Latest / Speaking Your Language / Episode 3 - Beyond the Numbers: How AI is changing the role of finance in business

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Episode 3 - Beyond the Numbers: How AI is changing the role of finance in business · Speaking Your Language

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Speaking Your Language, the AI podcast that is focused on how you really implement AI into your business.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: No hype, no noise, no jargon.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to this week's episode of Speaking Your Language.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Today we are talking about AI in accounting and business finance, and my special guest today is Alexis.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to let her introduce herself in a minute, but she is somebody that we've worked with for a long time at Configure, and also somebody that I know is now getting out there and talking about AI in business because she is a pretty forward-thinking uh accountant/slash finance person in general.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: So she's an amazing guest to have on the podcast.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very welcome.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm very glad to have you on.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome, Alexis.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, thanks for having me.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: How um excited I am to be on your podcast, especially as I know this is relatively new.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much for inviting me.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: No problem.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Do you mean to introduce myself?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Please do, yeah.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: All right, cool.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: So my name's Alexis Chakiv.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: I am the founder and CEO of Right Click Accounting, and I'm massively passionate about accurate finances in business to make really good strategic decisions.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think all founders should be looking to make sure that their accounts are as clean and as real-time as possible.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that AI is going to help us do that.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Love that.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start off with a bit of an overview about you and the business, because that's a great way to help people understand who you support in the moment.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of industries you support, the types of clients, customers, just so people have a bit of a background for you.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, cool.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, well, before I used to be everyone, I think when you start a business, you're just happy to have new clients on board.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I was quite a journalist.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: And as we've grown, we've got a team now, and found our sweet spot is in digital.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: So everything to do with automations and a lot of data coming in, especially for Xero.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we're Zero exclusive now.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Did explore the others, but I know it's inside out back to front, so I know how to fix it, which is a good skill to have.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: So for clients now, we're more niched in the retail space and professional services.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: And anyone with a lot of data feeding into Xero where they need really good reports is probably where we sit the best.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: How's the business gone over the last sort of 12 months for you?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Interestingly.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I've strategically stayed organic with organic growth.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: So relatively small, I would say.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: So there's me and a team of three, and I didn't want a huge team.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: I've never wanted to have a huge amount of people to look after because I always love the clients and I love the work and the information that we get.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm very aware that as you build a business, your role as CEO and as a leader, it moves away from the work that you love.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: So whilst I'm not doing all of the day-to-day stuff, I still want to stay really close to the foundations.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: And for the first time over the last six months, more so maybe 12 months and then more so the six months, I've realized I could scale our business without needing to hire more people.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that's quite controversial.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm gonna say I love humans, but I never wanted to grow a big team.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, using automations in AI and AI is exciting because it means I'm now able to grow in a way that I always wanted to, but didn't feel like I could.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I suppose when you're bringing people in then, it's because you're at the point of you know there's no more capacity in the team.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: You're as optimised as possible, and then you can bring more people in, right, as you go forward.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you obviously leverage AI in your business, and you're now encouraging the other businesses to use AI in accountancy.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And well done on the talk at the ICC box.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thanks.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was amazing, really good.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I I know there was a lot of people, I was sat in the audience with a lot of people, and they were they were sort of like scribbling down notes, and a lot of them are finance people themselves, and they're trying to get up to speed with all this stuff.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: How did you teach yourself and and what kind of things were you doing to get skilled up?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because obviously people want to know that as well.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, do you know what?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was really interesting for that talk.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: I was so nervous, but I had such good feedback.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I had a framework which, if you're happy for me to share, it was called the Clear Framework.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: So C is for clean data, um, L for live and real time, E is enhanced, so any automations and digitalization that you can do.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: A is for accountability, so having somebody as in a human being who's in charge of making sure all of that's accurate, because you still need a human in the loop.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then R is relevant, where the information that your reports and stuff is giving you isn't just because that's how you've always done it and it's an enormous spreadsheet.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually giving you maybe three to five massive KPIs in your business.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I came up with that probably about 12 months ago, because the amount of work that we've done over the years in right click usually is because we've got a mess and we inherit that mess.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: And me and Naomi won't mind me saying, but Naomi and my team, she loves a mess because there's a real value that you're adding to the customers that you're servicing because you know it's a mess.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: They can't rely on any of that information.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Their taxes are not wrong, their financial modelling might not be right.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: So we're adding, not just doing the job, but adding a huge amount of value.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I had that framework for a really long time, but it didn't fit anywhere.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And now that people are using AI and there's more, I think a lot of people know that there's better ways of doing things.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I say better not in the sense of getting AI to do something a human could do, but it's less, it's got less errors, it's quicker.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: It means that you can add those humans can be doing other things and adding more value in different ways.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: They're not just doing monotonous work.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: The only downside is a lot of people like that work.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's always a challenge.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be talking about it actually on future podcasts around the change that's happening in businesses as a result.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when you've got people like yourself that are trying to, you know, steer businesses to help them understand how it's gonna improve them, it also changes your service, right?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: So even as a business, you have to look at your service model and say, well, if we want to justify a cost of something, it's because our time's going into XYZ and that's the same for all businesses.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, are you seeing that in your clients as they start working with you and understanding their costs and their profitability and really getting a handle on it?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you're seeing them start thinking about?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, at the moment, I think we've started with security and now we're moving into profitability as well.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because uh the first thing is that using all of these different AIs and tools, people don't realize what they're actually plugging in to their financial information.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I've started off educating my clients, and that's one thing that I'm really an advocate for is educating clients and bringing them on that journey.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I do that in a number of ways.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: I've got my own podcast that, you know, I don't have guests, it's not as polished as this one, but I do try to talk about the things that I'm learning to help people.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: I have newsletters, I have calls for clients.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: So educating them on, you know, things like shadow AI.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: People haven't heard of shadow AI, and that's where finance teams or employees might be using their own version of AI on their phone in an unsecure way.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: And my clients are like, Oh, I've not heard of that before.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, no, but now you have.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Have a look into it.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe get an AI policy.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what are you doing to try and help?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're all learning at the same time.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: And now we're going into profitability.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: So, in terms of the anthropic and zero partnership, now we know Microsoft is now also partnered with Zero.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's how does those do those connections, what do they mean?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: What can it generate?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it's still early days, but it's exciting all the same.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is really exciting.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that we look at when we're working with businesses, because obviously we're bringing their data in from everywhere.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um one of the biggest challenges we have is the finance, financial data.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because if it's not right there, you have nothing else to really pin it on.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: So you can do all the other stuff and that's great, but if your finance data doesn't align, you're in a bit of a problem, you know.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So having the fact that somebody like yourself is going in and helping on the finance side and really getting businesses aligned makes everything else so much easier.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the things for me is people now, you know, with every job, they say, Well, is this going to replace that person?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So where do you think you've sort of touched on it in your framework by the way, which I love, but you where do you think you sit and where accountants, bookkeepers, anyone in finance currently sits with the way it's headed?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Such a good question.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that I'm probably one of the more maybe forward-thinking, and there are a lot of accountants, especially in my network, I know some phenomenal people who are looking at ways to be forward-thinking, and there's still other accountants I'll call them more traditional, that this is hasn't even scratched the surface.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: So there's going to be a huge range in the industry, as I'm sure lots of industries are like this.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to have people who are a bit more, you know, aware and educating themselves and interested, and others that are busy doing the doing and haven't got the headspace to look at anything else, or they'll think it'll well have the AI bubble will burst, so there's no point.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: But for me, and this is a bit controversial, and I don't know if I'm right, but this is how I'm going to be structuring my practice.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Notoriously, accountancy firms have been done in pods.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: So you'll have your seniors at the top, you know, your real tech specialists who are going to be more pricey.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then underneath that, you've got your, you know, all of them are accountants, but there'll be different levels of qualifications and expertise.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then below that, then you've got your, you know, your bookkeepers or your juniors and your apprenticeships.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Those pods then work.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: They have a set amount of clients, each pod, and they'll have multiple of those.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: And the the bigger the firm, the more pods they have.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's usually how it works.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, for me, I don't think those pod structures are going to be there long term.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, how I'm thinking about my business is that each of my team will be in charge of their own client portfolio and they'll be managing agents underneath them.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: So there will still always be someone accountable for checking all of the information.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to be controlling what agents we put in.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm currently looking at that with Zero, who's recently in ZeroCon announced Jax.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: So just ask Zero.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Any Xero users will know it was launched and it was terrible.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: It was a few years ago.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I mentioned this during my talk, but now they have improved it.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: And with their partnership with Anthropic, we can see where it's going to be going.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's only going to get better.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I've also seen on XeroCon, they they launched it.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was part of the alpha team, if you like, in looking at how these agents are going to be used.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it's very clear to me that anything that can be um looked at logically.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: So this is why AI is coming, kind of coming for accountants and the legals, because there's a logic.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: There's rules, it's, you know, everything fits.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people like that industry because there's rules and it's black and white, whereas one of the one places that AI can really learn and understand how everything works.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: So if you set your practice up in the right way and you know you've got a human looking after the agents, it means you can do more work, but maybe faster and 24 hours a day in theory.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: You work typically on an hourly model, right?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: If we're working with businesses and you say each month it's going to be this number of hours typically, and that's how it works.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's one of the that's a really key point.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Do I want to pay my accountant, bookkeeper, money to be wrangling numbers, or do I want them to be a genuine business partner that's giving me strategic advice, explaining where there's potential gaps, where we might need to look at certain things like revenue, um, cash flow, all of that sort of stuff.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually where the value is.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where you can, you know, really collaborate with businesses, isn't it?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's so in terms of the hourly side, you're right that we sort of gauge it to say, okay, you're on a monthly subscription, if you like, um, and it's say X amount of hours, but we've been doing it on transactional.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of accountants move from the hourly bill in.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: There are still, again, traditional accountants who are still on hourly bill in.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm not saying either of these are right and wrong.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's, you know, that's the beauty of being an entrepreneur and a business owner, you can run it as you like.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: But we then move to transactional.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: So you could say X amount of transactions would be X amount of money.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: And people might assign, say, a pound to a bank transaction on a bank feed.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: But if we now know that agents could potentially be reconciling those things without someone clicking a button, how do you put a value on that?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's this is where accountants are now moving into strategic strategic advice.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: I've been to a lot of accounty events like Account X London, loads of others as well, where that has been talked about for the last maybe 18 months, where people are going, right, you need to add value.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: So all accountants, if automation's going to come in, and we can talk about AI or automation, it's kind of all the same sort of thing.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: But where people are going, right, add value.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: But nobody's talking about what that value is.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you've just hit the nail on the head there.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: How do accountants change their skill set?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of looking at a set of accounts and knowing where things and where the numbers sit, and then how much tax that equates to and which tax it is.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: We've got a lot of taxes in the UK, and that tax expertise, how do they then pivot their skills to being a business advisor?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think they're very different skill sets.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I've been an entrepreneur before, I've run businesses, which is why I feel like I can move into that space fairly easily.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I have to train my team.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: How do I train my team to think like an entrepreneur when they think like accountants?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's gonna be the biggest shift that we're gonna see.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we're also seeing a lot of people leave the industry and go and do something different.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a really good time, I think, for a lot of accountants and bookkeepers to go, have I got those skill sets?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Or do I even want to learn?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Do I want to move into a strategic role?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Or is it time to look at something different?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do you find that it might not be the thing for everyone?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: So if people you talk to and they say, you say, look, we're this is what we're doing.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we think we're heading this direction.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Do they, as a business or as an individual or founder of the business, say, No, that's not for us.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want that service.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: I want you manually doing this stuff.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you say to them if they do?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, in fact, yeah.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because so I talked about security, and I don't know how any other accountants are doing this and whether this is classed as overkill, I don't know.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: All I'm doing is what my gut tells me is the right thing.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: So we sent out a comms to our clients.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you'll know, you saw it.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Where it was explaining, you know, what's anthropic and zero partnership, what does this mean?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: What is clawed?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because some people don't really know about these different AIs.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I sent out an email saying I've been using it, why have he used it?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, ethically I've chosen that particular platform.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then what does it mean if you plug all this in?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I educated my clients and then said, I'm gonna send you a PDF to be signed to tell me whether or not you're happy for us to plug these connectors in or not.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it was quite interesting that some people like yourself, who are more knowledgeable than I am in this area, just said, Yeah, absolutely, like basically already doing it, crack on.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Load of people where I'd said, if you want to have a chat about this, we're all learning at the same time.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm happy to share what I've learned.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's only self-taught, I haven't gone any courses, I'm just reading about this stuff every night.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: And said, you know, if you want to have coffee, video chat, we can chat it out.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: And loads of people came back to me and said, Yeah, that'd be great, please, because I don't actually understand any of this.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then I would have a chat and then signpost them to more information.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then some people came back and said, Absolutely not.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: We've got an anti-AI policy, really don't want any AI plugged into any of our data.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then on my practice um tool, I've put on a custom field that tells us whether or not that client is happy for us to use it or not, so that everyone in my team knows where they stand.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say the people saying no are more so from the creative industries.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm generalizing in terms of my client base.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not saying this is for everyone, but I get it.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: I understand why, because it's coming for people's jobs.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I do I do understand the worry, and I I think there's and and this is one of the reasons we do the podcast, right?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Is that we and we can only reach so many people doing the readiness programs and stuff that we do.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to make sure people can really understand this because yes, we did say yes, obviously, but obviously for our side, it's all about due diligence, making sure we're happy of where it's sitting, and um, you know, is it staying in the UK?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Is it being sent abroad?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you had all that covered, so yeah, that was all there, very clear, made a very easy decision for us.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: In terms of, like you say, from a security perspective, and we'll come on to there are still potential risks, I suppose.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: We'll come on to that in a second, but from a security perspective, you're doing everything right.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: But people still didn't want it because, like you say, they've taken a a view of I don't want to work with AI because it might affect our industry more than others.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's a really interesting debate, and I don't think we're gonna be the ones who answer it.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: But it's one of those things where I'm I'm very aware that people are worried about it, but it's kind of not going away.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's more about can you learn about how you can leverage it?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you aren't, your competitors will be.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's my view.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you feel the same.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Unless we get regulation, AI isn't going anywhere because everyone's enjoying using it.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Most people are enjoying using it in their businesses because it's so powerful.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I use Claude mainly in Fable.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: I've been watching what Fable's capable of and it blows my mind.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm excited because I'm able to scale my business in a way I wasn't wanting to scale it before.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm in a different headspace.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: If I was in, you know, branding and marketing, and somebody was sending me a logo that they created on ChatGPT and said, can you just judge this up for me?
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: I can imagine how deflating that must be.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I understand that this is gonna affect different people in different ways.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's going anywhere, though.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: I completely agree with you on that.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: And the ones that are gonna survive, shall we say, are the ones that at least know what's going on.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, we spend so much of our time actually in a lot of places trying to not implement AI because there's so many other good practices that can be done first, like good data practice, standard operating procedures, actual workflow automations, things like that that have been long around forever, right?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you get those right, and then where these fringe things that can't be done in any other way, then you can leverage them because it gives you new USPs, new capabilities, right?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: And in your space, it's not like you're throwing absolutely everything at it.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're going, it's for these specific things.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe it comes down to that's on us as business owners to identify where those things are happening.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think for anyone who's using AI, and you say AI policy is really important, transparency, like what you're using it for.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: But it's one of those debates that is just gonna go on for a while.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And like you say, even if it gets regulated, it'll be about how much you can use or where you can use it.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: But for now, it's here and everyone else can be levering it.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it is exciting, it is exciting, but also daunting because it unlocks new possibilities.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it does.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I've taken a bit of a stance.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I am absolutely love my team.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: They are the backbone of how my business runs.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I wouldn't be able to do the opportunities like this if it weren't for them, and I do not take that for granted.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: So there's no w way that I would look to try and use AI instead of them.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: No way.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but it's just the work that they're doing.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: So there's no value for me now in let's say Naomi, who's an incredible bookkeeper and um where she loves the data and she will make sure everything talks to each other as it should do with any integrations.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: And there's for her though, there's no value in her sitting there and clicking just one button 20, 50, 100 times.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: But where I can get more value from Naomi and her skill set is by plugging in some sort of automation, auto-reconcile, or agent to do that clicking and then she checking all of that data, but on a higher level.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: So there's more data, you know, that's coming in.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then reading that data and being able to think, oh, for that client, let's do some research.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: What's the gross profit margin in that industry?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, is the client hitting that gross profit margin?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: What could they maybe be doing to increase their gross profit margin?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Have they thought about different things?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: And also having conversations with clients.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: So one thing we've decided we won't be doing is having chatbots and you know, automated call answering service.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: When somebody calls my company, I want a human to answer the phone.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that's non-negotiable.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't see me ever changing from that because that for me, we're, you know, we're in accounts, we're in finance.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's the most sensitive data a business holds.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: They want to speak to someone.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's about having humans and people in all the right touch points, like you say, is making sure that you have a face to the business, you have fit multiple, you know, account managers that are dealing with these things so that you can pick up pick up the phone.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't think many people particularly like using chatbots, but they will if it's convenient.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's far easier than pick up the phone.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a place for it sometimes, and then sometimes there's not, and that's on each business to decide, isn't it, inde independently.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you mentioned risks.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think the risks of AI are currently in the industry?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, such a good question.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um looking at it from my perspective of the history that I've seen is people plugging in any sort of AI or sticking on autoreconcile and then thinking that they're doing it right.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because these systems don't tell you, like talk about zero, okay?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know that really well.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: People will put on auto-reconciliation on their zero and think that it's, oh my god, it's done it.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's not right though.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: So a good example of this, somebody buys a USB cable for three quid, puts its office equipment in zero, it'll auto-reconcile if that's what you've told it to do.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, brilliant.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: They have no idea that that's now gone to their balance sheet.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about limited companies here, but they have no idea that's gone to their balance sheet when it should have gone as an expense in their profit and loss because they don't know what they don't know.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: But by putting in these automations without that knowledge, you people don't know it's wrong until it's probably down the road and somebody does an investigation, realizes they're accounted to absolute rubbish, and then HMRC comes from with a VAT inspection.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: So those are the risks I think are going to hit business owners.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: The risks for all of us are enormous.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not an AI expert.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's obviously different scenarios, but if there's no regulation, I think it's honest to learn how you know, and you're right, as a business owner, what decisions we make.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're an employee of a business, it's trying to figure out okay, what are the drivers What's your CEO thinking in your business, in the business you work for?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say to businesses that are looking to use AI in their finances currently?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: And how are they going to do that?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because my my recommendation would be speak to Alexis if I'm honest.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: But outside of that, if they want to ex experiment safely and start understanding what it can do, what's what's the first step they should look at?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so explore AI, absolutely, but do not give it any of your financial data.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: There's ways of redacting it.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: If you're not familiar with that, it's blurring out any sensitive information.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: So let's say you are on Zero or free agent, any, or your own spreadsheets, however you've got your information.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to ask AI something about your information, just take your business names out, take your suppliers' names out.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: There's ways of being able to do that fairly quickly.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then you're giving it numbers.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: It hasn't got any context.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: So then if you're looking for information, you know, how profitable is my business, if you give it a bit of general information, you know, what industry are you in?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: What's your staff turnover, you know, your staff numbers, what is it that you're actually selling products, what's your GP supposed to be, so growth profit meant to be in your industry.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Give it information so that it can give you out the stuff that you're looking for, but without telling it who you are, who your suppliers are, who your customers are, and anything sensitive.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's a safe way of being able to get the information you want without serving it information because a lot of these AIs are in the US.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's another thing people are not really talking about, I don't think.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: And if we're a UK-based company, we don't know which data centers they're sat in.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: So even with anthropic being one of the more ethical ones, I guess, we still don't know where that information is and where they move it around.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was even looking into um there's a data center in Newport and it's a Microsoft, and I thought, oh, right, okay.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: So Microsoft and Anthropic.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a way that I can kind of ring fence so that the data for my clients is only in that data center?
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: But the the truth is we don't control it and we'll never control it.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: So as much as I can try and keep it as secure as possible, it's out of my hands.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: So what I do do is at least try and do it as safely as I can.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and there are ways to do it.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Some of it requires downloading your own model, putting that on your own servers, or, you know, in our case, for example, we have dedicated U-Gay servers that we only host it on.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're using large language models, doesn't it doesn't apply.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: And unless you go on a very, very premium enterprise subscription, which most people aren't on.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: And also another tip as well that you mentioned there around not including core information or saying who you are, a lot of people have memory turned on, so it knows about their business.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to very explicitly say, um, this is about another business if you want to kind of misdirect it.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: So there's little things like that as well that will catch people out.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: But hopefully, if you're on premium plans, it's not training models anyway.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: But again, it's something people need to look at, isn't it?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, and also getting the right people in your little black book.
• 24:45
  unknown: Yeah.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: Where can you turn?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're new to all this and you don't have anyone like Marco who will be able to steal you in the right direction, or you, you know, your accountant might not be as clued up at the moment about this sort of stuff.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: What events can you go to?
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that event we went to and we both spoke at was yeah, was really good and is a good starter.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're all learning together at this point.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: You and I aren't, I mean, obviously you're in your industry, you've been in it a lot longer than me, but I'm an accountant by by trade.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know anything about AI, I'm relatively new to it, but I surround myself with people who are really knowledgeable and are eager to keep learning, and I think that's really important for business owners.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and don't play yourself down, you are very far into the journey of learning.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, where everything you were talking about at that event was fantastic, so it was really good.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so a final question before I go on to uh the close.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh where do you see accountancy slash booking opinion and finance in general over the next three years?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think is going to be the shift?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's a good question.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: I would say this is a good question because a lot of people are like, well, will I lead an accountant?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: And the truth is people who've wanted to do their own accounts for a long time will always continue to do that unless they reach a limit where they decide they want somebody in.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I call them the DIYers or the unrepresented.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: If they want to use AI to continue with their business, they're gonna f you know, they might well have been doing it themselves anyway.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: So there's no difference there.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: But where I see accountants and bookkeepers is going to be more on the strategic side.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Not the, you know, paper bags being dropped off once a year and somebody just tells them what's their tax return amount and then there's their accountancy bill and we'll see you in another 12 months.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I would say that's been changing for quite a long time.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, with digitalization and all of these cloud software tools, you know, clients, I've seen a change in clients.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: They want to know where they are more regularly.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: They, they, you know, they're keeping an eye on their numbers.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: They want to know if they can afford to, you know, buy a car or have another member of staff.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: So the interest in business ownership, I think, has changed as well in in terms of finance.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: We've still got a way to go with financial literacy.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I also think there's an element of education.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, our accountants and bookkeepers need to start explaining the numbers to businesses in a way that they understand, which is a challenge because if you're a graduate from an accountancy firm and you've surrounded yourself with other accountants, you all talk the same language.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: To try and explain that to a plumber or a hairdresser or, you know, even a software developer, it takes a different type of skill.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll just see accountants probably widen their skill set in terms of how they support their clients.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm gonna leave you with the final question.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: So can you recommend a book or podcast?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: We'll start there.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh, okay.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um my podcast repres recommendation is gonna be really controversial, but I do find it really informative, is Stephen Bartlett's.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't have an opinion about him as a person and the guests he has on.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: I like listening to lots of different ones around AI because they have different perspectives.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think just absorbing that information is really useful, especially when it's coming from people who I would never actually get a chance to speak to from where I where I am.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but keeping a bit of a level head when you listen to it because a lot of them are you know, the world is over.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just keeping a bit of a level head, but being aware of what's going on inside of these AI companies.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: He does have fantastic guests.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Across everything as well.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: But his AI guests are always like top-notch people in the field as well.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it makes a very good uh listen, you're right.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then one tool.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: One tool.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: I love Claude.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: I just I know that it's AI, but for me, it feels like the more ethical of them.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you can read into into Claude and and why.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um you'll see they're one of the um they're one of the only AI companies that are actively talking about the negative side of things, which it hits their bottom line.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: So then you have to question, well, if it's gonna hit their bottom line and probably not put them in favour with their in their investors, they're doing it for the good of humanity, which is why I like them.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I use Claude and the way that it talks is not as chatty.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I think there's less psychological damage, especially for me and if my children were using it as much as I know the others are are really good.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: They don't interact with a human conversation as much.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Claude is more for work, and I prefer that.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you asked me about a book, but I'm gonna mention the one that you brought in.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you spotted it.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you explain it.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I pick a book every week for my guest, and I got the Chimp Paradox, the mind management for Alexis this week.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: And she will know why.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's because I think sometimes uh as somebody that is so such a powerhouse and is running your own business, doing talks, I think sometimes you get in your own head in the same way as I- Yeah, and you're in me in the same way as I used to.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I I wanted to give you this one.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: I know you've read it before, but too.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: But not for a long time.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think this is key about this book, actually, because I a massive um believer that your business grows, but you're you as a founder, you grow as well.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think the chimp ever really goes away.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: It just it just changes character sometimes as you grow.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, thanks.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good good recommendation.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Put him in his box in the back of your mind.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, last one, one piece of advice.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: You're on a lifelong learning journey, so you know, it's okay to not know things.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think we're way past the time where you could learn a trade and it would be your trade for the next 50 years and you would retire.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: We are all on a lifelong learning journey.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm millennial.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we've had social media, nobody knew how to use that.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: We've had to learn, we've had apps, we've had phones, we're all just used to learning.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it can be a bit exhausting.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna lie, the constant change and things that we have to keep on top of, it's exhausting.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: But at least we're all in it together.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're all learning these new things.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: So somebody that feels like they're far behind, probably are really not, and just understanding that you there's people out there that are still learning as well, and you can jump on this on this ride together.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a great piece of advice.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you very much for being my guest.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's been good.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: I could sit here all day.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and me.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's like we're it's like we're normally having a conversation.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: But thank you very much for listening, and I will see you on the next podcast.