Get the fundamentals right before chasing AI

AI may be changing the mechanics of accounting, but the firms best placed to benefit will be those that get the fundamentals right first. That was a central message from a panel at Zoho’s Connected Practice Summit in London, where Taj Accountants founder Abul Nurujjaman, Institute of Certified Bookkeepers (ICB) chief executive Ami Copeland and Zoho vice president Prashant Ganti joined AccountingWEB editor Tom Herbert to discuss how AI and automation are reshaping UK practices. Having seen the profession move through RTI, cloud accounting and Making Tax Digital (MTD), Nurujjaman argued that more bookkeeping work will increasingly be handled through AI and automation, leaving practitioners to review exceptions, investigate anomalies and use up-to-date information to support business decisions. But the panel pushed back against the idea that advisory is simply another service package to bolt onto a firm. Nurujjaman said useful advisory work starts with understanding the individual business: whether a client can afford new premises, for example, or what buying equipment might do to cashflow. Copeland made a similar point from the bookkeeping perspective, arguing that being deep in the business numbers is one thing, but understanding its context will allows firms to surface deeper insights. Automation, she said, should create an opportunity to deepen that relationship rather than create distance from the underlying data. That human oversight becomes important as firms adopt generative AI. Ganti warned against starting with a chatbot before fixing the data beneath it. His proposed hierarchy begins with accurate transactions and connected systems, followed by reporting and analysis, with advisory at the top. In finance, he said, a “99.95% answer” may still not be good enough. For full show notes, visit: https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/content/get-the-fundamentals-right-before-chasing-ai