Accountants and bookkeepers are placing their bets on AI to enhance their business

Gary Drysdale is Director of Sales at Intuit, where he leads the Canadian Sales organization for the Small Business & Self-Employed Group, as well as Sales supporting the ProConnect Group. Drysdale is also responsible for supporting the Canada Field, Services, Service Delivery, and Inside Sales teams.

AS WITH many industries, accounting is undergoing seismic shifts as entrepreneurship evolves, driven by innovations like artificial intelligence (AI). AI has powerful potential, especially when combined with human capability and expertise. Accounting professionals are eager – and ready – to capitalize on what it has to offer. We see this appetite today with emerging tech, like generative AI, as accountants and bookkeepers look for ways to leverage new technologies that help increase productivity and free up their time to pursue higher-value work and better serve clients. 

Our team at Intuit QuickBooks recently took a pulse on what macro trends are impacting and shaping the future of the accounting profession in Canada and where technology is accelerating business success. In our report, A Tech-Forward Future: Accounting in Canada 2023, 91 per cent of Canadian accounting professionals say that technology will play a major role in the growth and expansion of their practices. This sentiment is supported by accounting businesses’ beliefs that investing in technology is bringing value to their business and increasing revenue, with 91 per cent saying it is helping to make time with clients more meaningful, 89 per cent who agree that tech helps free up time to focus on being a better business partner to clients, and 87 per cent saying it is helping to increase face-to-face time with clients. 

Zooming in at the type of investments they have planned for 2023, 52 per cent of accountants and bookkeepers are placing their bets on AI. While there is always room for improvement, they still look forward to leveraging tools that will help them boost efficiency, with most believing that improved workflow is the top benefit of this technology. By augmenting manual routine tasks with digital systems that offer real-time analyses and greater accuracy, accounting firms can remain future-proof and competitive. It all starts with selecting the right financial management tools. 

At QuickBooks, we’ve been bringing our latest technology and innovations to life at our cross-country Get Connected events, a conference series designed to equip accounting professionals with learning, networking and inspiration. During our final leg of the tour in Toronto today, we showcased how our AI-driven platform continues to innovate to provide our customers with the tools and technology they need to help serve their clients and grow their business. 

From automating tasks, like categorizing transactions and auto-reconciling expenses, to predicting cash flow to help provide a real-time and automated snapshot of a business finances. We recognize the growing demand for the efficiencies that technology provides, and we’ve built solutions into our platform to help accounting professionals and their small business clients prosper. 

Within QuickBooks Online, we’ve been building these efficiencies through features like our new Multi-Currency Bank Matching, an end-to-end solution that switches transactions into home currency for matching purposes, and the latest advancements in Accounts Payable automation, helping small businesses and their accounting professionals save time on reconciliation and manual data entry. 

We also unveiled new features within QuickBooks Online Advanced, the newest QuickBooks Online solution, built to serve larger and more complex small businesses, such as SpreadSheet Sync, Revenue Recognition and deeper customization through the Customer Report Builder, all of which give accounting professionals better integration, more customization and more streamlined accrual accounting workflow, powered by the latest technology. 

As technology continues to evolve, the needs of clients will evolve as well, and Intuit QuickBooks is committed to building the solutions and technology accounting professionals need to fuel meaningful relationships with their clients, and power the prosperity of small businesses around the world.

Gary Drysdale is Director of Sales at Intuit, where he leads the Canadian Sales organization for the Small Business & Self-Employed Group, as well as Sales supporting the ProConnect Group. Drysdale is also responsible for supporting the Canada Field, Services, Service Delivery, and Inside Sales teams.