A few months before COVID-19 hit and turned our professional and personal lives upside down, I joined Botkeeper as VP of Strategy. For ages, I’ve been preaching the need to go digital, to get on the cloud, and to find ways to automate workload so we can apply our gorgeous CPA brains to help our clients become healthier and smarter financial entities. Botkeeper is all about automation and saving us precious time.

Accounting firms typically grow in one of two ways. Either they grow organically and hire more staff as the need for client work grows, or they grow through mergers and acquisitions and physically become larger firms. There is a third option to growth that doesn’t involve either of these: AI-powered technology.

"Data is the new oil.” What does that even mean?!

By way of a quick history lesson, oil was the means of rapid industrialization and development in 19th century United States. Eventually, it would become the primary fuel source and helped propel the rest of the economy forward. New technology was developed to better harness oil’s power, and infrastructure was built around the need to transport it.

Have you ever seen the movie How to Train Your Dragon? A young Viking boy, who has grown up fearing dragons, meets one in the wild. Over time, he develops an understanding of the creature and learns how to communicate with him, and eventually both overcome their fear of the other and work together to reset the course of their village’s future. Sounds a bit like scary technology reshaping our industry, doesn’t it?

Automation is reshaping the future of accounting.

There is no denying it. We know it. CPAs know it, even if they’re unsure about what it means or how to implement it. Technology is helping to spur innovation in an industry so often left behind. And while I get that this can be scary, we have no choice but to embrace the shift and find ways to make automation work for us.

On September 16, we finally got to tell the world about Botkeeper For Dummies. From the beginning of this process, we knew that Botkeeper For Dummies was more than just a book. It’s an introduction into how CPA firms can transform themselves into the firm of the future. Knowing how tough this is to wrap our heads around, Botkeeper For Dummies really helps CPAs and accountants understand and visualize unknown, maybe scary technology.

Get Your Copy Today.

After two and a half years, four authors and countless revisions, Botkeeper for Dummies has finally been published! This book has been a true labor of love, and its premise is what attracted me to Botkeeper in the first place – providing every accountant with the tools and technology to transform their firms and take client service to a whole new level. This book takes the guesswork out of how to apply the concepts of ‘Botkeeping℠’ – bookkeeping with bots – and gives readers an easy-to-understand crash course in AI, machine learning and what they can do for accounting.

Recently I talked all things related to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)—from loan application to forgiveness—with ADP's service specialist, Erron Stark, who delivers first-class services and solutions to the accounting community nationwide.

There's been a lot of energy put toward modeling our economy during the COVID-19 crisis on past events, whether it be the Great Recession or the Great Depression. Either way, those models cannot anticipate the trajectory of this virus, nor can they quell the anxiety of financial advisors. Here, Jordan Birnbaum, ADP’s inhouse behavioral economist, shares his thoughts on how to lead during a global health and financial crisis.

CPA firms are looking at the future of their businesses and coming to terms with new realities; working remotely, implementing rotating schedules, and an infinite number of hybrid options are looming large on the horizon. At stake in these new operating scenarios are management styles, firm culture, and employee assessments to name a few. To get to the bottom of what your firm’s objectives are and how to get your employees to strive for achievement, I talked to Jordan Birnbaum, ADP’s inhouse behavioral economist.

CONTENT CREATED WITH LOVE FROM ADP