There is an enormous amount of investment going into making accounting more efficient.
AI is helping automate tax preparation. Audit platforms are reducing manual work. Bookkeeping is becoming increasingly automated. Data ingestion that once consumed hours can happen in minutes. Firms are experimenting with offshore teams, workflow automation, and specialized applications designed to remove repetitive work from highly trained professionals.
All of it promises something accounting firms desperately need:
Capacity.
But there's a question we don't spend nearly enough time asking.
Now what?
Creating Capacity Isn't the Same as Creating Advisory
I recently listened to an episode of The Accounting Disruptors Podcast featuring Cody Sugarman, co-founder of Abacus. Abacus is tackling one of the industry's biggest sources of manual work: getting tax data into the systems where professionals can actually use it.
During the conversation, one comment stood out:
“You're going to need more good advisors.”
That's an interesting prediction about the impact of AI.
We spend a lot of time debating whether AI will replace accountants. But perhaps the more immediate consequence is exactly the opposite.
As technology takes work away from accountants, firms will have more capacity for the work they've wanted their professionals to do for years: advise clients.
But there's a missing step.
Giving someone more time doesn't automatically make them an advisor.
Accountants Haven't Lacked the Ability to Advise. They've Lacked the Capacity.
Another theme from the conversation was that production pressure crowds out advisory.
Anyone who has worked in an accounting firm understands this.
When deadlines are approaching and hundreds or thousands of deliverables have to get out the door, the priority becomes production. Even the best-intentioned professional has limited capacity to stop, study a client's business, identify an opportunity and initiate a strategic conversation.
The podcast described these periods as moments of “intense compression.”
Technology can change that.
If AI and automation eliminate hundreds or thousands of hours of repetitive work, we can give those professionals something incredibly valuable: time.
But that leads us back to the same question.
Now what?
Capacity Alone Doesn't Create Advisory
Imagine we've given an accountant five additional hours this week.
What should they do with them?
Which clients should they call?
What should they talk about?
Which clients are underperforming?
Which are growing unusually quickly?
Where is cash flow deteriorating?
Which companies have margins below their peers?
Where might there be an opportunity the client hasn't recognized?
Without answers to those questions, we've created capacity without providing direction.
That's why the next wave of accounting technology can't simply be about automation.
It also has to be about intelligence.
From Data to Intelligence to Decisions
Accounting firms already possess extraordinary amounts of client data.
Tax systems have it. Audit systems have it. Accounting platforms have it. Practice management systems have it.
Historically, we've used most of that data to produce a deliverable: a tax return, financial statement, audit or monthly report.
But what happens when we begin using that same data to create intelligence?
Instead of asking an accountant to open a client's financial statements and figure out what might be interesting, technology can help answer questions like:
- Which clients need attention right now?
- What changed?
- How does this company compare with similar businesses?
- Where are the risks?
- Where are the opportunities?
- What questions should we be asking?
- What decision should the client consider next?
Now we've done more than save the accountant time.
We've helped them decide where to spend it.
The Next System Accounting Firms Need
For decades, accounting technology has largely been designed around completing work.
Tax systems help complete tax returns. Audit systems help complete audits. Accounting systems help close the books. Workflow systems help move engagements through the firm.
Those systems aren't going away.
But AI is dramatically improving their efficiency.
The next opportunity is to build a layer above those systems that helps professionals understand what all that financial data is telling them.
Call it financial intelligence, advisory intelligence, or something else.
The name matters less than the function.
Turn data into intelligence. Turn intelligence into decisions. Turn decisions into better client conversations.
That is how the profession converts the capacity created by AI into something far more valuable.
The Real Opportunity Created by AI
Perhaps the biggest opportunity from AI in accounting isn't simply doing today's work faster.
It's finally giving professionals the capacity to do the work firms have talked about doing for decades.
Be proactive.
Understand the client's business.
Identify opportunities.
Spot risks earlier.
Help clients make better decisions.
Become a trusted advisor.
Technology may finally create the capacity to make that possible at scale.
But capacity is only the beginning.
The firms that win won't simply automate the work their people used to do. They'll build a system for what their people should do next.