Embracing the Future: How AI is Revolutionising Accountancy

The mention of AI in professional services usually conjures images of robots taking jobs. Industry news frequently portrays our industry in danger, with accounting firms not ready to handle AI, the impact on staff and on ensuring regulatory compliance.

This is not the case at SCC.

We believe that AI can actually be a powerful partner to help create efficiencies for us and opportunities for you.

How can SCC clients benefit from AI?

Improving efficiency and accuracy

AI tools can help reduce the slow, but necessary in some cases, tasks like data entry and reconciliation. AI-powered software can process vast amounts of financial data in minutes, removing the risk of human error and ensuring the integrity of your financial records. This means faster turnaround times on your reports and a more streamlined process overall.

We have integrated this process into our ‘SCC Complete’ service for our clients which we manage all bookkeeping, payroll and year end accounting and tax for and on average our clients have saved 40%-50% on their bookkeeping time. This means a cost saving along with faster and more accurate information.

Enhanced fraud detection

Another benefit of AI integrated software is that it can continuously monitor transactions for unusual patterns or anomalies that traditional methods might miss. This provides an extra layer of protection against fraudulent activity, ensuring the security and integrity of your finances.

Our Forensic Accounting team at SCC utilises this protection consistently with clients that have suffered internal or external fraud within their business. Unfortunately, most businesses will have fraud at varying levels within their business so it is important to put controls in place to protect and AI does this brilliantly.

Providing more strategic services

By automating routine tasks, we free up our time to spend on the things that add the most value to your business. This means more time for us to work with you on strategic financial planning, tax optimisation, and business growth strategies. Our role shifts from being a compliance professional to a trusted strategic advisor, working hand-in-hand with you to achieve your goals.

Rather than constantly chasing information and working late hours to meet filing deadlines, our ‘SCC Complete’ clients are able to focus their attention to reviewing margins and making decisions to improve profitability, create plans to reduce tax and manage their business and personal wealth effectively.
How SCC Chartered Accountants is staying ahead of the AI curve.

In a recent article in Accountancy Age, Kate Howard, the UK Country Manager at Xero explained how “Technology is broadening its parameters, but also burdening accountants who need to rapidly upskill themselves to keep up – let alone take advantage.”

We believe that staying ahead of the curve isn’t just an advantage, it’s a necessity. We’re proud to be at the forefront of this change, embracing the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to deliver a new level of service for our clients.

Our dynamic team

The successful adoption of AI is not just about the technology, it’s very much about the people who wield it.

We are a predominantly energetic and dynamic team. Our staff all have a passion for learning and a hunger for innovation.

All our staff members come with a high level of digital literacy and are already able to work with AI in their workflows.

Our Managing Director, Seán Cavanagh outlines the benefits of having a team willing to embrace change: ‘Our recruitment focus in recent years has been centred around top quality people with an obvious desire to embrace the obvious changes happening in accountancy and a willingness to consistently present these opportunities to our clients. This mindset has been transformational for both SCC and our clients’.

Developing core skills

The skills we are developing in SCC are not just about number crunching, but in data interpretation, monitoring trends and identifying risks. It’s these skills that will enable us to offer better strategic advice and support to our clients.

With MTD moving businesses record keeping online, the digital shift will accelerate. But with this change, we believe that having digitised data will allow for greater transparency of business operations and enable chartered accountants like SCC to better understand opportunities. It will help move businesses from simply descriptive reporting to accountants being able to prescribe and advise.

“In contrast to automation, which simply follows a pre-recorded process, AI gives automated processes the ability to think, make judgements and keep learning as things change. AI marks the move into more predictive and prescriptive analytics. (Accenture)”

Recruitment and retention

We encourage the recruitment of younger members of staff, ones that have analytical skills but also higher value activities like identifying risks, finding opportunities and problem solving – something which AI – at the time of writing, can not yet do.

Offering exceptional client service

As we integrate more AI tools into our accounting processes, we want to assure clients about its role and how it is being used. We ensure that clients are fully aware of how it is used and safeguards in place.

But, at the heart of our business is our ability to build and maintain strong relationships. To grow with businesses and utilise our industry knowledge and network to help their success. A strength of SCC Chartered Accountants that is at the core of our offering.

Safeguarding our clients

With the use of AI in accounting also comes security concerns, but at SCC we are fully transparent and have policies in place to secure financial data when using AI.

We also maintain robust cybersecurity measures and maintain secure data storage to protect against data breaches.

Cybersecurity is now vital for all businesses for fraud prevention, protecting data and maintaining customer trust. At SCC, we have a specialist cybersecurity team ready to protect your business today with a tailored support.

We don’t foresee robots taking over any time soon, but we will continue to recruit and retain and train the best accounting teams, ready to support our clients and take advantage of AI technology.