It is always a challenge to tell a good story. Where does the journey begin? How do you even know where the beginning is? A good story can start at the end of another and change the course of a tertiary journey mid-sentence. A great story exaggerates accomplishments and glorifies heroism.
That’s how I feel about the technological advancements I am watching (and participating in) in our beloved accounting industry. It is difficult to find the words to contemplate how new tech will change our days and it’s even harder to know where to begin. At every turn there is a heroic accountant leaning into the revolution and building something greater because of it.
Let me start this story at the end.
Close your eyes and picture this. Well, read this first, and then close your eyes and imagine it. Or, better yet, have someone read this to you and imagine it. Wait, I will read this to you (go click on my video). Now close your eyes!
You are sitting by the river, listening to the soft gurgling of nature, breathing fresh air and remembering what it’s like to be human. You have the quiet confidence of a firm running efficiently. You are no longer scared to step away from your desk. The ping of notifications on your phone brings you excitement again, not trepidation. The anxiety of dropped balls has dissipated. The wonder of improvement has taken its place. Your clients come to you for input worthy of your brain. Your team is organized and knows what they are doing daily, without you micro-managing. Living has integrated itself back into your daily DNA. Now open your eyes.
How far are we as a profession from that dream? How do we get there?
We lean into technology.
I am leaning into the belief that companies like Intuit are building foundations for us to achieve efficient practices. This goal is why I am talking about their products at all; I want this dream. I want tools that are giving us freedom.
Let’s jump back into the beginning of the story.
At Connect, Sasan (CEO of Intuit) spoke about a bet he made on data. He said, live on stage, that he bet the entire future of the company on the consolidation and availability of our data, our clients’ data, and really all of the raw datasets that Intuit has access to. This admission went unnoted by most of the audience; why was that a significant statement? As a student of tech-enabled services, this one sentence in his keynote struck me as future-changing vision. That one acknowledgement triggered a realization in me that all of the marketing in the world could not have given me. The CEO of Intuit, and Intuit by extension, has been working quietly in the background consolidating our data to build functional intelligence for us. They have done what most tech companies cannot – made our information accessible for utilization at scale. Now,
that might not mean anything to you yet, and I believe the release of additional tools (particularly when we get to the potential of AI) will demonstrate the massive potential of having accessible information. Intuit released something called Intuit Accountant Suite (IAS). At the surface level this tool’s functionality exists in many places, so I started digging deeper and I like what I found. IAS was built with the core ideology that Intuit holds a significant amount of our clients’ and firms’ data and we should be able to use this information to support efficiency in our practices. Yes, we can close the books in other tools, but can we do it at scale across our clients with the ideal goal of anomaly detection? Not yet. Other platforms rely on API integrations that break or bog down or do not have access to everything. Natively building this functionality makes sense for Intuit (and us); we are all doing this exercise on a monthly basis. As this tool progresses, we will find a moment when the human intervention is setup, review, and anomaly investigation. We can use this at scale across our client base.
While there was some functionality released that was lagging and sorely needed (one sign-on for all clients and advanced role-based access controls) the overall tenor of the IAS release gives me hope.
Where I get the most excited is the application of AI. IAS showcases the power of AI insights. This power has yet to be unleashed in its full capacity because no one even knows where the full capacity is. I spoke at Connect about the benefit of timely accounting information for better business decisions. This is something I have dedicated my life to. I’ve built a CAS practice, advised tools, built tools; all with the intention of bringing clear, clean, timely, and accurate information to SMBs across our great nation for intelligent decision making. IAS is helping us unlock this information at scale for deeper conversations and relationship building with our clients. The philosophy of Intuit Accountant Suite gives me hope for the future. I chose to engage with the Intuit Partner Council this year in particular because of the revolution of technology happening before our eyes. We, as an accounting community, have an obligation to advise the development of the technology that supports our mission. This next level of AI powered technology will begin to unleash the vision of supported accountants with access to information and efficient systems. We have the opportunity to adopt early, give feedback, and direct the future of our profession.
Now, who wants to go on a hike with me and listen to the river?
This blog was written with a paid partnership with Intuit
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