The Where and How of Bringing AI into Your Practice

AI is making inroads at many levels. This column provides ideas on how to bring AI into an accounting practice.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a distant concept: it is a present-day catalyst redesigning how practitioners deliver value to clients and manage operations. AI is a strategic enabler, redefining the role of compliance specialists into forward-looking advisers. Thomson Reuters noted in its 2024 Tax Firm Technology Report that 93% of large tax and accounting firms are actively using, exploring, or considering AI technologies.¹ If your firm has yet to embrace AI, it’s time to get started. Here are a few strategies for jump-starting the use of AI within your firm.

Workflow Automation

AI use within operations provides an opportunity to automate routine tasks, including data entry, transaction coding, compliance checks, routine calculations, and so on. Predefined, rules-based tasks can automate your processes without deviation. By handling the mundane, AI opens up time for professionals to focus on more complex and challenging work. At a minimum, AI reduces the amount of time needed to complete manual tasks, freeing up resources. The added capacity for your team can be directed toward work on strategic initiatives, providing growth both for the firm as well as the professionals. By utilizing Microsoft 365 Copilot, for example, one can automate VLOOKUP formulas and perform text split functions within Microsoft Excel without having to be an expert in advanced Excel formulas. Streamlined efficiencies also can be elevated, and tasks such as bank reconciliation and portions of the month-end close can be automated with AI. CPA.com states that firms that invest in tools to accelerate common tasks report time savings of between 30% and 70%.² At Centri, we have harnessed AI in our client workflows by auto-categorizing transactions, reconciling accounts in real time, and flagging anomalies for review.

Generative AI

Within the accounting industry, researching new accounting standards issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) or researching peer-companies for disclosure benchmarking has always been a cornerstone of quality assurance and advisory work. Generative AI is transforming how advisers tackle research. An example of generative AI use is a model that produces client-ready dashboards that share dynamic summaries and visualizations for presentations based on information provided by users. Generative AI can be trained with authoritative guidance and interpretations, which can, in turn, provide advisers with an opportunity to have complex accounting and tax guidance summarized in seconds. CPA.com reports the profession has seen an increase in use of large language model (LLM) research tools, and accounting professionals have noted these tools reduce document analysis time by 50% or more.³ Having a significant amount of authoritative and interpretive guidance readily available in summary and plain English, for example, provides practitioners with more time for strategic interpretation and application rather than doing research. In practice, this means practitioners can deliver insights with greater speed. While AI can assist in generating content, however, it should never replace human judgment. A thorough review is essential to ensure the accuracy and reliability of all facts and information. Some best practices when reviewing and ensuring accuracy include, but are not limited to, reconciling AI outputs back to original source documents; requiring human review of AI generated information; and validating AI-calculated totals and ratios using manual or spreadsheet checks.

Client Communication

Client relationships are built on trust, clarity, and responsiveness. Tools like Copilot, ChatGPT, and others can provide value by assisting with customization of client communications. They can help draft content, summarize and analyze data in minutes, and streamline day-to-day tasks such as drafting emails, creating client proposals, and summarizing meeting notes. “Writing emails is a lifeline but is often time-consuming when running and scaling a business,” says Kevin McLaughlin, a partner and AI industry practice leader at Centri. “We use ChatGPT to assist by quickly drafting emails that capture the right tone and message, which the owner can then personalize in minutes.”⁴

For firms, it is vital to ensure written communication is clear and precise, and that the tone and message are appropriate. Using AI to draft client emails requires information such as who the email is going to, what you want to communicate, and the desired tone of the email. Defining these attributes through AI to generate effective email communications can save practitioners considerable time that can be deployed to other aspects of your business. Of course, you should review and refine the output to ensure it reflects the voice, values, and objectives of the business.

There are many important tasks to the business that are manual and time consuming. Utilizing AI and providing all the relevant data points, information, visuals, and design expectations can help streamline processes. AI, for example, can help prepare draft slides, tailored engagement letters, or proposals using historical client information and industry benchmarks. Similarly, AI can be used to capture and organize meeting notes with other technologies such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom. AI can turn discussions into clear notes with relevant action items.

Custom AI Solutions

There are several off-the-shelf AI tools that provide immense value and allow for immediate gains in efficiency and effectiveness. However, off-the-shelf technologies are often limited and unable to be customized. Therefore, custom AI solutions can provide a greater impact on your particular business. For example, a company can streamline its internal policies and procedures and utilize its internal database of information to get AI to provide up-to-date information to its users on items such as time-off policies and contact information for those within the firm. Custom AI tools can be tailored to closely align with the strategic goals of the firm, as well as support operational workflows to scale operations to be more effective. Custom AI can allow firms to differentiate services from their competitors, as well as foster a culture of innovation within the firm. An example of a custom AI solution a firm might adopt would be custom Q&A bots trained on accounting advisers, the tax code, and firm-specific practices to answer questions in accordance with guidance and firm expectations.

AI for Internal Operations

Your business’s use of AI does not need to be external. AI can assist with operational functions common among most businesses. Tasks such as staffing, project profitability, and forecasting can be optimized through the use of AI. Predictive analytics and scenario modeling have become essential tools for leadership decision-making. Similar to workflow automation discussed above, automating data gathering and the summarization of such data provides users with more time to be proactive with the data, identifying growth opportunities and creating efficiencies within an entity’s operations. Further, it provides more timely data, giving the users more time to make decisions. This creates a culture of smarter firm management.

Strategic Partner in Service Delivery

Generative AI can provide practitioners with the ability to support more clients, close the books faster, and provide higher-quality service. AI will not replace the workforce; rather it provides them with a tool to be more efficient by automating repetitive tasks. In fact, AI works best when paired with human expertise. KPMG noted that AI is expected to attract new talent, with 55% of a survey believing AI will not take over financial reporting jobs, but rather anticipate AI will grow their teams and augment their skills.⁵ AI should empower your team to grow both personally and professionally, helping them to deliver deeper insights, build stronger relationships, and operate with greater agility. Firms that embrace AI are positioning themselves not only for efficiency, but for relevance in the years to come. Most firms are leveraging AI to automate routine tasks, enhance client communications, and improve operational efficiency. The accounting profession has shifted toward technology-enabled advisory services, and therefore firms must invest in AI to remain competitive and deliver high-value insights to clients. 

¹ https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/blog/how-large-tax-and-accounting-firms-can-use-ai-tri

² www.cpa.com/sites/cpa/files/2025-06/CPAcom-2025-AI-in-Accounting-Report.pdf

³ www.cpa.com/sites/cpa/files/2025-06/CPAcom-2025-AI-in-Accounting-Report.pdf

⁴ www.inquirer.com/business/small-business/ai-chatbot-email-business-operations-20251008.html and https://centriconsulting.com/news/centri-news/centris-kevin-mclaughlin-featured-in-the-philadelphia-inquirer

⁵ https://kpmg.com/kpmg-us/content/dam/kpmg/pdf/2023/kpmg-ai-in-audit-survey-report-october-2023.pdf

Michael Kirchner, CPA, is vice president of quality at Centri Consulting in New York. He can be reached at mkirchner@centriconsulting.com.

Dan Owens, CPA, is senior director at Centri Consulting in Philadelphia. He can be reached at dowens@centriconsulting.com.