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Weekly AI Roundup for Accountants: Bill Gates says accounting is next. Our own journals agree.
Weekly AI Roundup

Weekly AI Roundup for Accountants: Bill Gates says accounting is next. Our own journals agree.

Bill Gates says AI will cross the reliability threshold for accounting "in the next few years," and the same week the Journal of Accountancy printed an Excel agent reconciling 59,157 general ledger rows in about 10 minutes while Accounting Today tallied Big Four reports with invented citations. Meta and OpenAI both shipped personal agents that can send a client's invoice, and Microsoft moved more of Copilot onto a meter. The work is getting closer to the threshold, and the sign-off you can audit hasn't caught up.

Peter McCarroll
Peter McCarroll
Weekly AI Roundup for Accountants: The parts got cheaper. The subscription still went up.
Weekly AI Roundup

Weekly AI Roundup for Accountants: The parts got cheaper. The subscription still went up.

Anthropic and OpenAI cut flagship prices on the same Tuesday, and the "40% cheaper" model finished sixth on an independent tax benchmark at the highest cost per answer. The same day, a tax-software founder open-sourced a full 1040 engine and called it "deflationary with respect to service fees and license fees." FreshBooks' new Claude connector reaches every business on the login, which for a tax-only practice is the interesting part. The parts of the work got cheaper this week. Your subscription still goes up October 1.

Peter McCarroll
Peter McCarroll
Weekly AI Roundup for Accountants: The close just became a loss leader
Weekly AI Roundup

Weekly AI Roundup for Accountants: The close just became a loss leader

Intuit's agent will run the month-end close from your firm's own SOPs, at no charge until January. Mercury put a general ledger inside the bank account, free through December, with unlimited free seats for the accountant. Claude's close stopped requiring QuickBooks, and a new model prices a yes-or-no decision at a fraction of a cent. The close was offered three times this week with no price of its own, and what the platforms want in exchange is your playbook.

Peter McCarroll
Peter McCarroll
Should accounting firms train their own AI model? Buy vs. build, part 5
The Advisory Edge

Should accounting firms train their own AI model? Buy vs. build, part 5

Thomson Reuters spent $40 million putting its archive inside its own AI model, and the final training run cost under $450,000 because it built on a model anyone can download. Part 5 of Buy vs. build closes the series with what that means for a 12-person practice: the knowledge Thomson Reuters put inside a model, your firm puts on top of one, in a page of written-down rules. Two moves, one engagement, this month.

Peter McCarroll
Peter McCarroll
Can AI replace your accountant? Seven years of outrage and the invoice hasn't changed
The Advisory Edge

Can AI replace your accountant? Seven years of outrage and the invoice hasn't changed

A Xero-affiliated Instagram ad told 77,000 followers that Claude had replaced an £800-a-month accountant, and the profession decided Xero was going the way of Intuit. The vendors going direct is arithmetic, and the profession has been outraged about that arithmetic since QuickBooks Live in 2019. Seven years later, the invoice still describes the work as a report.

Peter McCarroll
Peter McCarroll
Weekly AI Roundup for Accountants: Nobody said hours
Weekly AI Roundup

Weekly AI Roundup for Accountants: Nobody said hours

An Instagram ad with a Xero discount code told 77,000 followers that Claude had replaced an £800-a-month accountant, and Xero apologised twice without saying it couldn't be done. The same week the AICPA said a CPA's fee has to price in the liability, Intuit's CFO called human accountability the thing AI can't take from tax and said Intuit sold it for $150, and BILL's CEO said if his software saves you work, you should pay him for it. Nobody said hours.

Peter McCarroll
Peter McCarroll