Coco Hou CPA calls on accounting sector to embrace AI to enhance service levels and reduce cost

In the past year or so, artificial intelligence has become a sort of buzzword. Advanced algorithms and advancements in technology have made AI more accessible and 2023 was the year that people really 'got' what AI can do and it was the year that chatbots went viral, so to speak.

"The accounting industry has been slow in its uptake of AI, and I can understand why. Australia's tax system is very complicated and AI is not capable of performing the full suite of tasks that accountants are trusted to do," Australian tax expert and founder of Australia's national network of accounting and bookkeeping businesses, Platinum Accounting Australia, Coco Hou said.

"However, I am not suggesting that we let AI take over, I'm saying that accountants should definitely embrace and utilise AI for a range of time consuming tasks that can be reliably transferred to AI," she said.

"With skilled labour still scarce and the cost of doing business continuing to rise, accountants have to find ways of delivering services and marketing activities in a cost effective way to ensure that we are still accessible to our valuable clients."

Chatbots

"Majority of customers make the same enquiry over and over again, so why not use a chatbot to help customers find the answer to their enquiry when AI chatbots are now so advanced that they truly can deliver a seamless experience for customers. Especially for things like collecting customer information at the beginning of an interaction and deflecting simple tasks, accountancy firms can safely rely on AI chatbots to handle these basic but time consuming interactions," Hou said.

"The benefit of AI covering the basics of customer service is that you can then free up human customer service representatives to focus on more complex tasks, where a human is actually needed to take over to find a solution."

Handling social media

"Every reputable company now has a social media presence, but keeping up with all those social media posts is time consuming, and let's face it, as accountants, we're better with numbers than we are with words!" Hou joked.

"I encourage accountants to use an AI social media post generator to keep up their business' social media presence. AI in social media can be used for tasks like content creation and forecasting, which then circle around to analysing customer preferences and creating more content that is tailored to their interests.

"It can be an effective and powerful tool in keeping up that all important social media presence that keeps your existing clients engaged, and could potentially even get new customers interested in your company too."

Website blogs

"Website content is essential for informational purposes and search engine optimisation.   Websites with good well written content are more findable online," Hou said.

"By generating blogs and other article content for your website using AI you can keep your website up to date and topical without a lot of effort.   Generative AI is very good for this type of activity."

AI can handle research

"We can now reliably use AI to conduct research, gather data, analyse information and summarise findings for us. The benefit of AI in this task is that AI is often more accurate than humans because it is not susceptible to human errors like typos and miscalculations," Hou said.

"When tasks are automated, it can increase the efficiency of the business and can free up time for humans to do other more complex tasks. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not be bogged down doing mindless repetitive tasks!"'

Benefits of AI pave the way for its future

"The advancement of AI has been a breakthrough in many ways and has the power to change the way we operate our businesses. Shifting a hefty amount of time consuming workload to AI bots can dramatically improve our own productivity and self-worth, not to mention that it saves money," Hou said.

"Some other interesting benefits of using AI that people often overlook are that they reduce workplace stress and bypass idle human procrastination. This optimises many business processes and helps us all to manage our work more efficiently. With all this said, I'm hoping that accountants will now view AI in a new light and give it a go!"'

About Platinum Accounting Australia

Platinum Accounting Australia is a national network of accounting and bookkeeping businesses that specialise in providing strategic and practical taxation, business and accounting advisory services.   Platinum accountants understand their customers' businesses and goals and help clients plan for their futures. Since 2008, Platinum has built a solid reputation for providing its clients with high quality timely services.

www.platinumaccg.com.au

Cheers!