Track 3: Automating your practice

Efficiency is the first benefit of automation – but only the first. Client and employee satisfaction, more reliable workflows, and the regular generation of shareable insights are next in line, but only for firms that approach automation correctly. This panel will share best practices and new ideas on what and how to automate successfully.

Transcription:

Chris (00:11):

Hi there everybody. So welcome over to the next session, which is all about automating your practice. Now, we were just kind of talking right before about how people talk about automation for years and years and years. And every single time the profession gets a little bit more automated, a little bit more automated. And so a lot of what we're talking about with AI might almost be seen as the next iteration of that. And so let me just with that in mind, introduce our speakers. We have over, let me just start with the far left over here, Seth Feinberg. You want to maybe tell us a little bit about yourself?

Seth Fineberg (00:43):

Sure. Those who don't know me, I'm Seth Feinberg. I've started off covering accounting and the wonderful world of accounting about 22 years ago, thanks to the fine folks at Accounting Today. I was the technology editor there on and off for 13 years, brought back accounting technology title for a little while, and I was also most recently editor of Accounting Web for nearly eight years. And these days I have decided that the profession needs to continue to move forward. And the best way to do that is by kind of helping kind of bridge the gap that seems to be widening of late between accountants and the vendors that look to serve them. They have great products, great technology, Great service.

Chris (01:37):

And maybe after that we can also introduce Heather.

Heather Satterly (01:40):

Hi everybody. I'm Heather Satterly. I have been in the industry for quite some time and I have built and sold to accounting practices. I love technology and I love automating processes so that I can work less and enjoy time with my family and my pets most. Right now I am the Director of Education and media at Woodard. So my job is the editor of the Woodard Report. I'm also the person in charge of curating the content for the Scale New Heights conference. That happens annually. And I am building instructor writer coalition at Woodard. So really happy to be here with you. Great, thanks for having me.

Chris (02:23):

Thank you for being here. And just in case I didn't mention it before, I am Chris, why I'm the current technology editor for Accounting Today, and I'm really happy to be here right in front of you right now. And so I guess let's just dive into it. And so the first thing that I was kind of wondering about, and I guess either one could probably answer first, but can we make a distinction between automating and standardizing a workflow or a process or things like that? And should we?

Heather Satterly (02:51):

So can I take this first? Yes, absolutely. We can. Standardization does not mean automation. Standardization means that you are standardizing your process so that it is completed the same way for multiple clients for each iteration that you're actually completing the process. So that's standardizing your process. So I can absolutely standardize processes that aren't automated. For example, a sales process where I'm having a sales meeting may not be automated. A client meeting, an advisory meeting might not be automated, but I may have a standard process for conducting those meetings. Automation is when I'm using technology so that machines rather than people are actually doing the work. So it's easiest to automate a standardized process than it is to automate a non-standardized process because it changes depending, your process could change depending on the client or what it is that you're doing. So that's the distinction.

Chris (03:55):

Got you. And so I guess in this particular regard, when we're talking about automating our practices, and again, I ask that question because I do feel that terminology is important, and I do feel that it's important to be accurate in what it is that we're talking about. And so in this regard we can say, let's automate everything. Let's automate this, let's automate that, let's do it all. But as we saw in the last session, you do have to be smart about it. And so Seth, I was just kind of wondering, look, are there particular practice areas? Are there types of workflow processes that are especially suited to automation and are there ones that are not?

Seth Fineberg (04:30):

The thing is, that's a great question. The firms that I talk to, it really varies. I mean, you talk about workflow. Well, workflow is such an individualized thing. It's one of the core reasons why I think people have so much time with the practice management systems that they have. Everyone likes super happy with the practice management system that they have. Workflow is at the core of that. And because it's been so individualized, some of the vendors don't quite get it right. So you know, do need to go back to things that you know do well and you do the best and you have processes for. And if you don't actually have them written down or written down somewhere, whether it's on a piece of paper or on a computer, these are things that you have to start with when you're even considering automating anything at all.

(05:28)

So as far as the kinds of things, I wouldn't be able to sit here and say, oh yeah, that doesn't make so much sense to automate, or that doesn't make so much sense to automate. It's the things that, again, I don't want to jump ahead too much, but the things that cause you the most pain and take the most time in your firm are the flags that should go up to say, yeah, maybe we should start thinking about automating that versus things that are maybe like, you know, just don't necessarily need to throw technology at that problem.

Chris (05:56):

So Heather, what comes to mind when you think about these things then?

Heather Satterly (05:58):

So a process that is primed for automation and is a process that's repeatable. So you're taking the same steps every time you're using the same types of data, and it's something that you can rely on the machines to get done correctly every time. Things that I wouldn't automate are things that are focused on relationships. So I have a relationship with my client. I don't necessarily want to automate everything or things that have to do with us connecting on a human level. So an example of that is if I could automate a email that goes to a client if a balance on their account drops before below a particular level, but that may not be a great place for me to automate an email because that's kind of a sensitive issue that I might want to talk through with my client. And by automating, I'm actually giving up the opportunity to strengthen that relationship and show the value that I'm bringing to the relationship

Seth Fineberg (07:00):

They know the human is there. And I know that we do have to talk about those two big letters of course at some point because all that is another level of automation that we're now dealing with. But the profession as a whole has dealt with automation and the fear of replacement for years is nothing new. Every iteration of automation has done that. Going back to software that you would install to do work that you did on paper or now all of a sudden you don't have to do anything on your computer. Now it's all on the browser. So all of a sudden that's going to replace other humans. And I just think that we need to really put a take beat on that whole conversation. But again, sorry to jump ahead Chris.

Chris (07:47):

Okay. No problem. Don't worry about it. Yeah, the future is I guess coming to us a little bit faster than we all had thought at first. And so when it comes to actually determining then what your pain points are, what it is that you're actually automating particular areas that you think are ripe for automation, then there's a lot of different ways that you might be able to go about it. You might decide to shop for a particular software package, you might decide to build one bespoke, and when you're deciding, how do you make the decision then for what it is that you build, what it is that you buy overall, your approach to automation? There's a lot of different ways that we can do this.

Heather Satterly (08:32):

So when I'm first thinking about whether something should be automated or what I'm going to automate, typically the situation, I've done something a few times the same way, the same message, the same actions, and I know I'm going to do those exact same messages or same actions again and again and again and again. And that usually the little voice in my head says, it's time to start considering automating this. The first thing that I do is I look at the current tools that I'm using in my practice. An example is most email email applications have the ability to do canned emails. How many of you're using canned emails in Google or Gmail or Outlook? How many of you didn't know that you had canned email in Gmail? I'm not talking about an honor responder. I'm talking about a template.

(09:28)

So for example, I'm most known for my work with Intuit and as a ProAdvisor, well, as a Intuit centric practitioner, I had to tell clients a lot of different times how to add me as an accountant user in their QuickBooks online file. And so probably the third time that I did that and I went over and copied the instruction and pasted them in an email, I said, I don't want to do this. I want to automate it. And so by using the canned email, you create the template with placeholders for the name, and then every time I need to send that email, I just go and I use that template and it saves me about five or 10 minutes per email. That is automation folks, and it's not anything fancy. It's in an application that I'm already using, and it's a great way to get a leg up and get started on automating those types of repeatable steps in your practice. If it's something more complicated, for example, I am entering in information for a client from Shopify and I have to go in and make an entry into QuickBooks. In that case, there's applications out there that can handle the problem. And what I would look for is that application going to bring the data into QuickBooks the way that I want to see it on the financial statements. And if the answer is yes, great, I can buy an app that's already designed to do it. However, in some cases, if the client's needs are unique, in that case I may want to build my own and I can use a no code tool make or Zapier to do it.

Chris (11:02):

So what's your take then? What is your criteria for when you buy and when you make and when there's maybe something a little bit in between.

Seth Fineberg (11:10):

So I first want to start with the things that of course make the most sense to automate the things that are going to give you the most pains. Is anyone in here familiar with a time journal or do you keep one at all? These are the things that actually tell you what you do with your time. Particularly as a firm leader, you might want to see what you spend the most time on. Some things are maybe not necessarily tasked, they're just what you spend time in your day on. Heather was mentioning it's like, oh, I've got to keep doing this again and again and again and again. So this is probably the perfect red flag for you to go, this is when I should probably start to think about automating this. As far as the build it, obviously the discussion, the debate over the vendors that you use, it's like, okay, do they have that as a suite? Do they have that as, or do I go best of breed on this? What works with what? And a lot of times, even though things might say, oh yeah, sure, this is integrated with that, this is integrated with that, how many times have you run into a place where it's like, yeah, it doesn't really work that well together. So those are another red flag as well. As far as looking at things like Zapier and make to do, I think you'll probably need more APIs these days than not, and this is a perfect opportunity I think to maybe kind of open that line of communication with the vendors that you do work with to say, look, why isn't this better? Why does this keep breaking on me? What can I do about that?

Heather Satterly (12:52):

Yeah, just to piggyback on what you said, Seth, if you're entering the same data into more than one application, you are missing an opportunity to.

Seth Fineberg (13:01):

How many screens are you looking at? The same thing.

Heather Satterly (13:03):

So if you're entering a customer in QuickBooks, you're entering a customer and a CRM likely you can automate when you enter it into one place, create an automation where you enter into one place, it automatically populates to the other application. There's tons of opportunity for that.

Chris (13:21):

And so when we talk though about software, when we talk about buying things, then it can be a little bit intimidating because I feel like there are hundreds of different software solutions that say they will automate this, they will automate that, they'll automate your engagement letters, they'll automate this audit process, they'll automate this tax process. What is the process of then picking out the right automation software? I know that it's getting a little bit meta, but actually, so when you are evaluating these things, how do we determine what is the best software that fits our needs? How do we kind of clear through the noise and be able to actually find something that will actually work? Maybe Seth, you'd like to start out?

Seth Fineberg (14:02):

Well, for one, I would say, not to be too sort of promotional, but the media, what do you consume that's out there? There's so much content that gets consumed these days. Case studies use cases, white papers. Then there's also podcasts that might actually have an app of the week or talk about how things work together. There are accountants out there today that are actively trying stuff out and showing you in videos, in looms of how things work together and where it gets broken. You can get a little bit lost out there, but I would say some of those answers are right here in this room or right next to you. Somebody has tried something and failed and somebody has also tried something and succeeded. I think Heather could probably speak a bit more to this.

Heather Satterly (15:01):

Yeah, I think that's great. I mean there's this great show called the Appy Hour and it's these two accountants, they talk about third party apps and how to automate. It's a great place to start.

Seth Fineberg (15:13):

It's a pretty good place to start, I have to say.

Heather Satterly (15:16):

So it's a shameless plug. It is out there. No. One of the strategies that I use, and I also encourage the people that I coach to use is create a list of the must have things that the solution has to address. So write down the things that in your mind, if the solution does not have this feature or tool or whatever it is that you're looking for, it is not a viable solution for your firm. Then you're going to go through and you're going to list down all of the nice to haves. So it'd be really cool if there was a mobile app, it'd be really cool if there was a client portal and then you're going to wait it. So on a scale of one to 10, how important is that nice to have? And if it's you really, really nice to have, yeah, maybe it's an eight, but if it's like, oh, that's cool, but I'm kind of dreaming here, and then maybe it's a two.

(16:06)

And what you can do is once you've made that list, you can, as you're going through and you're vetting the apps, you put a little yes or no next to your must-haves. If there's any nos you're done, that one you set to the side and move on to the next one. If you get a list of maybe two or three that have yeses next to all of your must-haves, then you start to grade the nice to haves with your rating system, the end of that process, you're going to have a score that is going to lead you to the most probable solution that will be a good fit for you. Now, this is a tool, and so I have to tell you that you may find the most probable solution, open it up and go, this UI is nope, I'm not going to use it. And that happens. But at least it gives you a method. And we're accountants come on, we love methods.

Chris (16:54):

This actually kind of speaks a little bit more in there is accounting software and there is accounting technology as it is spoken about and as it is talked about in public and there is accounting software and accounting technology as it is actually practiced. Your user interface example I think is a really, really good one in that regard. So clearly a software company will want to promote its products, it's going to want to talk it up, things like that. So in this regard, how do you cut through that fog? How do you cut through in order to actually really evaluate what is the best product for your particular case?

Heather Satterly (17:34):

I would say testing.

Seth Fineberg (17:35):

Yes, a hundred percent. Testing, testing. And also again, back to your previous question, the network of accountants out there who are likely in the same boat as you is enormous. I can tell you that right now. I speak to them regularly and a lot of you have a lot of the same problems, the same issues. So the testing, or again, somebody probably already has done that and said, yep, I already sort of figured out a workaround to this. I understand that this doesn't work with this even though they said it should. But yeah, the clearing of the fog.

Heather Satterly (18:14):

Definitely. I mean, another thing is a client comes to you and asks you for a referral that happens. It's okay to ask a technology provider for a referral, say, may I speak to a firm that's the same size as my firm that has the same service lines to find out their thoughts on your product? Because that's really where you're going to find the truth is by talking to a practitioner that's been using the technology.

Chris (18:40):

And I suppose that if a technology company doesn't want to do that in and of itself is probably a pretty good indication.

Seth Fineberg (18:47):

They should have a list of their power users, whoever your core accounting in payroll or any of these sort of accounting adjacent things that you use and do if they're committed to this profession. And many of them are, they have relationships already established with their power uses, they can get you connected or the rep that you have, are they answering your questions in a timely manner? Are they helping you solve your problems or do you feel like you're getting brushed off? And in that case, again these days, because there are so many apps and there are so many places to go, you're likely to find a better fit for you.

Heather Satterly (19:34):

And use the list your must-haves and your nice to haves. Have that handy when you're having those conversations. And if they say it's on the roadmap, say, where is it on the roadmap when?

Seth Fineberg (19:45):

Three months, six months?

Heather Satterly (19:46):

Yeah, because the roadmap may be three years away and that could be very important when you're making the decision.

Seth Fineberg (19:51):

How long did it take or bank recs still something that has been fixed? I don't think so. Not by anyone out there. Not well, but I know accountants, that's one thing. If you're doing bookkeeping, that's something that's been broken for so long and a lot of times it's not the technology's fault, but sometimes it is. It's like, okay, well when are we going to have going to have this workaround that we told you about? And again, I think it gets back to the relationship that you have. You have to have, if you don't have a line of communication, find out who it is within that vendor.

Heather Satterly (20:26):

And I would also say that most of these technology partners give you a trial period, so it's typically 14 to 30 days, but I have yet to find a technology partner that wasn't willing to extend my trial to give me more time to make sure it was going to be the right choice.

Chris (20:46):

Excellent. And so to shift topics just a little bit now, accountants deal with a lot of incredibly sensitive data that clients generally do not want to have in public. And so I guess I would like to ask, are there particular security concerns that one should be especially aware of when it comes to automating your practice? Is like how do you know whether you're automating your way to being less secure or things along those lines? What sort of security, what sort of things must one consider security wise data privacy wise, when automating your practice?

Heather Satterly (21:24):

So encryption. So there should be any data that is going from one application to another should be encrypted and fully encrypted. You want to make sure that you read the privacy policy to make sure they're not going to share the data. There are apps out there right now. Chat GPT is big, but that's open. It's an open platform. And so anything you share in chat, chat gt, they can share with other people. So it's important to actually do your due diligence and read the privacy policy or have your attorney read the privacy policy because they can be quite lengthy and ask the questions.

Seth Fineberg (22:03):

What do you do with this data? Also non non-technically or non technologically, what are your processes internally? What are your rules? Do you have set rules to say who touches what has access to what? And it's simple acts of just maybe not clicking on certain things or just not doing things in a certain way. And just having a system of checks and balances is probably one of the nothing's a hundred percent. I know you've heard that hundreds of times over and over, but if you don't have those processes in place, you're probably setting yourself up for some kind of problem. But I wouldn't let you know technology put the fear in you. It's not that, oh, I'm auto, I'm automating more, so I'm leaving myself more open. It's not necessarily the case, but you know, should have some very practical rules in place at your firms.

Heather Satterly (23:04):

Some other questions you might want to ask is, where's the data stored? How many servers the data has and are they doing, what's the word I'm looking for, Seth? Concurrent backups on multiple servers to protect your data. If it's all siloed on one server and that server blows up, guess what? So does your data. So you want to make sure that they have systems in place to replicate the data so that it's on different places and that they have a secure, that the data is secure in a secure center.

Chris (23:42):

I actually want to return a little bit to actually, were you about to say something? I apologize.

Seth Fineberg (23:46):

I was going to say just in addition, in backing up your backup question, it should be in the SSL, the service level agreement, or sorry, the SLA. Most vendors that you work with, depending on if you're working on a platform or some kind of tool, they should have something that addresses the data issue. Right?

Chris (24:10):

But going back to the privacy thing, you might have something in the privacy agreement that says what they do with the data, things along those lines. And it's probably very complicated and you probably would need an attorney to look it over. But in addition to even those, there are things such as pixels that will track your movements. There are all sorts of things that people can put into software. Are there things that people need to check for? Are there specific factors that might indicate perhaps a company is not fulfilling its end of the privacy agreement?

Heather Satterly (24:43):

Yeah, nothing is coming to, I'm sure there are. Okay. But they're not things that I am doing.

Seth Fineberg (24:51):

Yeah, I think a lot of it might have to be in just in your discovery phase, in your phase of maybe entering that relationship with that vendor, how forthcoming are they about their policies? I think that would probably be one of the flags you might want to, that would be an indicator.

Heather Satterly (25:12):

And I also would look to see if the vendor is recommended by industry organizations as well, because they most likely have vetted it too.

Chris (25:20):

Excellent. And so let's get down to brass tacks here. So there's a firm, they've kind of taken a look at some of their pain points, things like that, and they're like, what? It's time to automate. We're way behind the game and we've really got to catch up. What is this? Firm's first steps?

Heather Satterly (25:39):

Define their pain points and develop a strategy.

Seth Fineberg (25:44):

Yeah, I was going to say a hundred percent pretty much how we jumped into this conversation. What makes the most sense to automate? What is taking you the most time? And again, I get back to the time journal idea, particularly for firm leaders. Look, they'll show you what you were spending the most time on and you know can just say, okay, this, have your Monday morning meeting and actually go through, depending on the size of your firm, you can go through by department or by individual and just say, well, what's causing the most pain? And most likely you're going to kind of get some resonation on what that is and that's where you start first and foremost.

Heather Satterly (26:28):

Absolutely. Another thing that you can do, and I've done this with my coaching clients as well, is take a process inventory. And so another spreadsheet and what it is, is your row are your clients, your columns are the processes that you do in your practice both internally and with your clients. And then you're basically just going to put a little X next to each client in each column that you are actually performing that. And that will indicate where your workload is. And that's a good place to start. Another great place to start is by doing team surveys to ask about their level of satisfaction. Definitely looking at time information if you have it. A lot of firms aren't tracking time anymore, so tough can be a tough one for some firms, but asking your team where they're spending the time and where they feel like they're feeling the most frustration in their day-to-day work will give you some insight into where you can streamline the process.

Seth Fineberg (27:30):

And not just, again, you mentioned, not just internally. I know a lot of these issues, they start with internal processes, internal functions, but also externally. If you're constantly getting the same client issue again and again and again, and you think maybe if there was a tool or maybe there's something or a set of tools, suite of tools out there that can sort of deal with that and then maybe having that AI conversation could come in as well.

Chris (27:59):

Well, kind of speaking of that AI conversation, I would actually like to, you would refer to at the beginning an anxiety around replacement, an anxiety around very specifically. And I feel like a lot of the discourse that people have and a lot of the anxiety that the people have about AI is largely anxiety about also automation. It's about, again, where is the human in all this? I was wondering if you might be able to speak a little bit to these anxieties, to these concerns.

Seth Fineberg (28:24):

Absolutely. So again, this goes back, this isn't new. It's not a new anxiety. Anytime there is a bit of technology coming in to replace or improve, I'd like to say a process there is sort of that banging, that drama of fear like, oh, this is going to replace this or that. So all the way up to cloud and AI, I would just see it as something that sits alongside of what you do and not getting in the way of or has any interest in replacing you and what you do. All of this, every technology out there still is going to need a human alongside of it. I think Alan Colton today, if anyone was here for Alan Colton's presentation, he was showing the auto line and there were right alongside them, those there were the humans making sure that everything was sort of working. AI especially chat GPT and things like that. These days it's not going to do anything necessarily that you don't tell it to do. You have to feed it data and then it's sort of up to you with how you use it.

Chris (29:33):

Heather, what are some of your thoughts on that then?

Heather Satterly (29:35):

So I just had a really great conversation with one of my colleagues about this and what I would say is there's the human relationship. It comes back to the fact that we're people, and yes, automation can do a lot of the manual tasks and the things that we're doing. And yes, it can make really great, and I don't want to say decisions, but it can make really great probability calculations that will return a pretty accurate answer. It's a good turn. But what technology will never, ever, ever be able to do is look across the zoom screen into your client's eyes and feel what they're feeling with the anxiety of running their business, of whether or not they're going to make payroll or get excited with them when they're really killing it in their business. That can't be replaced. And that's why we keep talking about bringing the value to our clients. We have to bring the value to our clients. Our Trump card and automation are our relationships and it's the client service, the relationships and the fact that we are in it with them and we are a person and we have that empathy.

Chris (30:50):

I mean, in the sense people talk, and again, I have been hearing very much the same thing over and over as well. Automation is not necessarily going to replace people, it will replace tasks. Yes. And so the example that I often use when I talk about this is back in the nineties, early two thousands, you had to send an army of frier associates over to a warehouse to get big boxes of receipts and invoices and things like that. Going through that, that took a lot of people, usually recent college graduates, I don't know if there's any firm that does that anymore. I don't know if anyone is pulling boxes of warehouse.

Seth Fineberg (31:23):

Client with suitcases, anyone still dragging along suitcases.

Chris (31:28):

But at the same time, people were still doing this task. And what you used to be able to do, what used to take literally an army again of first years now can be done with about six people and a laptop. Next year it might be two people and a tablet or something along those lines. And so we are witnessing a shift in maybe if not absolute number of accountants a shift in the shape of this profession and of the types of tasks that we do. And so would you be able to, so anxiety around that, is this kind of more of a valid thing? Is this something that if you're doing a task that could be easily automated, you probably should be looking to expand into something that can't?

Heather Satterly (32:11):

I would say yeah, definitely. I mean, I think that if you're doing tasks that can be automated by technology, you're going to have to bring more to the table than that. You're going to have to invest in your knowledge. You're going to have to invest in your expertise and those relationships because that's really what is going to set you apart. What I have always felt, and I know you have too, is I want to stay ahead of the technology and ride it. I think of a wave. I want to surf on that wave, I want to understand the technology, I want to leverage it and I want to add value to it. And I think as long as we're adding value to it, then you're still relevant. But as soon as you stop adding value to that work product at that point, the machines have got you.

Seth Fineberg (33:07):

Yeah, I mean the value of you as an accountant, as a CPA, as an enrolled agent, as a professional service human is not necessarily in the tasks that you do. It's not in the stuff, it's everything else, it's the human relating to the other human, all of the stuff. Sure. Maybe that stuff defined you or defined the profession at one point. It doesn't and it shouldn't. And those who, I think maybe those are the ones who maybe should be afraid, if at all, are who really define themselves by the hours they put in or the stuff, the tasks that they do. That's not who you are. That's not why you got into this profession. You are doing this job to help other humans to achieve their goals, to have some financial stability, whatever it is that you got into this for, a machine cannot replace and it won't.

Heather Satterly (34:09):

Been innovating ourselves out of jobs for millennia. Started with the wheel, I think, right?

Chris (34:17):

Yeah. All those people just kind of pulling carts and sleds, all of a sudden they were looking at that and they're like, oh man, I know where this is going.

Heather Satterly (34:24):

I can see that the writing's on the wall.

Seth Fineberg (34:25):

Look at Fred. He's got that round thing.

Chris (34:30):

And in the same respect, I remember when I first encountered chat GPT at first, I was a little bit freaked out as a professional writer as somebody who was devoted decades of his life to this particular trade. But then as I began using it more, I'm like, this is pretty generic. This is pretty bland. And then the conclusion I came to was that I suppose it is incumbent upon me to be a better writer than chat GPT. And in that respect too, when we see all this automation, I suppose then the call is to be a better accountant than what a machine can actually do. One thing though, that I would actually like to also go over, I mean when we're talking about replacement and things like that, when I talk about AI and automation with a lot of firm leaders now, a lot of it is because they say that they're turning to automation because they just can't find people. It's almost as if they are replacing anyone. It's not even by their choice. They really would rather have a person, but maybe they just can't find someone or something like that. And so automation can also be a very powerful way to do more with less for firms. I was wondering maybe kind of speak about this multiplier effect.

Heather Satterly (35:42):

Oh sure. Yeah. I, we all know we're in the middle of it, of a labor crisis in the accounting industry. As a consultant that focused on automation for accounting firms, that was the number one request was I can't find anybody. I need to automate these admin type tasks so that I can focus on the client work because I can't find people that are going to fill that position. So yeah, I think our industry is facing a, there's no lie we're facing a crisis and you can certainly leverage technology to do plenty of those tasks, but I think that our bigger issue, and this is totally going on a tangent, is how do we attract people to our profession? Because we're not being successful at all at that. And so I think that we should, since we now have the automation, we have the bots that can do some of our work, maybe we should refocus our attention on the higher and figure out how to attract the higher value work.

Seth Fineberg (36:50):

The higher value work, what makes this making what an attractive place to be. And that exactly those tasks that firms are not finding the people to do, maybe those aren't really high value things anyway. It's just stuff that needs done, tasks that need done fine. Maybe people shouldn't be in those positions. And you need people, all of you doing the higher value, people facing things to do that technology, that technology will assist you with. But ultimately it's up to you.

Chris (37:41):

Yeah. I apologize if people have questions, if people want to wait anytime like that, please feel free.

Audience Member 1 (37:46):

Well, So went to school as an accountant, how you are, the education of an accountant needs to then change. Yes. And the degree for a hundred percent. And, Otherwise, what you're going to keep churning out is somebody who has theory but no ability to interact with a human being.

Seth Fineberg (38:15):

A hundred percent. And there was a time where you didn't necessarily need to, but clearly that's the higher you're doing value work.

Audience Member 1 (38:25):

Work. So you want to change how you're getting people into the profession. You got to step further back than by the time they get out of college.

Heather Satterly (38:35):

Agreed. And there are initiatives, the AI CPA is taking initiatives to get into high schools and into colleges to help with that cause because you're a hundred percent right.

Audience Member 2 (38:50):

But you don't teach them desktop off during this.

Heather Satterly (39:05):

No, I think that the service lines of accountants are expanding. Right? They've been expanding over the last 15, 20 years. And so I think it's a more diverse profession. We just need to make it more interesting. You're right. In the classroom because it's not interesting.

Seth Fineberg (39:23):

Put it on display in the classroom.

Heather Satterly (39:25):

Yeah. Put it on display.

Audience Member 1 (39:27):

I'm actually going to say this. I mean, I'm old enough to have learned how to do accounting on column or paper. And years ago when I knew somebody that was in college, and this had to be well over 10 years ago, they were already not doing accounting examples on columer paper. They only got this one little snippet of the column that there question was should, I don't really know how they were able to really connect everything that they needed to if they couldn't see the full picture.

Heather Satterly (39:58):

Right. Yeah. No, you're not wrong.

Chris (40:06):

Well, maybe this kind of does speak, I remembered what I was going to, I know one those one sort of things as we kind of automate a lot of these tasks. So I had recently read this one study and it was talking about de-skilling and it was talking about automation bias. And it was talking about this concern that accountants amid all of this are maybe losing something vital. But then I also spoke to another person once about this paper and his response was, well, a lot of us don't have to know how to ride a horse and buggy anymore because we've got the car. There are certain skills that the nature of the world changes and those skills really aren't needed as much. And so I was wondering the things that we're losing, are they something vital or are they more like the horse and buggy?

Heather Satterly (40:53):

I think Randy wants to answer this.

Audience Member 3 (40:57):

But then if the electricity goes out and you don't know how to do math, you've got a problem.

Heather Satterly (41:04):

Yeah, I agree with you. I think there's, The fundamentals to the core fundamentals have to stay the same. We have calculators, why do we need to learn math? So the core fundamentals of accounting, they have to be taught. I think that teaching somebody what to do without teaching them why they do it is a tragedy. I think that you can't be good at your job unless you understand why of what you're doing.

Seth Fineberg (41:35):

Yes. And there's the value versus the task.

Heather Satterly (41:38):

Exactly. So I think that the foundations of accounting need to stay. It's the applications of accounting that need to change.

Seth Fineberg (41:49):

Yeah.

Chris (41:50):

I'm sorry, a question over there.

Audience Member 4 (41:55):

Want to go back to back about anxieties over third party applications. I was wondering, is there a website where you can take a look at where that third party app is banking at now with the SVB that we just went over and to see things that go crazy?

Heather Satterly (42:13):

Sorry, I didn't hear you.

Audience Member 4 (42:16):

It's a website that could define where a business is banking at.

Heather Satterly (42:22):

Where A bus. Oh, because of the Silicon Valley bank crisis. Yeah. So he's talking about the Silicon Valley bank crisis. Which was a really scary thing for people that were using payment platforms and payroll platforms that were using that bank.

Seth Fineberg (42:36):

Connected to that bank. Yeah.

Heather Satterly (42:38):

I'm not aware of that level of visibility. What I would recommend is that you asked the question, and I do think that that likely will end up being, we should have visibility into it. So I hundred percent.

Seth Fineberg (42:56):

That's a great business who are you banking with?

Heather Satterly (42:57):

Yeah. And I do think it's up to us as the accounting professional when we're recommending payroll companies, payment processors, anybody who is that intermediary with our client's money, we need to be asking those questions. Are you diversified?

Seth Fineberg (43:14):

Yeah, Tha you can do Cause everyone is connected to. If your bill.com or whoever you're working with for a p r, they're connected with banks. Right? Right. That's the value of what they do.

Heather Satterly (43:27):

Great question.

Chris (43:31):

Are there any questions? Any other questions from the audience? So we've got about maybe five minutes left. I was wondering if there were any final thoughts just regarding this topic gone, anything at all?

Seth Fineberg (43:43):

And can we automate that?

Heather Satterly (43:44):

Here we go.

Seth Fineberg (43:47):

Okay. Now again, you know, really try to ignore a lot of the hype fear mongering that that's been going on. We've all heard it now with previous iterations of new technology, new levels of automation coming in. Just have faith in what you do and the value of what you do each day. And when it comes to automating and figuring out what to automate, again, looking at first and foremost that the things that are eating the most time or causing the most pain with you in your practice or with your work with clients. That's my 2 cents on that.

Heather Satterly (44:29):

So my advice is create a safe space for you to experiment and innovate and try things out. One of the things that I have done is I have a test QuickBooks company. I have lots of test companies that I pay for, and I'm able to try things out before I actually pull the plug and implement them either in my own company or with clients. And that is really the best way for you to stay abreast of new technologies and what's coming. And also to feel comfortable about them yourselves is by actually going in and using them. And if you're setting up a safe place to do that, there's no risk. You can go in and break ev. You can break whatever you want. You can try out workflows, you can connect it to Zapier and see what happens. But all of a sudden when you do that, it's the fear piece of it disappears. And you're able to go through and do a proof of concept and try things out until you are certain that it is something that's going to be a viable solution for you or your client. And then you can plan how to implement it within your firm.

Chris (45:37):

Excellent.

Seth Fineberg (45:37):

And ask vendors questions. If you're not feeling like you're getting something from that relationship, maybe it is time to kind of look elsewhere for that, because they need to be there for you. They need you as much as you need them, but at the same time, there's a world of other solutions out there as well. But they should be able to answer your concerns.

Chris (46:03):

Alright then. And with that, I want to thank Heather. I want to thank Seth for all of the time. It was certainly a lot of food for thought and I'd love to thank our amazing audience for all of this. Let's give everyone a round of applause. And so now following this, there is going to be meet the experts. I'm sure that you guys have seen lots and lots of experts all throughout the day. You're going to get to meet them. It's going to be over in the foyer at five o'clock,

Heather Satterly (46:28):

And I would like to get a round of applause for our amazing moderator.

Chris (46:32):

Aww, Thank you.