What's Next For Accounting? - Issue #150

A better way to fetch statements & invoices

Author

Jason Staats
August 29, 2024

The smartest accounting firms I know don’t have their accountants logging in to fetch bank statements, invoices, etc. They do this instead:

Fetching from hundreds of sites every month is a pain we all wish didn’t exist… but… it does. The pain exists. And we need a process to manage it.

Can it sometimes be automated? For sure. In fact my approach is:

  1. Does QBO fetch the statement? If not…

  2. Does LedgerSync fetch the statement? If not…

  3. Accept it’s a manual task that needs an owner (not your professional staff)

At some point automating tasks became so en vogue that we started feeling shame for the unautomatable.

It’s 2024. Manual processes aren’t cool. But the unlock for me:

A manual process beats having no process at all 😎 And this is where the smartest firms I know are different:

They have an explicit PREACCOUNTING process.

Here’s how to build your own:

  1. Create a complete list of all the docs that require fetching each month

  2. Give every doc an availability date - The 1st for the checking statement, the 25th for a CC, the 18th for that health insurance invoice

  3. Identify the fetch method - QBO, Dext, manual login, client request

  4. Identify the doc type - This defines the naming & annotation convention

  5. Identify the destination(s) - The file system, a team member or client for review

  6. And identify the owner - Who will ensure it happens

The process isn’t sexy. It isn’t automated. But it happens, like clockwork, every month, without exception.

The moment that doc is available, we’re fetching it, one way or another.

And because we’ve explicitly outlined what’s needed for each month-end close, we can DESKILL the process of fetching.

It means your professional staff isn’t wasting time fussing with logins. And it means when they turn up to close the books, all the info is already there.

Now in practice you’ll quickly go through a progression like this:

  • Well if my admin’s going to fetch the doc, they may as well put it in the proper destination

  • They may as well name it with the proper naming convention

  • They may as well annotate it according to our expectation for [doc type]

  • They may as well ensure the amount they annotated ties to the balance sheet 👀

And before you know it the ADMINS you tasked with your PREACCOUNTING process are doing 70% of the month-end close.

Because you quit stomping your feet over manual fetching, and instead acknowledged it for the (largely) manual process it is.

I did a deep dive on what my actual preaccounting process was on a recent pod episode I’ll link below if you want to swipe it.

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🤓 Nerd Corner

  • Some updates on OpenAI’s next releases - Their next language model codenamed Orion, and Strawberry, a new solution said to be vastly better at reasoning

  • Ideogram 2 was released, now the best AI image model for text (see cake above)

  • You lose a bit of functionality, but Rightworks’ ChatGPT alternative Spark gets you access to both OpenAI and Claude models at $17/mo if you pay annually. You’d otherwise have to pay $60/mo if you’re paying for Claude and ChatGPT separately (not sponsored)

  • A rogue Australian AI cursed someone out on my podcast this week

  • AI images have gotten incredibly good, but here are 3 tips to identify when an image is a fake

  • In an internal meeting Amazon’s CEO of AWS said there’s a likelihood in 24 mos their coders won’t be coding, they’ll be asked to do other things, begging the question will we be forced to get out from behind our battle stations in the near future? Let’s hope not

🔮 Q&A

How does a firm balance investing in workflow with investing in client experience? Link
Recognize people will fixate on what they do. If you do client work all day, you’re going to fixate on workflow. If you were the client, interacting with your team from the outside, you’d put a much greater emphasis on the client experience. There’s no perfect answer here, just remember the client experience will drive their perceived value of the work you did, which is ultimately what they’re willing to pay for.

For US tax firms, does SALT compliance complicate niching? Link
It absolutely does and weakens the argument to specialize, compared to a firm where a greater percentage of revenue comes from non-compliance work. It’s tricky to serve clients everywhere, but the old specialization debate still cuts both ways. We’ve had plenty of examples in the past of tax firms going too wide, missing out on R&D credits, tip credits, DPAD etc.

What’s your favorite AI writing solution right now? Link
Claude and Wordware, but remember to always provide it with all the context you want it to write about. It’s job is not to write from scratch, as much as it is to put your ideas and concepts to paper. No tool will work great without this context to align it with your expectations.

🔥 8 accountants joined this week

I help forward-thinking accountants go to work for modern firms in my audience. All roles remote. Firms and applicants US-only for now. 5 roles we’re actively placing applicants into this month (among 30+):

Nonprofit Controller | 100-140k
Adding the next controller to our current group of seven
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Tax Manager | 120-160k
Need centralized ops & tax manager to get me out of the way
GoSystems Tax, Canopy, Quickbooks Online

Junior Bookkeeper - Up to 50k
Seeking self-directed professionals who can thrive in a remote environment
Karbon, Lacerte, QBO, O365/SharePoint, Ignition

Tax Senior - 80-95k
Need more champions of change as our industry evolves
Axcess Tax, Axcess Workflow, Engagement, BNA Tax Planner, Acrobat

Client Lead - 65-75k
We can use more folks who love to automate & optimize
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