How you can use AI in your accounting firm?

​Many people thought that Artificial Intelligence will be nothing more than a gimmick and a good topic for Hollywood’s script but now we can see that AI is here to stay. During its initial period, the application of AI was very much restricted to the IT industry with uses like voice assistants and but now AI is finding its way to every pore of our existence.  If we look at the current growth of AI, then we can surely say that soon we will see a much more mature form of AI application in a wide range of fields and industries. 

​Technology has played an important role in transforming the accounting industry and that’s why currently, more than 67% of the accountants prefer cloud accounting instead of the traditional accounting practices. Using cloud accounting doesn’t only boost the speed of work but it also improves the quality of service provided by the accountants. This shows that accountants of the modern-day era are more willing to adopt new technologies. One the other side, AI is becoming an increasingly popular technological innovation and now it is crossing paths with accounting as well. So, let’s see how accounting firms can use AI and bring the required change in their organization.

Make room for financial forecasting solutions

If you believe in Hollywood movies then you must be thinking that one day machines will not only replace humans but they will also overtake the world from us. Well, at least AI is not going to do this to humans. AI will never replace humans because there are many accounting operations which can never be accomplished without the human brain. Instead of replacing humans, AI will rather assist them in becoming better. As an accountant, you will have to work along with AI. How So? In order to provide accounting service to clients, accountants need to process a large amount of data on a daily basis, especially when you are helping clients with financial predictions and forecasting.
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Machine learning can easily analyze large chunks of data. If machine learning programs are fed with a large amount of data then they will be able to better predict and forecast. In order to use these technologies in the best possible way, you will need to rely on big data.

Integrating AI based Optical Character Recognition (OCR) solutions 

OCR software solutions are surely a great tool and you must be using it as well but still, the OCR software needs a great deal of input from you. A lot of input is required from you in OCR software either because of poor document quality or either you require to extract the data manually. By integrating AI into the OCR solution, the software solution wouldn’t just start turning scanned content into text but it will also start identifying numbers as well as the type of document it is analyzing.  Whether you are dealing with invoice, contract or receipt, AI will be able to analyze them all.
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In addition to this, AI will even identify and extract important data even if it hasn’t analyzed a similar type of document before. So, by integrating AI with your OCR software, you will be able to attain a new height of productivity.

Focus on becoming an advisor

 While AI will be taking care of most of your job roles like OCR, data collection and transaction, you can focus on becoming a better advisor for your client and improve your relationship with them. Instead of dealing with number for the whole day and reminding your clients to authorize a particular transaction, you can focus on improving financial strategy, providing suggestions and work towards boosting the growth of your client.
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AI is surely going to be the next big thing in accounting as it has proved to be a magic wand in all the industries that have integrated it with their daily operation. The application of AI is very wide and that’s why its scope in accounting is very opportunistic and full of potential.  The above mentioned ways of integrating AI is just a glimpse of how AI will become a new normal for accountants just like cloud computing.