When the Software Starts the Conversation

Turns out, accountancy is changing, just not as fast as the fintech marketers would have us believe.

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit the HQ of a leading general ledger software company. While I’m sworn to secrecy on the specifics until their official unveiling at their upcoming conferences, I walked away with a deep insight into the future of accounting from through a fintech lens.

To summarise the three big bullets they revealed:

1. Seamless Integration for SMEs

Accounting, payroll and payments will become one unified experience. The goal? Enable SMEs to run their entire back office from within the general ledger system. No more tool-hopping. Everything, yes, everything, centralised.

2. Predictive Cash Flow

No more manually crafted cash flow forecasts. The software will predict incoming bills and outgoing payments, learning as it goes. A real-time pulse check on the business’s future cash position, without human input.

3. Agentic AI Takes the Mic

Here’s the one to sit up and take notice of. Using agentic AI, the software will be able to answer business owners’ questions about compliance, about strategy, about advisory matters with pinpoint accuracy. At first glance, it might seem like the automation of advisory. But don’t panic (yet). The advice may come from the machine, but the execution still belongs to the human. For now.

But here’s the real bullet I want to drive home:

The software will now initiate the advisory conversation. Not the accountant.

The software will:

  • Suggest questions the client should be asking
  • Educate the client on what they don’t know
  • Provide answers without you even knowing the conversation took place

So, my age-old advice stands firmer than ever: get closer to your clients. Be the voice they trust. Because soon, they won’t need to switch accounting firms to find a new trusted advisor. They’ll just listen to their software instead.

And here’s the twist…

The rate-limiting step in adopting this tech isn’t you anymore.

It’s the client.

I’ll let you work out the implications for yourself.

To your success

Martin Bissett

Picture of Martin Bissett

Martin Bissett

Martin Bissett is the founder of the Bissett Group of companies including data, software and digital communities such as APT, CAS, AIR and PAR.

Previously he established a high six figure consulting firm while serving as a keynote speaker with over 100 one off and repeat engagements to his name, as well as becoming the most published author on his topics of specialism with 14 books including 1 bestseller.

Since 1998, he has played a major part in working with over 2000 accounting firms in over 44 countries. These projects have led to those firms acquiring over £500m of recurring fees (before inflationary increases, referrals and upselling are factored in). He stopped keeping track of this number over 5 years ago.

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