AI has changed the landscape in many work fields, such as in data, law, finance and even accounting. Recently I have taken an assistant accounting job at a firm paired with my master studies. I have discovered a lot about AI and what it could do for accounting that I thought were not possible. Having been there for 2 months, I have learned a lot about accounting itself, but also what AI did for me while I was at the job. According to an article by the open journal of business and management, accountants become more efficient in handling the bookkeeping and become more productive in their work due to the use of AI (peng et al, 2023). I found this to be true as well.
The first week I began working the invoices in the bookkeeping system, I was very reliant on my own knowledge. I tried categorizing each invoice in a specific item for the ledger, which was confusing sometimes. Because there were a lot of different items and different kind of invoices. With the help of ai however, it showed me what type of invoice belongs to what items in the ledger. For example, one invoice showed me a bill of the restaurant where a particular client was eating. At first, I was unknown of which item a restaurant bill could belong to. I asked AI: “at which item does a restaurant bill belong to in a ledger?” The AI showed me this:
I asked my boss, who is an RA (registered accountant) for verification is this was true, he confirmed it was indeed true. From then on, I started using AI a lot more for accounting. Especially for things I did know. It helped me become more knowledgeable, but also helped me to become more efficient and productive.
Even though there are a lot of benefits of using ai in accounting there are also downsides. Each bookkeeping for a specific client is different. Tailoring to these clients cannot be done through AI, because they require specific wishes in what purpose their ledger serves. For example, some clients want to receive a larger tax return, so they categorize some cost to cost that are relevant for that feature, and others use It to justify cost that they made for the past few months. This type of variety is sometimes very confusing for the AI making some prompts no very accurate to what the client needs.
In my opinion AI is beneficial for the future of financial bookkeeping, and it will probably change a lot of financial fields as well. I do however think that when it comes to personalized tailoring to clients with work such as consulting and advice. Especially in the tax field, it is still of relevancy that accountants or financial advisors themselves keep responsibility in helping clients themselves to keep them satisfied and also themselves by being efficient and accurate.
Peng, Y., Ahmad, S. F., Ahmad, A. Y. B., Al Shaikh, M. S., Daoud, M. K., & Alhamdi, F. M. H. (2023). Riding the waves of artificial intelligence in advancing accounting and its implications for sustainable development goals. Sustainability, 15(19), 14165
