This is the second in a four-part Cloudoffis series exploring the next five years of accounting, drawing on insights from a recent roundtable with accounting professionals.
The impact of artificial intelligence on accounting is usually discussed from the perspective of the firm. Which tasks can AI perform? How much time can it save? Which workflows can be improved?
But AI is also changing the other side of the relationship.
Clients are increasingly arriving at conversations with information already in hand.
That may ultimately have a greater impact on the role of the accountant than many of the efficiency gains occurring inside practices.
At Cloudoffis’ recent industry roundtable, one practitioner described a client who had used an AI tool before a meeting about a newly purchased investment property. The client used it to understand the types of expenses and risks they should consider and arrived at the meeting with a list of questions.
Rather than reducing the accountant’s role, the preparation improved the conversation. Less time was needed to explain the basics, allowing the discussion to move more quickly to the client’s particular circumstances.
This is likely to become increasingly common.
Accounting has always involved far more than access to information. But historically, professional expertise also gave accountants an information advantage. Generative AI is rapidly reducing that gap.
Clients can now ask a tool to explain a tax concept, analyse terminology or suggest questions they should raise with their accountant. The quality of those answers will vary, and the information may be incomplete or inappropriate. But the friction involved in obtaining a first answer has fallen dramatically.
That means the value of the professional relationship moves further towards interpretation.
The roundtable discussion highlighted the difference between an answer based on a single piece of information and advice informed by years of understanding a client.
A tax outcome, for example, may not be about maximising the position in one year. It may form part of a longer strategy shaped by the client’s circumstances, future plans and risk profile. Participants discussed this distinction in the context of clients using AI tools to prepare tax work themselves, where technically plausible answers may still lack the judgement built through an ongoing professional relationship.
For accountants, this shifts where professional value sits. Producing information remains important. But interpreting it, challenging it and putting it in context becomes more valuable as information itself becomes easier to generate.
This was also reflected in the discussion about AI-generated financial summaries.
Participants questioned whether a generic summary of financial data necessarily answers the questions clients care about most. A technology platform can explain what changed in a set of accounts, but a conversation can uncover whether the client understands the change, why it matters to them and what other issues it raises.
In areas such as SMSF work, the information that clients most wanted to discuss was not always the information software was best equipped to present. Questions about estate planning, liquidity or member circumstances require more than summarising a set of numbers.
There will undoubtedly be occasions where clients overestimate the reliability of AI-generated information. Firms will need to manage those situations carefully. But treating AI use by clients primarily as a threat may miss the opportunity.
A better-informed client can ask better questions. They can arrive with some understanding of the issue and spend more of the meeting discussing what it means for them. That raises the level at which the accountant can operate.
The profession therefore faces a subtle shift. The accountant is less likely to be valuable simply because they possess information the client cannot find. Their value increasingly comes from knowing the client well enough to determine which information matters, what it means in context and how it should influence the next decision.
AI can help clients arrive at the conversation. The accountant still has an important role in deciding where the conversation needs to go.
Start with the free Cloudoffis Certification Program. It covers the move from spreadsheets to digital workpapers, integrations and opportunities for automation.
If you’d rather talk through the delays or inconsistencies in your current preparation and review process, speak with our team.
Stay tuned for part two of this series – coming soon
