Comment by notahacker
4 days ago
Lots of this is already being done (and using computers to check books balanced predates latest gen AI by some decades). But of course what accountants actually get paid for is tax strategy, edge cases, messy history and talking to authorities (or at least having their stamp of approval on it if the authorities come calling). There's plenty of market for writing software to automate aspects of invoice reconciliation or monitoring accounts for exceptions, but competition already exists...
At the SMB scale accountants are mostly paid to coach/pester/goade the employees to hand in the necessary paperwork in time. The accountants job is relatively quick from there on.
> At the SMB scale accountants are mostly paid to coach/pester/goade the employees to hand in the necessary paperwork in time.
The perfect job for AI.
I'm not sure if you're being sincere or sarcastic, but the whole reason that coaching, pestering, and goading works is that I value my relationship with the human who is doing it.