a public accounting firm? It's it's just a testament to what I know has been a lot of hard work to get there.

Isaac heller: That's great. So you heard it from Artie that that public audit, that big brand, you know, on the resume, um, still carries now in your crystal ball, um, you [00:05:30] know, your kids, your friends kids, you know, people in high school, college, going into the public audit. Do you think that holds, you know, in the future? I mean, and now maybe having the lens of someone who's been a CFO, worked with otters, worked with new crops of accounting, seemed like the world evolved and all these other areas. I mean, do you have a sense of the outlook? Do you still think it carries that prestige? Right. There's obviously a lot.

Artie Minson: Yeah, I [00:06:00] do. I think again, if you look at, you know, the percentage of I think sitting CFOs who still, you know, are are certified or have some background in accounting. You to be a CFO, you need to either have acquired that, you know, knowledge, uh, audit like knowledge, either in school or you're going to have to have learned it on the job. So it's obviously a lot easier to have learned it in school. And, you know, then, [00:06:30] you know, begin to apply it in, in the real world. I think, you know, the things that I was lucky enough to, to do, sort of coming up through auditing was do a lot of different things. I think you, you know, this concept of like specialization was something I was able to sort of, you know, avoid. I specialized in, in, I guess in industry and that I did a lot of sort of media and tech, but I saw a lot [00:07:00] of different clients. I saw different parts of those clients. Um, we're a lot involved in a lot of different financings. At the time. We were involved in, you know, systems implementations at the time, lots of things that, you know, just sort of broaden your, your skill set so that if and when, you know, you got to, you know, have a bigger job or a seat at the table on the finance side, you would you had seen a lot. So I always sort of say to people like, try [00:07:30] to get as many different experiences as you can learn. Spend some time in accounting. Spend some time in financial planning. Understand treasury and the capital markets piece of it. Understand taxes, you know, understand risk management. You have to. Everyone has some area of expertise that they fall back on, you know, which was sort of like maybe the original thing they owned. But try as best you can to get exposed to lots of different areas. And you can you can [00:08:00] do that, not it. You got to work at it. But you can do that.

Isaac heller: Got it. Very nice. So I mean, it's almost like we we control our destiny still a little bit like, you know. Yeah.

Artie Minson: I always say like, look, you are the CEO of your career like no one else is, you know, CEO, your career for you. You have to, you know, you have to know what it is you want to do and have a plan. And some people's plan may be, look, I want to be, you know, a partner in this firm. Others may be, you [00:08:30] know, I want to, you know, I want to be a CFO. I want to be a CEO. And then, you know, look at sort of those paths that people have taken to get to that job. I think you'll see that, you know, they did a lot of different things. They took risks with their career. Um, they have a broad set of experiences, sometimes things they've done outside of finance and accounting. But those are the people that you, you find who, who, who take some risks, who, [00:09:00] you know, wind up getting that broad experience that they can then, you know, take into, you know, a chief accounting officer or a CFO or CEO job.

Isaac heller: Got it. Awesome. So here you go. I mean, you heard it from Artie because, you know, public audit and just auditing accounting in general has taken a bit of a beating, if I may say, especially in the past few years, post Covid. There's been some questions and stuff, but it sounds like whether it's, um, the big six or the big four or the big eight, [00:09:30] you know, or whether it's Enron or SBB, whatever we're talking about, we're always going to need critically need good auditors. And then on the personal side, it's up to, you know, people to kind of determine their career and get a lot of variety, if you can. Um, as much as possible. But these, these challenges that come up today are challenges that have always come up. Right. And the industry is is very much in need, which I think is is good now. Um, and also kind of reassuring, you know, you never want to think that there's like these big [00:10:00] kind of shifts on the horizon. You need to retool or rethink what you're doing. At the same time. I mean, I'm, you know, we're sitting here at trillion at the crosshairs of of technology and AI and accounting. And ChatGPT has has come out lately right in these large language models. So I guess, um, you know, at a high level, I guess you're, you're wearing your former auditor, CFO hat and now CEO hat. What's that reaction when you when you see ChatGPT, [00:10:30] when you start hearing about AI, what does it feel like?

Artie Minson: You know, I, I view it as, um, a tool that, um, companies need to avail themselves of and make sure it is being used for us to do things more efficiently, you know? And are there ways, [00:11:00] you know, there's ways I can use it across all areas of my business, you know, whether it's like, you know, frankly, a a speech, we want to write a policy, you know, we want to think about with respect to cannabis, to, you know, analyzing financial statements. There's there's all things that you look at and you say, like, I can use this to to do things more efficiently. I think you know, [00:11:30] what you have to be careful of, I think, is when people look at these things of like, this is the solution to all of the world's problems. Um, you know, machines been trying to predict the weather for a long time, and they still can't predict the weather. And I think when you think about, you know, just they they are they are a tool. But that tool, those tools need to be, you know, trusted trust but verify. And I think you just have [00:12:00] to be, um, understand for what it is and understand what for for what it isn't. I don't, I don't think it is the, uh, the solution to all our problems.

Isaac heller: Got it. Okay. So, so and and, you know, we definitely agree. So then the question becomes to what extent can it help specifically in accounting. And I guess so that's that's one question. Right. And maybe just even more broadly like how [00:12:30] big of an impact even maybe even theoretically or in high level terms could it have on both the audit and the accounting profession, meaning incremental big time could change the business models like somewhere on that spectrum? And then I guess if you can, and then and then second, like I want to try to figure out if it's different now than it was five years ago or ten years ago. Meaning I remember when, you know, [00:13:00] my friend brought home a touch screen home pilot, and I'm pretty sure it was ten years before the iPhone came out. Right. But it just it didn't pick up at that time. It wasn't ready, the ecosystem wasn't ready or whatever it is. So what's the magnitude of where we're sitting right now?

Artie Minson: Yeah, I think there's a couple of interesting things in what, you know, you you said there and I'll hit a few of them. One is, you know, you talked about the iPhone. And look, I've spent [00:13:30] a lot of my career working with entrepreneurs, you know, like yourself or ones in, you know, media tech and, and real estate. And, you know, the interesting thing is, like, machines aren't going to come up with the idea for trillion. They're not going to come up for the idea for WeWork. They're not going to come up with the idea for the iPhone. Like, you know that that's what makes humans humans. Um, what they can do is, you know, help you sort of be more efficient [00:14:00] as you, as you think about running your business. So as we think about, you know, at Leaf Link, like, yes, to the extent you know that some a tool can allow us to, um, read a contract which in in 20s rather than, you know, hours of our lawyers and accountants going on and identify the key issues that that's something that frankly frees people up to do, you know, more important analysis [00:14:30] or to the extent that, you know, it can go through, again, our audited financial statements or the audited financial statements of a peer or company we're looking to do a deal with and identify, like these are just some issues and questions you should look into. Um, that that is helpful. But I again, I think it's important to just it, it's it's like any, any tool you sort of have in your arsenal. It's not it's not the only one you should use.

Isaac heller: Got it. Okay. [00:15:00] So now now full circle. Um, auditing, you know, is a at least as far as I know, you know, much better. And your peers, um, you know, it's a process that's based on a methodology. A lot of times it's it's using statistical sampling. You know, if the promise of AI is the ability to consume much more data in a much faster speed with much more accuracy, Does that is that enough to [00:15:30] change the way the audit is done? For a couple examples, does it move to full coverage and what kind of impact would that have just being able to to consume all the data. And maybe another thing would, would be this I in particular help audit move to more real time or I guess more smooth because we all know it's April 17th right now. There's people that still haven't come out of their, uh, you know, desk closets, you know, in a few weeks. [00:16:00] So.

Artie Minson: Yeah. No, I think those are two great points. I think on you probably do have the ability at least to, uh, certainly expand your, your sample size, if not fully expand it to include all, um, transactions on the timing and sort of having it in in real time. I think there's certain things that, you know, and certain items that you always [00:16:30] sort of need in, in real time. And I feel like there are a lot of tools that people have at their disposal, at their, you know, fingertips. Um, for real time. I think this again, will will certainly help that. Um, so in things when you mention though of like what it could help probably the more robust, uh, around expanding just statistical [00:17:00] sampling and having it be full, full breadth of, of data set. I think that that is a very interesting one.

Isaac heller: Good. Very interesting. And maybe like one last just big picture topic. Um, you know, let's say you do expand that using AI, expand that statistical sampling to like a full sample population. Right now we take that and we think about a couple of events. I'm from Texas. So Enron was what I remember, you know, [00:17:30] growing up. And then now we've got SVB, which was not it's a different situation. But these and that wasn't necessarily audit or fraud in the way Enron was. But we keep having these things come up where literally companies get wiped out because there was inherent risk, whether it was fraudulent or just, you know, I don't know what you call bank run, but unpredictable to some extent. Um, I guess is a first of all, number one is accounting and audit more [00:18:00] crucial than ever right now, or is it just the same as it always was? And number two, is there a light in the tunnel with AI and with technology? And are those connected I guess, yeah.

Artie Minson: So the interesting thing again is, um, you know, when you think about, um, Enron and I, you know, I only know from what I read, I remember reading, like, the smartest guys in the room, but some of the things they did is they wrote, um, uh, you know, a lot of [00:18:30] the things they wrote were like to, to get themselves in compliance with a narrow set of rules. And this is where, you know, I was sort of saying you need the human and the machine element because to some extent, I'm not sure if you put it through an AI, whether a machine would say, yeah, they were, you know, some of the way these things were structured, you know, with the 3% equity you needed at the time to reconcile, like, yeah, they checked all the boxes in the rules. But when you stood back from it, [00:19:00] you're like, as a human, you're like, this doesn't make any business sense. And you needed that sort of human, um, overlay. So I think that again, is it it it it's just interesting because I think again, in the future you need you're going to absolutely need, you know, both um, in, in that and then, you know, when you think about again where accounting and as is it as important [00:19:30] as ever, I think this.

Artie Minson: You know, this the stakes, I guess, are just generally higher because companies are, are, are bigger. And in these sort of, you know, you have more of these too big to fail scenarios. And so in, in, in those instances we've become, you know, rightly or wrongly, more reliant on some of these very large companies that tend to sort [00:20:00] of dominate spaces. And, you know, so, you know, when you have an SVP and literally like every startup banks with SVP, it has become even though it's, you know, in the 20 biggest banks in the startup world, it is the biggest bank and it becomes sort of too big to fail. And so it's it's yeah, just just overall when things when things go sideways now, it just [00:20:30] feels like they're exponential of sort of when I was coming up just because these there's more sort of at times single points of failure in the system.

Isaac heller: Got it. So so is potentially becoming more complex. Could be more imperative than ever if if if accounting complexity. Right. And uh, technology or the Coyote and roadrunner is is is AI going to help technology, you [00:21:00] know, catch up enough to be able to keep up with the accounting standards? Or are we just in this continual chase that never ends? Or are we just going to find out?

Artie Minson: Well, probably reality is we're going to find out because, you know, it is um, it is interesting that, you know, I is really probably only as good as the history that has seen up to that point. So now it will have learned from SBB. And when there's another scenario like that in the future, [00:21:30] you know, it'll it'll help predict it. But we seem we have not cracked the code. I feel like on, you know, fully predicting these things before they, they happen.

Isaac heller: Yeah. I think you're right. Um, otherwise some, some, you know, stock market predictors would be making a lot of money with some AI bots. So, you know, the big world that us. Well, good. Artie. Anything else? This has been great catching up with you a little bit about, you know, the professional side and the, the AI [00:22:00] side. Anything else. Big picture. Accounting audit.

Artie Minson: Look, the world's always going to need really good accountants and good accounting tools that, that that has gone on, uh, for thousands of years. So you know, I think, uh, I still feel it's it's an incredible profession. And I'm thrilled, you know, that I was able to start my career in it.

Isaac heller: Awesome. Uh, well. Thank you. That's Artie Minson, president CEO of Leaf Lake. We appreciate your [00:22:30] support of trillion. Of course. And, uh, thanks again for your time.

Artie Minson: All right, take care. Take care.