Accounting brings with it a heavy mental workload—and even accountants who absolutely love crunching numbers eventually start to feel the strain.

Through automation, you can reduce many of the menial tasks you are responsible for every day, freeing you up to take on more important advisory tasks that will help advance your clients' or organization’s financial situations and provide you with vital information about tax responsibilities, investments, and more. Automation can categorize transactions, run payroll, pay bills, run financial reporting (that's easy to read and understand), invoice clients/vendors, take care of revenue recognition, and more.

Further, automation helps reduce mental stress and decreases frustration related to deadlines. The result? Your firm has happier team members who can focus their efforts on high-value tasks and do more of what they enjoy, as opposed to the monotonous and never-ending data catch-up.

By off-loading the manual and labor-intensive tasks, not only can you do more for your clients, but that decreased mental load can help you and your staff feel sharper and better prepared.

DOES YOUR ACCOUNTING FIRM/TEAM REALLY NEED AUTOMATION?
The short answer? Yes.

Maybe your accounting firm or team has operated just fine without automation. But the reality is that you must prepare for the future—today.

The CPA profession has matured away from the mind-set that automation is replacing people. Automation is simply the next step in accounting evolution...as vital and necessary as embracing the calculator or the spreadsheet.

The latest generation of accounting trends will allow you to stop spending your time just "keeping up" with the manual data work. Instead, you'll get to spend your time actually using that data to create a value-focused firm/team.

Automation is fast.
AI is faster at completing many of the tasks that your accountants accomplish every day, and it's more effective. However, AI doesn't have the technology to replace human thought, and in some instances, it requires human involvement to verify information.

Automation is more accurate.
AI spots even the smallest errors immediately. High-quality AI will not only use automation to categorize but also to correct mistakes and adapt the structure for future processes.

Automation can reduce burnout.
You want to keep your accountants and make your organization a great place to work. For modern accountants, that means offering automated solutions that can help make it easier to accomplish the tasks on their plates every day.

These are just the AI technologies and trends we’ve begun to adopt, and on the horizon, there’s so much more to be discovered, understood, adapted, and applied. Bringing the right automated solution into your firm can make a big difference as to how your accounting firm conducts its business, differentiates itself from the competition, and positions for future success.

So when it comes time to devise an action plan for the upcoming quarter at work, take a moment to consider: Are you creating a strategy that aligns with where you're headed, or where you are now?

HANDING IT OVER TO AUTOMATION
Automation and artificial intelligence can take on a number of the “decisions” that once relied on a human being—while simultaneously removing the inevitable human-error factor. AI can automatically go over data to make sure that it's as accurate as possible, including:

Checking sources against one another to make sure they match.
Does the information in Spreadsheet A match the information from Invoice B? Your system can check that information for you automatically, which means that your clients will always be working with accurate information.

Checking sources against past reports.
Is an invoice wildly different from the ones usually sent by that company? Does a payment fail to reflect the amount a specific company has paid in the past, or the amount that the company usually pays for specific services? Automated bookkeeping software can automatically check those sources and reconcile them, then flag the ones that need further attention from a live person.

Confirming payments.
Automated bookkeeping software can help keep up with payments and debits to all client accounts. The system can also automatically recalculate balances and keep track of expenses, making it easier to deliver insights into your clients' spending and suggested changes for improving their financial outcomes.

Augmenting manual tasks with automation.
Some tasks still require manual input, but that doesn't mean you have to handle them entirely by yourself. Effective accounting and bookkeeping software can augment those processes, ensuring accuracy and speed.

Automation can't entirely replace all of the processes that accountants perform everyday, but it can provide critical assistance to accounting firms, reducing overall barriers to growth and preventing the likelihood of errors in their daily tasks.

SO YOU'RE READY TO ADOPT AUTOMATION: NOW WHAT?
Before you dive in and purchase software to help take over those tasks, you’ll need a solid idea of what you're looking for. Additionally, it's important to have a plan for implementation that will help you get the maximum value out of your chosen software.

Questions to consider:

• Will automation allow your firm to grow your book of business by servicing new industries?
• Will it provide the ability to offer additional, value-based services to existing clients?
• Will the software enable you to leverage recouped capacity elsewhere? Or is this a chance to reduce resources?
• How do you envision the roll-out and change management?

HOW ARE YOU USING THE SOFTWARE?
That depends on your organization’s requirements. Do you need:

Software that can support the needs of multiple, different clients?
When you choose accounting or bookkeeping software, make sure it's set up to handle the specific, unique needs of your firm—that includes tools to support both your success as a firm and your clients' success, too.

Software that automates your firm's most inefficient internal processes?
You want a solution that will take over or streamline the tasks that bog your staff down, not one that will leave your accountants with their least favorite work still on their plates at 4:30.

A solution that will allow your business to grow?
By automating your bookkeeping tasks, you’ll likely discover that your book of business can grow in ways you didn't anticipate in the past.

Consolidating your tech stack?
Finding a platform that allows you to consolidate your technology and manage your clients from one place (without having to become a systems integration expert) is key.

Training and support?
Not only do you need to select effective accounting automation options that will allow your accountants to spend less time on menial tasks (and more time actually using the data in front of them), but you also need each member of your team to know how to actually use the technology.

SECURITY SOLUTIONS FOR YOU AND YOUR CLIENTS
As an accounting firm, you deal with a consistent stream of confidential data from all of your clients. You may have access to sensitive information—not just payment information, but information about the business' finances that your clients don't want disclosed. As a result, you need to carefully consider the security offered by the software you choose.

Think about:

How is the information stored and protected?
Cloud storage can make your data easily accessible, but you want to make sure that the information is encrypted and protected so that it's not vulnerable to hacking.

SOFTWARE THAT FITS YOUR BUDGET
Your accounting software shouldn't be one of the biggest expenses that your firm faces. Instead, it should be an addition that allows you to grow your book of business and continue to provide high-quality service to your clients without substantially increasing your firm's expenses.

It all comes down to the right fit for your firm, and that means you have to know what questions to ask and what to look for in a solution.

The discovery process for any new piece of technology or service is never easy, and it's often overwhelming, but hopefully, this guide helps you navigate that process with a bit more confidence.

Jessica King is an experienced B2B marketer with a history of working in the software, Saas, technology, accounting, and services space. She is Vice President of Marketing at Botkeeper. You can contact her at jessica@botkeeper.com.

This article appears in the fall 2020 issue of the Washington CPA Magazine. Read more here.