The Bonadio Group, a Top 50 Firm based in Rochester, New York, is making greater use of artificial intelligence as AI makes further inroads in the accounting profession as well as other industries.
"As you can imagine, AI is bringing significant changes to our accounting industry, and certainly we're responding at Bonadio," said CEO Bruce Zicari. "We have for several years been testing all kinds of different AI solutions through our AI committee and our technology committee. AI is becoming embedded in everything we do in our workflows."
The firm is able to perform administrative processes efficiently and accurately with AI, he noted. That includes anything data entry related during reconciliations, financial reporting, tax preparation and expense management.
"It's absolutely transforming the role that we play with clients," said Zicari. "It's allowing us to take a lot of the administrative tasks that were done by our professionals, have them be done by AI, and we are then upskilling our professionals to bring more value, train them to use AI responsibly, to make sure that we are using AI to bring value to our clients and explain to them how to all the data we get out of it, how to interpret it and how it pertains to their business."
Despite the increased use of AI, accountants still need to retain a human connection with their clients.
"We're trying to take the time that we save using AI and really build strong human relationships with our clients," said Zicari. "At the core of this, our business is still built on connection, conversation and collaboration. We believe that face-to-face interaction is now more important than ever because we have to build that trust with the client. They have to trust us, given all the new changes with AI and technology, that we are confident enough that we understand them, their needs, their business, and we can really determine how all this new information that's getting thrown at us, how it pertains to them, what it means to them and how they can use it to their advantage, both from a personal and business standpoint."
AI is creating greater efficiencies, and in at least one case a Big Four accounting firm network is making its outside auditing firm lower its fees as a consequence. KPMG International has reportedly convinced its auditor, Grant Thornton UK, to give it a discount on its auditing fees because of its use of AI, according to the
While there are legitimate worries about AI taking away jobs and harming the economy and the stock market, Zicari is optimistic about it. "I think it's only going to enhance the economy," he said. "You can go back 90 years when robotics was introduced into the manufacturing process. That certainly didn't put anybody out of business. It didn't reduce jobs. It made manufacturing firms more efficient, and I think it will do the same with us. AI will not replace somebody's job in accounting. It could replace someone who is not willing to get up to speed. If you don't know AI, and you're not willing to upskill, that could be a problem."
The Bonadio Group is investing time in training, development and upskilling in AI software. "It will allow us to bring more value to our clients," said Zicari. "I don't see this as a threat to the economy or to people's jobs. I see it as enhancing and being able to do more interesting work that brings more value to our clients."
Some investors are worried about an AI tech bubble developing in the markets similar to what was seen with the dotcom bubble of the early 2000s. "If we're not careful, that's always a risk," said Zicari. "We have to be realistic and careful about this. It's new and shiny and has the potential to be a tremendous benefit. There's always going to be a lot of companies that will come up with great solutions, and it's up to the investors to sort through and make good business decisions about which companies they invest in."
In its recruiting efforts, Bonadio looks for tech-savvy employees who have some familiarity with AI tools. "We definitely are looking for talent that is embracing technology, that's embracing change," said Zicari. "We're also looking to make sure that we provide an emergent program for new staff with hands-on, experiential training for them as it relates to technology and AI, more so than ever before. We just want to make sure they have the willingness, that they're familiar with and have the willingness to embrace it. But we are going to provide a lot of learning and development for our new staff, as well as everybody in our organization. We say that our learning and development has to be our research and development. Our L&D has to be our R&D. We have to engage in continuous learning, always making sure we're fit for the future."
He's seeing the shortage in the accounting pipeline easing.
"We're seeing more students come into accounting and stay in accounting, and more people taking the CPA exam," said Zicari. "But we're also complementing our staff with global resources. To the extent that we can't find all of the local resources, we supplement that with global resources. Whether you talk about staffing, global resources, AI technology, this is all in an effort to be more efficient and do things quicker, cheaper, faster and better."
The firm hasn't simply been eliminating jobs and filling them with AI bots. "We are recruiting for new talent," said Zicari. "We're not just recruiting for accounting and tax type talent. We are recruiting people that come with technology and data analytics skills. We are dipping our toe in the water and doing that as well as attracting legacy talent that has experience in the marketplace with those skill sets."
That can mean bringing back people who may have temporarily left the workforce and those who have accounting experience from private industry jobs and non-CPA firms and companies.
"We're looking outside the profession more than we ever have for legacy talent that brings those different skill sets that can help us move through this new phase of public accounting," said Zicari.
The firm has been expanding lately after a merger last August with
This coming year, he plans to potentially expand the firm's presence in Delaware, Dallas and New York City. "We're going to continue to be very focused on growing our advisory practice and our outsourced accounting practice from a service line and then from a geographic aspect."
He believes it's important to maintain the human touch to preserve and build client relationships. "We are really focused on staying connected to our people and our clients, and the relationship building and the face-to-face, person-to-person business," said Zicari. "Being together is absolutely critical as we move forward in this new age of AI."
