Hint: Start thinking like a new client.
By Hitendra Patil
Accountaneur: The Entrepreneurial Accountant
Did you know 2020 is a leap year? You can leap into the new year to grow your practice.
Here are 20 ways to grow your practice this year:
Small firms find a new revenue stream.
By Hitendra Patil
Fresh insights are emerging from CPA Trendlines’ new survey, "Client Accounting Services: Trends, Issues & Opportunities."
Join the 8-minute survey. Get the answers. You will receive, for free, the topline executive summary of the survey findings, just for participating in this survey.
It is possibly one of the largest CAS surveys ever, with 3,771 (and counting) accountants responding to the survey.
Free webinar to unveil the results of client accounting services survey.
Join CPA Trendlines expert author Hitendra Patil for a complimentary one-hour webinar (with 1 free CPE credit) addressing some of the most common CAS questions accountants are asking, and some fundamental common answers that can make your CAS practice successful. READ MORE →
How human-centric artificial intelligence will help.
By Hitendra R. Patil and Eli Fathi
Artificial intelligence is set to transform many professions. As AI shifts from news and hype, it will significantly change how people work in their jobs.
MORE: How to Be Ready for Real Artificial Intelligence | How Accountants Can Ride the Artificial Intelligence Wave | Automation Makes It Easier for Accountants to Offer Cybersecurity | The Why, What and How of Cybersecurity for Accountants | Blockchain: What You Need to Know Now | The What, Why and How of Artificial Intelligence for Accountants | The Client of the Future | The Rise of the Robot Accountant: Opportunity or Threat?
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The internet and cloud technologies transformed the workplace. Similarly, AI will refine, reshape and even replace many of the tasks we do every day.
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What to know before investing in new technology.
By Hitendra Patil and Eli Fathi
To use AI or not?
That is the question for accounting and audit firms looking toward the future. There is a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt regarding the availability, adoption and use of artificial intelligence-based systems. There is even some misleading information within the broader community of accounting and audit tools.
MORE ON ENTREPRENEURIAL STRATEGY: How Accountants Can Ride the Artificial Intelligence Wave | The Client of the Future | The Rise of the Robot Accountant: Opportunity or Threat?
A wide range of claims and news can be found online, from AI “not being ready” for accounting, to questioning the benefits of artificial intelligence. Vendors stating their solutions are AI-enabled may be adding to the confusion. READ MORE →
Let machines crunch the data. You provide the insight.
By Hitendra R. Patil and Eli Fathi
You are already riding the AI wave to some extent because, most likely, your car has some AI built into it. You ride it to work. How about riding artificial intelligence at and in your work?
MORE ON ENTREPRENEURIAL STRATEGY: Automation Makes It Easier for Accountants to Offer Cybersecurity | The Why, What and How of Cybersecurity for Accountants | The Client of the Future | Urgently Required: A New Definition of Accounting | Is Blockchain a Cloud Killer? | How to Beat Automation in Accounting | 3 Reasons Small Firms Stay Small | The New Needs of People at Accounting Firms | 4 Pillars of Future Firm Foundation | Do You Want a Practice … or a Business? | 3 Apps to Automate Business Networking
In today’s economic environment, it’s not enough to offer services in the same way that it’s always been done and hope that business will thrive. Many accounting firms are embracing new technology, such as robotic process automation, cloud-based analytics and dashboards to offer a competitive edge but the industry has come to a crossroads. While these computer-assisted and rules-based tools are considered the norm, AI and machine learning solutions are driving the leading edge.
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Technology can help simplify the complexity of technology itself.
By Hitendra R. Patil and Jeffrey Lush
Businesses the world over rely on outsourced services, like accounting, to keep themselves ahead in the game, be profitable, efficient and to limit risk.
MORE ON ENTREPRENEURIAL STRATEGY: The Why, What and How of Cybersecurity for Accountants | Blockchain: What You Need to Know Now | The Rise of the Robot Accountant: Opportunity or Threat? | Certified Blockchain Accountant: From CPA to CBA
In “The Why, What and How of Cybersecurity for Accountants,” we covered the fundamentals to enable accountants get a quick understanding of cybersecurity to help explore the new opportunities that are emerging in the cybersecurity services segment. In this post, we’ll explain why it may not be really necessary for accounting firms to have specialist technology resources to foray into cybersecurity opportunities.
Checklist: Protect your firm in 10 steps.
By Hitendra R. Patil and Jeffrey Lush
Jeffrey Lush is CEO and Co-founder, BAP Solution, a cybersecurity firm Lush is known widely as a passionate technologist with more than 34 years of IT experience. Before serving as CEO for BAP, he worked as the CTO for both HPE and Dell Federal. Lush’s US federal experience includes serving as the Executive Chief Technology Officer for the US Department of Veterans Affairs. He has served on US Presidential workgroups focused on cyber and has extensive knowledge of cybersecurity standards and policies throughout the globe, with a focus on US Federal policies to include NIST, FISMA, FedRAMP, DFARS, PCI, and HIPAA.
It is no secret that cybersecurity continues to top the list of business concerns for businesses of all sizes. Small independent business, mid-size business and large organizations can all be impacted by a cyber attack.
20 key concepts for now. 5 key questions for the future.
By Hitendra Patil
Accountaneur
Social media. Big data. Automation. Artificial intelligence. Machine learning. There is already a lot of technological impact on the accounting profession. Now comes blockchain.
MORE: The What, Why and How of Artificial Intelligence for Accountants | The Client of the Future | The Rise of the Robot Accountant: Opportunity or Threat? | Six Never-Before Opportunities for the Accounting Profession | Urgently Required: A New Definition of Accounting | Certified Blockchain Accountant: From CPA to CBA
As a CPA, should you worry about blockchain? Let's examine.
How practical, affordable AI is already transforming accounting.
By Hitendra R. Patil and Eli Fathi
Co-author Eli Fathi is CEO at MindBridge Ai, developer of the world’s first auditing tool based upon artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies – the Ai Auditor – to uncover errors in financial data. He attended Algonquin College and the University of Ottawa, where he earned a master’s degree in engineering. Fathi has been a technology entrepreneur for over 30 years, having founded or co-founded numerous technology companies including Fluidware Corp. He currently sits on the boards of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, Start-Up Canada, and C-Com, a company that develops satellite-based technologies.
Artificial intelligence (AI) tends to conjure up images of sci-fi movies, with costly computers replacing humans for some sinister purpose, but the reality is much more collaborative and effective.
While AI has been adopted by many industries, its adoption rate in financial services has been relatively slow, and for understandable reasons. But you can get a feel of AI’s possible impact when you see that 76% of banking CxOs agree that adopting AI will be critical to their organization’s ability to differentiate in the market.
Practical, affordable AI is here, and the question is not whether or not to adopt, rather it is how quickly to get on board to differentiate in the quality, effectiveness, and efficiencies that AI-based solutions can provide.
AI is poised to transform the accounting industry. Let’s see why.
The five mega-trends that will make or break your "firm of the future."
By Hitendra Patil
Accountaneur
Your client of the future will be vastly different from your client of now. You won't have a firm of the future without understanding the new breed of client.
More Accountaneur: The Rise of the Robot Accountant: Opportunity or Threat? | Six Never-Before Opportunities for the Accounting Profession | Urgently Required: A New Definition of Accounting | CPA Trendlines Author Named Top 10 to Follow on Social Media in 2018 | You Cannot Prove Your Value | Certified Blockchain Accountant: From CPA to CBA | Who Wants to Be a Comptometrist? | Blockchain: Questions Are the Answer | The 7 Experiences Millennials Want from Your Firm | Is Blockchain an Extinction Event for Accountants? | Is Blockchain a Cloud Killer? | 22 Ways Blockchain Will Change the Accounting Profession Forever |
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.
Like most accountants, you probably have faith that numbers tell a story. So, let's look at some numbers and seven mega-trends that can help you get clarity about your client of the future. READ MORE →
Robots are replacing some accounting tasks, but only some.
By Hitendra Patil
Accountaneur: The Entrepreneurial Accountant
By one oft-cited study, robots will replace 94% what accountants and auditors are doing today. But look a little deeper and you'll find that instead of replacing accountants, the profession stands to gain from mastering new robot technologies and putting them to work to enhance client service, streamline processes, and provide more high-value high-ticket work.
More Accountaneur: Six Never-Before Opportunities for the Accounting Profession | Urgently Required: A New Definition of Accounting | You Cannot Prove Your Value | Certified Blockchain Accountant: From CPA to CB | You Don’t Need More Clients. You Need Better Clients. | Who Wants to Be a Comptometrist? | Blockchain: Questions Are the Answer | The 7 Experiences Millennials Want from Your Firm | Is Blockchain an Extinction Event for Accountants?
Let’s take an example in write-up work. It was common for the bookkeeper to enter transactions off bank and credit card statements into the accounting software. Output per hour – i.e. how many transactions were entered in an hour, and to the correct chart of account – determined the profitability of that work. Now, the same task can be done by automated bank feeds software – which is essentially a software robot that performs pre-defined, repetitive tasks efficiently and accurately. And you can train this robot to be better, by defining rules. It also obviated the need to wait for the client to send you the bank statements and hence, there is now no need to send follow up reminders.
Perceptions will have to change.
By Hitendra Patil
Accountaneur: The Entrepreneurial Accountant
Do you remember cell phone devices before the iPhone was launched?
MORE ON ENTREPRENEURIAL STRATEGY: Urgently Required: A New Definition of Accounting | Certified Blockchain Accountant: From CPA to CBA | The 7 Experiences Millennials Want from Your Firm | 22 Ways Blockchain Will Impact the Accounting Profession | Podcast: How to Become a True ‘Accountaneur’ | How Job Titles Can Rebrand Your Firm | Forget CPE, You Need an FPE | ‘Uberizing’ Means More Than Technology
It was not just technological advancements that gave birth to the iPhone. It was actually more about the ability to use human imagination to figure out how new technology could be used to invent altogether new benefits.
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