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Ep: 12 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:
Jessica Freiburg | Managing Partner of leading Chicago accounting firm Sassetti LLC
Jim Bourke | Partner @ Withum & Global Advisory Leader at HLB International
Jody Grunden | Partner and Virtual CFO Practice Leaders Anders CPA + Advisors
Joe Woodard | Woodard CEO and host of the Scaling New Heights Conference
John Fenton | The CEO Sensei empowering accounting pros to amplify their leadership
Tune into more on this daily show for short, sharp episodes that keep you informed of what's happening in the accounting world and the whole ecosystem of consultants, organizations, vendors and advisors who serve them.
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Brought to you by Rightworks, the ACCOUNTING ANSWERS PODCAST is hosted by Rob Brown, co-founder of the Accounting Influencers Roundtable (AIR).
On this weekly show with short, sharp episodes, Rob asks 110 experts and influencers the critical questions shaping the accounting profession. It keeps you informed of what's happening in the accounting world and the whole ecosystem of consultants, organizations, vendors and advisors who serve them.
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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.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/accountinginfluencers
https://bit.ly/AI-youtube
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.
Nobody can deny that the accounting
landscape is constantly evolving and
the next few years are expected to
bring even more transformative changes.
The adoption cloud-based accounting
software, the increasing use
of artificial intelligence, the
growing emphasis on data analytics.
These are just a few of the trends
that are shaping the profession that
we all work in live in all this week.
We're asking a range of experts
who are either accountants
or who served them closely.
What they think is driving the
change let's tune into their answers.
Let's talk a few moments now with
Jessica Freiburg, managing partner of
lead in Chicago, accounting fam society,
LLC, who brings a wealth of expertise.
And leadership in driving the firm's
success and client satisfaction.
Jessica Freiburg: I think that
AI will continue to have a
really big impact on accounting.
I think that we have to,
implement that across the board
with all of our service lines.
I think some of the challenges that we're
seeing with that are the standard setters
and peer reviewers and how we get those.
bodies to, accept some of the
AI and how that ultimately
changes the level of service that
we're providing to our clients.
but I think once those are in place,
those pieces are in place from the
standard side, that we'll really see
that take over, how we're providing audit
services, tax services across the board.
Rob Brown: Join me now is we'll
listen to Jim book, the force of
nature that he's the partner with
them and global advisory leads now HL.
Shelby international apply anyway,
leveraging technology to enhance global
advisory services and from efficiency.
Jim Bourke: I do believe what's going
to change accounting in the next few
years is finally, we're starting to
see change at the vendor level that's
supporting our profession, right?
So globally, I won't call them
out, but we all know the legacy
vendors in our profession
globally, and they did a great job.
They gave us the tools that we
needed to service our clients.
Having said that, There's so many
shortcomings in those tools, as
I mentioned earlier, the tools
were not cloud based, the tools
were not device agnostic, the
tools were not a browser agnostic.
In other words, I want to use a
Mac, I want to use a Windows based
machine, I want to use my mobile
device to access these applications.
we couldn't do that globally
on the legacy vendors.
what I've seen I'll tell you over
the last 18 months, more so over
the last 18 months than ever before.
And I am today working with technology
entrepreneurs in our space that have
robbed these crazy ideas about how they
can utilize current technology to fill
those voids, to help us become more
effective at servicing our clients.
I'm being blown away at these ideas.
So we're going to see
vendors best of breed.
In the AI space, the RPA space, the
machine learning space, all of the
things that are going to try to replicate
those mundane tasks that we do in our
profession, automate those to allow us
to do what we've been trained to do.
So we're going to continue to see really
flourishing, best of breed vendors in our
space, solving a lot of our pain points
Rob Brown: Let's engage now with the
thinking of Jody Grunden partner and
virtual CFO practice leader under CPA
and advisors whose redefining the role of
CFO services with a strategic technology
driven approach for growing businesses.
Jody Grunden: AI is definitely one
of the biggest things right now.
And it's a buzzword, but I really
believe it to be true is that.
with AI, it's going to really
help accountants learn how
to provide advisory work.
and what I mean by that is that a lot of
the things that accounts are doing right
now, hopefully will be automated within
the next year or two or three years.
when you think about it, you kind of
laugh because, 10 years ago, people
thought tax returns would be the
biggest business for accountants.
in reality, most people don't have
accountants prepare tax returns anymore.
those are typically done, through,
the turbo taxes of the world, the IRS,
the different agencies across the, the
world are helping provide those returns.
Whereas accountants now are going
to be clearly focused on it.
And AI is going to really help them
get to that next level of advisory.
Rob Brown: Lending their voice
to the bait now is influencer and
heavyweight in the accounting world.
Joe Woodard, CEO of wood.
And the host of scaling new Heights
conference dedicated to empowering
accounting professionals with
education, innovation, and community.
Joe Woodard: Yeah, so for the next
couple of years, not the far reaching
future, in the next couple of years,
the most eminent change will be
generative AI, this conversational AI.
That we now know is chat GPT.
It's going to take on a
lot of different forms.
You're already starting to see it embedded
into products that manage practice
that deal with client correspondence.
it will already analyze now in
solutions like carbon and canopy and
other practice management solutions
that will ingest to the emails.
It will analyze the emails.
It will when you click reply, say.
We think this would be a great
thing to say in this reply and
just prescript it all for you.
So you can just read your own reply,
make small changes and then edit and go.
so as you start seeing conversational
AI infused into the client experience
apps that we use, it's going
to streamline significantly the
interactions we have with the client.
It's going to make those
interactions much more astute.
In much more detail, it's going to make
us look really good in the short term
until they figure out that we're just
using the same chatbots as everybody else.
and, the other place where I think
we're in an imminent impact, to
the benefit would be using those
same tools to streamline research,
though you still have to validate it.
it's gone from being a child to
an adolescent, but both Children
and adolescents will lie to you.
So you've got to check what they say.
and but at least it
gives you the baseline.
You can go do a little fact checking on
it, maybe even delegate the fact checking.
Whereas before, you would have had to
run the whole research from end to end.
You can send the fact checking to
somebody else at a lower pay grade
in the firm, and then they can roll
it back up, say these two facts were
wrong, these ten facts were right, I've
corrected them, send to the client.
And as long as you're not charging by
the hour, These tools are going to do
amazing things for you, and if you are
charging by the hour, they're going
to cost you a lot of money because
you're going to do things a lot faster.
Rob Brown: And now a few insightful
words from John Fenton, the CEO Sensai,
empowering accounting professionals
to amplify their leadership skills and
drive significant impact within the
organizations and the accounting industry.
John Fenton: technology definitely
is going to continue to change
the profession dramatically.
So we need to be able to embrace
technological changes, not avoid them.
If you're not comfortable as a leader
embracing that, find people on your
team that can do that or hire the
right people that really thrive in
the technical details and technical
development, because it is going to
be important, but also looking at
offshoring or outsourcing talent.
Because there is a dearth of talent.
We all recognize that may change, but
we recognize that now and continue to
build your culture that focuses on people
and performance, not just people, not
just performance, not just don't even
focus on billable hours, but focus on
serving your clients and excellence.
Rob Brown: 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
new show with your friends and colleagues.
If you want to join the conversation.
You can plug into our community of
influencers@accountinginfluences.com.
And check out our virtual
speed networking events.
These happen every few months
for the north American region
and the UK Europe region.
These are great opportunities
to raise your profile, build
valuable connections and share your
thoughts with influential peers.
Until next time, this is your host,
Rob brown, saying stay informed,
stay relevant and stay connected.