How AI Helps in Accounting

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a very hot topic right now across all industries, and especially in the business ownership community. However, it’s been a topic on my mind for far longer. That’s because for more than a decade, we've already been using AI for our accounting and it can be so incredibly powerful.  As an advanced certified QuickBooks Pro advisor, I know all of the ways to manipulate and program QuickBooks to meet any businesses specific workflow needs. It can save us dozens of hours a week, and it can help us get more accurate, more consistent, and more timely financial documents in place. 

But, obviously, there can also be a bad side.

If left unchecked, AI can actually tie your books in complete knots. I'm specifically talking about your Banking Feed in QuickBooks Online. This AI is QBO’s attempt to anticipate what all of those transactions were for as they pull into your Banking Feed. It's all about the system, learning what you did with the money, learning what other people have done with a similar transaction, and trying to anticipate what you would record it as. 

It's our job as humans, to oversee the real intelligence and keep it in line. For many of my clients,  these AI automations have been an incredible asset, and remain key to their business and to keeping a pulse on their financial data. This helps them feel confident and more knowledgeable about their business. But I can also tell you about so many horror stories where somebody trusted artificial intelligence instead of giving it a little critical thinking themselves. 

Here is what I want you to remember: when it comes to how you use artificial intelligence in your accounting,  use the QBO prompts, but understand that artificial intelligence isn't necessarily more intelligent than YOU! If you see a prompt that's wrong, fix it. The good news is that when you make that correction, it starts to better understand your habits and will start to reflect more accurate accounting for your business. Because the truth is all of our businesses are different, and we utilize our money in very different ways.

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Even though generally accepted accounting practices (GAAP) are the same, how we spend our money and what that spending means to us can vary widely from business to business. 

But AI doesn't know that. It just knows that we spent this money in exactly the same place. So they try to apply one lens universally, and that just doesn't always result in an accurate accounting. So always keep your real intelligence in tune as the artificial intelligence is prompting you so that you can keep your accounting records from getting tangled up in knots. Because the true downside of a bad choice and approving something that is nudged by the AI inaccurately is that the system will continue to think that that is the new best truth for you,  therefore continuing to nudge you over and over in that wrong way. 

If you’re not sure where to start with accounting in your business and you need help quickly, check out our VIP Accounting Overhaul in a Day program