2023 Review
As 2023 comes to end I will reflect on the year so far and what I think is to come in 2024.
Personal review and diary changes
This is the first time in my life that I have ever kept any form of a diary, and I have struggled to keep to the weekly timescale I originally set out. The main reason for this is that running a successful accountancy practice doesn’t always leave a huge amount of time for the things I want this diary to be focussed on, and also my inability to keep to a rigid schedule.
With this in mind I am proposing a few changes within the diary itself, but also how I go about things:
Rather than weekly, I am going to move to fortnightly, this will allow me more time in the two weeks to actually undertake and make progress on the digital work I feel is important to us as a firm, but also the industry as a whole.
I am also going to change the format, instead of covering off the work I do in a daily format, I am proposing to move it to a topic based approach, so I can go into more depth on the actual work and products we as a firm are working on.
I will put a side time each day to actually take note of any digital work I do. I am planning to do this using my ReMarkable to keep bullet point notes of things I work on, as I work on them.
Keeping a log of this throughout the year has definitely been beneficial for me, but there is still room for improvement and hopefully the above will make this not only more beneficial for me, but more importantly for you too. Please do reach out if there are further things I can do make this better for you too.
2023 Review
This year has been a fascinating year for the world and the accounting industry too. Artificial Intelligence’s breakthrough to the mainstream has started to change how everything changes, and how we look at the work we do. I personally think it is a fantastic opportunity for those how embrace it and start to integrate it into their work.
As a personal service industry our real profits are generated from one of two places; highly efficient compliance only services and highly valued advisory services.
Only one of these, I believe, will remain indefinitely and it isn’t compliance. This will very soon be completed by the software our client’s use and will need limited input from us as accountants.
What AI can do is, in the interim, make compliance more efficient allowing us more time to spend on the advisory offering. Also using AI to bring meaning to the vast amounts of data we have can help elevate that advisory offering to new heights.
This is only going to continue into 2024, and I will hopefully cover all this as and when things move along.
On a personal level I have had some great opportunities this year to talk to the wider profession; talking at Accountex North, being on Forbes Solicitors’ Podcast covering AI in employment law and being invited on IRIS’s podcast talking about the Talent Gap in our industry (coming out soon) and what we can do about it. I am looking forward to what 2024 brings on this front.
I am actively providing a presentation on AI and how it can be used in a professional world, so if this is of interest to you and your business, please let me know.
I will pull together a summary of my top AI apps for 2023 before the new year, and put this in a separate post, along with my recommended newsletters and fellow Substack posters that I think cover the AI sector very well!
2024 predictions and goals
My predictions for 2024 boil down to three main areas:
The introduction of AI into client’s software and competition from accountants that use AI to assist with compliance work will put the squeeze on compliance only firms, that do not embrace the technology.
There will be a race to the bottom on price for compliance only work, but I don’t believe these are the client’s that most accountants should be targeting, as we offer so much more than that. Client’s will be willing to pay for compliance work, if it comes with the knowledge that they are getting excellent advisory services alongside it.
AI will embed itself into every bit of tech we use, some for the worse, some as a gimmick, but most for the better. One thing to bear in mind when this happens, and one thing I lost sight of at one point this year internally at our firm, is that efficiency shouldn’t come at the cost of the personal touch that people truly value, and will become more valuable.
Thank you for joining me on my 2023 journey and I look forward to continuing the journey into 2024 and beyond.
Have a brilliant festive period!