Last month, I received a special invite to an executive roundtable in New York City hosted by the American Institute of CPAs. The AICPA’s event invited 41 technology companies that develop software for the accounting profession.

The roundtable had representation from well-known names Microsoft, QuickBooks, Bill.com and Thomson Reuters. There also was participation from up-and-comer Expensify, a paperless expense management firm, as well as other Silicon Valley technology companies.

Organizers also invited 10 certified public accountants from firms of all sizes. I received my invitation to represent the perspective of some 39,000 small firms across the United States. The objective of the roundtable is for each of the tech companies to present on current product developments and roadmaps for the future. The CPAs are invited to provide the tech companies their perspectives on the needs of the accounting profession.

The presentations of the tech companies made me enthusiastic about the work I do. There has never been a better time to be a CPA because of the work being done with technology.

In with the new
“AI is the new electricity.” That statement was made by Stanford professor and computer scientist Andrew Ng.

For the past many years, artificial intelligence has been presented as a concept that will transform our daily lives – including how we do business.

Ng was staking a claim that AI is no longer futurist, geek speak. Instead, it is real. It is here. And it already is a bare essential for our daily lives – such as electricity.

AI is the technology that makes self-driving vehicles a possibility. Self-driving vehicles are no longer futurist, geek speak either. The innovation is here. Now, it’s just a matter of governmental regulation catching up with the technology. So, while most of the world is still grappling with understanding the depths of AI in general, innovators of tech companies are moving on to the next big thing: voice-activated AI.

Voice assistants in business
Voice assistants are becoming common household items. Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home are part of our daily lives.

“Hey Google, add milk to the grocery list.” Or, “Alexa, set my alarm for 6 a.m.” If these voice assistants can help us master our personal lives, why can’t they help us master our work lives? They can, and they’ve already started.

As a business owner or entrepreneur, can you imagine a day when you come into the office, sit down at your desk with no keyboard and have this type of conversation with your accounting system: “Hey QuickBooks, show me all the bills I need to pay this week.”

“OK QuickBooks, pay the rent and utilities with an ACH transfer on Friday.”

Of the 41 tech companies represented at the event, the overwhelming majority of the companies’ roadmaps for future products included a form of voice-activated AI. In fact, at the end of the event, there is an award presented for Most Compelling Presentation as voted on by the attendees. This year, it went to Chata.AI, a tech-company laser focused on integrating voice-activated AI into our accounting systems.

Why speech?
Am I the only one who is challenged by a constantly growing to-do list? Do you feel it’s a vicious cycle of whack-a-mole for you?

As quick as you mark through items at the top of the list, do twice as many items fill up the bottom of the list? In these days of constantly wearing our busy badges and crowded to-do lists, where is the life-preserver?

The roundtable event helped me understand that voice-activated AI could be that life-preserver for all of us in accounting. Why? A simple presentation slide from the event helped me gain this understanding. A person with average typing skills can type 39 words per minute, but can speak 130 words per minute. That’s 233 percent faster. Even a slow-talker like me can win a race against the fastest typing.

This should give us hope for gaining more productivity in our daily lives.

New horizons
Have you ever observed a child using voice-activated tech? For example, asking Siri to call a family member on FaceTime or play a song? Search it on YouTube for a laugh. And the next time you see this, pay attention to the pure joy on the child’s face when the tech does what it asks. It’s fascinating.

As a CPA, I am joyful about this technology; same as those children experimenting with the technology. I welcome it to the accounting profession with open arms. AI and VA-AI are not about job replacement for CPAs and accountants; it’s about embracing and leveraging the tech so we can provide greater service for our clients. It allows us to truly become a trusted business adviser.

3 Early-Stage Companies Selected by the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants and CPA.com

NEW YORK (Feb. 11, 2019) – Three early-stage financial technology companies have been selected as this year’s winners for a startup accelerator sponsored by the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (the Association) and CPA.com.

The startup accelerator began almost two years ago with a focus on fintech and educational technology. It is designed to promote innovation in the accounting profession and give the Association and CPA.com more visibility into disruptive trends from emerging technologies. Finalists get a nominal funding investment and guidance from a panel of experts in the profession on marketplace needs.

“The value proposition for these companies is they get access to insights from senior leaders of the Association and CPA.com, as well as a panel of distinguished advisors with deep ties to the accounting profession,” said Lawson Carmichael, chief operating officer of the Association. “And for us, the program keeps us connected to front-line innovation.”

This year’s finalists are:

• Gappify – A San Francisco company that uses bot technology – dubbed ‘Alan’ – to automate time-consuming, repetitive tasks for corporate accounting teams in such areas as accounts receivable, accounts payable and general ledger.
• Client Hub – The Gainesville, Fla.-based startup provides a modern communications platform for accountants and clients through an all-in-one workspace and mobile app, eliminating the need for clunky email conversations and easing the delivery of critical data.
• Dryrun – A Canadian startup that simplifies forecasting of cash flow, one of the most critical pieces of information for small businesses.

Each finalist will be given the opportunity to present information about their company in June at AICPA ENGAGE, one of the leading events devoted to public accounting in the United States.

“Early-stage technology companies are driving great innovation and new capabilities for the CPA profession,” said Erik Asgeirsson, president and CEO of CPA.com, the technology subsidiary of the American Institute of CPAs. “We got great feedback from our first class of companies last year, and we expect to build on our progress with this current group of innovative startups.”

For more information about the startup accelerator, please visit aicpa-cima.com/accelerator.

About CPA.com

CPA.com brings innovative solutions to the accounting profession, either in partnership with leading providers or directly through its own development. The company has established itself as a thought leader on emerging technologies and as the trusted business advisor to practitioners in the United States, with a growing global focus.

Our company’s core mission is to drive the transformation of practice areas, advance the technology ecosystem for the profession, and lead technology research and innovation efforts for practitioners.

A subsidiary of the American Institute of CPAs, the company is also part of the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, the world’s most influential organization representing the profession. For more information, visit CPA.com.

About the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants

The Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (the Association) is the most influential body of professional accountants, combining the strengths of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) to power opportunity, trust and prosperity for people, businesses and economies worldwide. It represents 667,000 members and students across 184 counties and territories in public and management accounting and advocates for the public interest and business sustainability on current and emerging issues. With broad reach, rigor and resources, the Association advances the reputation, employability and quality of CPAs, CGMAs and accounting and finance professionals globally.

There is no aspect of the accounting profession left untouched by technology, and no corner left unimproved; if there is any lesson to be drawn from the very wide range of tools our editors singled out as the Top New Products from the past 12 months, that is surely it.

From tools that create better methodologies for auditors to platforms that leverage the power of vast pools of data to help accountants offer insights to clients, and from solutions for soothing a client’s fears about an IRS notice to security tools you can carry in your wallet, this year’s picks reach into every part of the profession to make it more efficient, more valuable to clients, and more profitable for its members.

With that in mind, enjoy this year’s roster of the Top New Products!

Three winners have been named by a startup accelerator sponsored by the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants and CPA.com.

Winner Gappify is a San Francisco company that uses bot technology – “dubbed Alan” – to automate time-consuming, repetitive tasks for corporate accounting teams in areas such as accounts receivable, accounts payable and general ledger.

Client Hub is based in Gainesville, Fla., and provides a communications platform for accountants and clients through an all-in-one workspace and mobile app, aimed at eliminating the need for email conversations and easing the delivery of critical data.

Finally Dryrun, based in Canada, make a cash flow solution, cash flow being one of the most critical pieces of information for small businesses.

“The value proposition for these companies is they get access to insights from senior leaders of the Association and CPA.com, as well as a panel of distinguished advisors with deep ties to the accounting profession,” said Lawson Carmichael, chief operating officer of the Association. “And for us, the program keeps us connected to front-line innovation.”

Each winner will be given the opportunity to present information about their company in June at AICPA ENGAGE, the American Institute of CPAs’ annual educational and networking conference (the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants is a joint venture between the AICPA and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, a professional member organization for U.K.-based accountants). They will also get a nominal funding investment and guidance from a panel of experts in the profession on marketplace needs.

The startup accelerator was set up two years ago to promote innovation in the accounting profession and give the Association and CPA.com more visibility into disruptive trends from emerging technologies.

“Early-stage technology companies are driving great innovation and new capabilities for the CPA profession,” said Erik Asgeirsson, president and CEO of CPA.com, the technology subsidiary of the AICPA. “We got great feedback from our first class of companies last year, and we expect to build on our progress with this current group of innovative startups.”

The future of audit lies at a point where assurance and advisory services converge, according to CPA.com president and CEO Erik Asgeirsson -- with technology driving the two together.

“It’s all about assurance and advisory,” Asgeirsson told attendees at the Digital CPA Conference in Washington, D.C., last week. “It’s about delivering trust plus insights.”

In his keynote, Asgeirsson described a new audit model that leverages the cloud to use automation, artificial intelligence and even blockchain to improve the audit and deliver more value to clients and markets.

“An AI-driven audit is going to provide greater assurance around the integrity of data,” he continued. “It’s going to provide great value to the capital markets.”

The cloud, and the ability to share information instantly and accurately that it provides, is fundamental to much of this change. “You couldn’t have cloud auditing until you had cloud accounting,” he noted, and reminded attendees, ”We’re only in the third inning in the cloud accounting transformation.”

More power for accountants

In many ways, the technology has only just begun to enable the kind of convergence Asgeirsson described.

“We’ve just reached the point where the technology is allowing us to fully realize the CAS vision,” said Aaron Harris, senior vice president and head of engineering and technology at Sage Intacct, who joined Asgeirrson on stage at the conference. “CFOs and accountants have been held back by periodic repetitive tasks. All of that is not giving them enough time to work on what we got into the profession for in the first place – helping organizations to thrive.”

What’s more, there’s now an unprecedented amount of raw horsepower being applied to handling basic tasks and freeing up accountants and finance professionals. “The idea of unlimited computing power is driving a lot of what we’re doing in technology,” he continued. “Of the 10,000 CPUs we have running, only about 30 percent are devoted to humans – the rest are dedicated to automation.”

All of that has allowed technology to develop systems that do more than just handle the basics. “The last generation of finance products was about making sure you had enough information to work on,” Harris said. “Now we want systems to optimize performance – to find the answers you need. The future is about what you do in situations where you don’t know what questions to ask. That will give us the opportunity to look to the future, to identify risks and opportunities, and to help leadership prepare for those.”

These kinds of technology-enabled solutions will offer firms the ability to move many of their services up the value chain.

“Audit can become a strategic value-add for organizations, whereas today it’s mostly viewed as something I have to do for compliance,” Harris concluded. “The $40 billion the Big Four make on audits will become $100 billion in added-value audits.”

The AI-driven audit

Focusing on audits, Asgeirsson described a new model where data flows automatically through the cloud into an advanced platform for an AI- and data-driven audit.

To create that platform, the American Institute of CPAs has raised money from the top tier of accounting firms and partnered with audit software developer CaseWare to build a Dynamic Audit Solution.

The DAS will take advantage of enhanced data flows, the use of artificial intelligence to make predictions, and improved methods for continuous auditing to make audits more efficient, and more valuable to clients.

“We don’t want to automate the audit to the point where people aren’t involved,” said Karen deSouza, head of product at CaseWare, who joined Asgeirsson during his keynote. “We want AI to point out risks and help.”

With the vast amounts of data currently available, AI systems can learn to identify data and how it’s usually classified.

“We’re looking at using AI to tag client information as it flows into the audit system – that will save a lot of time and improve quality,” said deSouza, “but risk is where AI can really deliver value – learning from all transactions where the risk lies.”

By tagging data appropriately, recognizing patterns in data and comparing them to millions of previous situations, smart audit systems should be able autopopulate engagement documentation and identify areas of risk for human auditors to concentrate on.

“The AI-driven audit should improve audit efficiency and improve the quality and the value we bring back to the client,” said deSouza.

For accountants who embrace these technologies and focus on bringing them to their niches, there are tremendous opportunities, Asgeirsson told conference attendees.

“It’s never been more important to specialize and to deliver insights, value and trust,” he said.