Why relationships beat AI in accounting with Tyler Otto

Tyler Otto once fired a client in their first month, after a 6 p.m. Monday request to rebuild a cost segregation report by 8 a.m. the next day was followed by an all-caps email asking why nobody had responded yet. Tyler, who leads Specialized Accounting (a firm built around hotels, restaurants, and marinas) and hosts the UnAccountable Podcast, joins Sam and Candy to talk about the parts of running a firm nobody prepares you for. They get into the emotional toll of firing bad clients, how a staff survey tracking client goodwill turned into an actual hit list, why mental bandwidth, not billable hours, becomes the real limit on growth, and how to price for the thinking time a difficult client quietly demands. As AI speeds up the work, the conversation turns to what clients are actually paying for: the relationship, not the transaction. Unbalanced is brought to you by Anchor. We help accounting and professional services firms send agreements, collect payments, and manage billing in one simple system. Join the thousands of accounting firms who have made the switch.