Gen AI Boosts Accounting and Audit Firm Efficiency 

Efficiency isn’t often touted as a value add for accounting or audit firms. Sometimes efficiency can imply a lack of due diligence — which goes to the heart of the profession. Efficiency can unfortunately invoke images of rushing through a task and missing valuable information.  

Efficiency isn’t about cutting corners, though. It’s about using your time and resources to the maximum benefit of the firm and its clients. With the use of generative AI (Gen AI), it’s now possible to improve your efficiency without skipping over any important details. This can help firms better allocate their professional hours, which is especially important with the current shortage of accounting talent.  

Not every Gen AI tool will do the job, however. Firms need tools that are purpose-built for accounting and auditing. This ensures the accuracy and relevance of the AI output. The right tool also supports client confidentiality in a way that a general AI tool cannot.  

Regardless of the talent shortage, there’s been no shift in regulatory requirements or client expectations. Firms are, therefore, having to do more with less. Gen AI can help make this happen.  

Let’s look at how a purpose-built Gen AI tool can help accounting and audit firms improve their efficiency.  

Document summary 

Gen AI can help firms save time on document reviews. Accountants and auditors can receive summaries of lengthy documents in a specific format by giving a Gen AI tool quality prompts. 

This saves skilled professionals time they’d otherwise spend sifting through mountains of records and reports. Instead of scrolling through contract clauses looking for relevant items, accountants and auditors can devote more time to higher-value tasks.  

One example is lease agreements. A purpose-built Gen AI tool can summarize these agreements and pull out the main points. That may include the lease terms and what happens in the case of default.  

The right Gen AI tool also has robust security safeguards, protecting the client’s and the firm’s privacy. Any Gen AI tools used by accountants and auditors should not retain prompts or feed information back into their large language model (LLM). With these safeguards in place, firms don’t have to choose between using technology to improve their workflows and ensuring data privacy. Both are possible.  

Quick answers 

Gen AI that’s purpose-built for accounting can give quick, accurate answers about important documents. A generative AI tool that’s designed for auditing has the contextual knowledge to give relevant answers to queries from auditors. On the other hand, a general AI tool without this built-in knowledge may not produce useful responses. 

Information verification 

As powerful as generative AI tools are, it remains the role of accounting and audit professionals to verify all information. The right Gen AI tool makes it easy for auditors to double-check the output to confirm its accuracy and relevance. A purpose-built AI tool generates clickable answers that lead auditors to external sources that they can assess on their own. 

Let’s say an auditor receives output from an AI tool that flags a certain obscure reporting requirement. Perhaps a transaction in the documents the AI has reviewed might fall under this regulation’s purview. The purpose-built Gen AI tool should not only cite the source but also offer a clickable link to the section of the law that applies. 

The auditor can then follow the source and make a judgement call about whether the reporting requirement applies to the individual case based on their professional judgement. This kind of capacity is what distinguishes a valuable, purpose-built Gen AI tool from the rest.  

Accounting standards compliance 

A core benefit of a purpose-built Gen AI tool for accounting and auditing is its in-depth knowledge of the industry. When firms use this type of technology, they can ensure they remain in compliance with any applicable standards.  

With a purpose-built Gen AI tool, team members can quickly access and cite relevant accounting standards. If there’s limited time for research, they can use Gen AI to produce a quick summary of the latest regulations in a particular area. This allows auditors and accountants to devote more time to strategic tasks and critical thinking. 

Discover new ways to boost your efficiency with Gen AI 

A purpose-built Gen AI tool that’s specifically designed for use in the accounting and auditing field can help professionals quickly complete their mundane work. This frees up their time to focus on strategic tasks and critical thinking, providing a higher level of value to their clients. 

Generative AI tools must meet certain criteria to fulfill this promise of greater efficiency, though. They must meet strict security protocols to safeguard client and firm information. It’s also vital that they solve the pain points that accounting and auditing professionals experience in their daily work.  

Caseware’s state-of-the-art, AI-powered digital assistant AiDA is the latest innovation in purpose-built Gen AI for auditing and accounting. Request a demo today to discover AiDA’s benefits.