Leveraging AI in Accounting

Hey boys and girls it’s me Seth!

I watched a clip of a video on Instagram where this guy was talking about how Russel Brunson has massively scaled his business.?

The very short answer?

Automation.

Now you’re thinking, “tell me something I don’t know, Seth!”

But let me ask you a question.?

As obvious as this is, what kind of thinking have you done about how to automate your processes? More to the point, how have you implemented automation in how you get your client work done?

What apps have you researched and implemented in order to automate your business?

If you haven’t so much as begun to outline a plan (or asked ChatGPT to help you with this) then maybe it’s fair to say that I am not telling you something you already know?

How does the expression go?

A plan without action is just a dream?

Or

A goal without a plan is just a wish?

Something like that.?

Knowing without planning is no more effective than not knowing.?

So let me help you get started with a simple plan or outline that you can swipe from me and begin to expand on.

Automation of Routine Tasks

Enhanced Accuracy and Compliance

Advanced Data Analysis

Improved Client Interaction (This is a big one. And it is my favorite right now because I think this is the area that can have the most direct impact to your bottom line right now. Scroll down for more.)

Let’s break each one of these down a little further.?

Automation of Routine Tasks

The obvious thing here is bank feeds and bank feed rules. Now the question is, what more can we do? Especially once expenses need to be job costed? This cannot be accomplished with bank feed rules, because there is not likely to be any reliable data in the bank text that would tell you which job it goes to.

So, we need an app, and the best app I’ve seen in many years to date is MakersHub .?

You can create rules that will “job cost” your bills for you. The key is you’ll need the vendors to reference the job in a PO No. So this will take a bit of setup, and it’s not 100% guaranteed, but it is 100% guaranteed to dramatically increase efficiency with a little communication and setup.

Think about what else on the balance sheet can be automated? That’s the real Pro Tip right there. Use your balance sheet to think about what can be automated and you’ll have most of it covered.?

Ask ChatGPT (or whatever LLM you prefer) to help with suggestions to better automate your accounting processes. Careful, this morning ChatGPT told me that Hubdoc can automatically fetch documents. I believe that is a hallucination. My understanding is that you still have to program it to know how to code things in QBO, and only with rules. I don’t think there is any AI involved in the process yet.?

Enhanced Accuracy and Compliance

• Error Detection: AI systems can detect anomalies and errors in financial data that might be missed by human eyes, ensuring higher accuracy in reporting.
• Regulatory Compliance: AI tools can keep track of changes in regulations and ensure that the accounting practices comply with the latest standards.

These are great “theories” but how does it actually work in practice?

For Error Detection and Analytics (Advanced Data Analysis)

Check out Botkeeper . I have only had a cursory look at it myself just now, but I’ve known about it for years and heard good things. So I am going to get a demo soon.?

There are other tools out there, but at a quick glance I don’t love any of them. Mindbridge was showing promise as I looked it over, but for QuickBooks Online you have to export transactions and then map and import them to get analytics. That’s too much work and then I don’t know if / how it handles overlap if I were to import the same transactions twice, or if I need to be careful to track exactly what has or hasn’t been imported to be sure my analytics are accurate.?

If they build a direct connection with QuickBooks Online I will want to have another look.

Domo is another tool that looks super interesting, especially for its broad base of data analytics connections. This tool goes way beyond accounting analytics.?

For Regulatory Compliance

The following are tools that ChatGPT suggested, which of course you could ask yourself, but I’ve saved you the time and trouble of iterating to get a good result.

I don’t know anything about any of these, but they look interesting to me, so I will copy and paste ChatGPT’s response to my last prompt about this:

Certainly! Here are some examples of AI tools that help with regulatory compliance by keeping track of changes in regulations and ensuring that accounting practices comply with the latest standards:

1. ComplyAdvantage

ComplyAdvantage uses AI to help businesses comply with anti-money laundering (AML) regulations and sanctions. The tool continuously scans global regulatory updates and alerts users to any changes that might affect their compliance status.

Features:

• Regulatory Monitoring: Tracks global regulatory changes in real-time.
• Risk Scoring: Assesses the risk associated with clients and transactions.
• Sanctions and Watchlists: Automatically checks against sanctions lists and watchlists.

Website: ComplyAdvantage

2. Acuant Compliance (Now IDology)

Acuant Compliance offers an AI-powered solution for AML, KYC (Know Your Customer), and regulatory compliance. It automates the process of monitoring and reporting to ensure businesses meet regulatory requirements.

Features:

• Automated Compliance Checks: Conducts ongoing checks against global regulatory databases.
• Document Verification: Verifies the authenticity of documents provided by clients.
• Continuous Monitoring: Keeps track of regulatory changes and updates compliance protocols accordingly.

Website: Acuant Compliance

3. Encompass

Encompass is an AI-driven tool that helps businesses manage their compliance obligations by providing real-time updates on regulatory changes and automating due diligence processes.

Features:

• Real-Time Regulatory Updates: Provides updates on changes in regulations and compliance requirements.
• KYC Automation: Automates the KYC process to ensure compliance with regulatory standards.
• Risk Management: Assesses and manages compliance risks.

Website: Encompass

4. Regology

Regology uses AI to simplify regulatory compliance by tracking changes in laws and regulations and helping businesses stay up-to-date with compliance requirements.

Features:

• Regulatory Change Management: Monitors changes in laws and regulations across multiple jurisdictions.
• Compliance Automation: Automates the process of updating compliance protocols in response to regulatory changes.
• Policy Management: Helps create and manage compliance policies.

Website: Regology

5. Ascent RegTech

Ascent is an AI-powered regulatory compliance platform that helps businesses identify and manage their regulatory obligations. It provides automated updates on regulatory changes and ensures that compliance processes are up-to-date.

Features:

• Regulatory Updates: Provides automated updates on regulatory changes relevant to the business.
• Obligation Management: Identifies specific compliance obligations based on the business’s activities.
• Compliance Workflow: Automates compliance workflows to ensure adherence to regulatory requirements.

Website: Ascent

How These Tools Work

These AI tools typically work by:

1. Data Collection: Continuously scanning regulatory databases, legal texts, and global watchlists to gather information on current and upcoming regulations.
2. Analysis: Using machine learning algorithms to analyze the collected data and identify relevant regulatory changes.
3. Alerts and Notifications: Sending real-time alerts and notifications to users about any changes that might impact their compliance status.
4. Automation: Automating the update of compliance protocols and procedures to align with the latest regulatory requirements.
5. Reporting: Generating compliance reports that detail the steps taken to comply with new regulations and any potential areas of risk.

By leveraging these tools, businesses can ensure that they remain compliant with regulatory standards, reduce the risk of non-compliance, and save time on manual compliance monitoring and updates.

Improved Client Interaction

This is a big one. And it is my favorite because I think this is the area that can have the most direct impact to your bottom line right now.?

Imagine programming a Chatbot with the knowledge base it needs to answer questions and pre-qualify prospects and then have it schedule a call with them on your calendar app (like Calendly).

Then you automatically fill your calendar with pre-qualified leads who have scheduled 15-minute calls and now it’s up to you to complete the qualification process and determine if it’s a good fit. If it is, do you schedule a 1-hour deep dive with them, to go over their books and see what needs to be done? Your job is to keep it to 15 minutes by redirecting them when necessary, back to the singular purpose of the call which is to see if it’s a good fit and then schedule a 1-hour call. When the prospect tries (as they often will) to steer you into a Q&A you assure them that you can cover all of this on the next call, but right now you just have 15 minutes to confirm a few things.?

By the way we cover this topic quite a bit in 97 & Up and I provide a script for exactly how to conduct these calls. If you want to get more clients, this is the way to do it.?

Automate Your Sales Pipeline (remember how I started above by explaining that this is how you massively scale?)

You can (and should) be looking into a chatbot to put on your website that is trained to prequalify prospects and then get them to schedule a 15-minute call. And you should be thinking about AI driven client portals.?

Did you check out the GPT that I created and shared last week?

Accounting Mosaic - ask it any accounting or bookkeeping questions. Share your transcripts with me. I would love to see them, and this can help me improve it. This is an example of how you create a resource for clients that gets them interested in your services down the road. As long as it’s YOUR resource they are using, you will get the call when the time comes.?

Here are a few actual applications that you should look into (I know I want to):

Intercom

This is for customer support, and it looks pretty slick!

Drift

This is the one for your automated sales pipeline.?

Tidio

This one is also for your prospects to automate answering 70% of their questions, and then get them to schedule a call so you can focus on the other 30%.

There is a LOT to go through here. This is by design. I want to overwhelm you with value. And if you have a good knowledge base like Bulletproof Notion 2.0 then you have the perfect place to capture, clarify, and organize these resources, so you can schedule the time on your calendar to research all of this and decide what you need most.?

And of course, I am always available if you have any questions or need help with any of this - especially if you are in one of my Slack Workspaces. Oh, and if you aren’t we can fix that right now → click here .?

See you real soon!

Seth

PS Oh and hey! If you are looking at these tools and thinking they look expensive? Just think how much more money they’ll bring in as you massively scale your business!! Think ROI, not cost center. How many new clients can you bring in each month? What is your average revenue per client?