AI in Accounting

Trent Mclaren 5 min read 24 July 2026

Real Firms, Real Builds: What Accountants Are Creating With AI Vibe Coding Right Now

In a recent panel at The Firm's AI in Practice Summit, three accountants shared their journeys of creating effective internal tools using AI vibe coding, despite initial coding challenges.

Electra Frost 5 min read 24 July 2026

AI tools are giving tax advice. Accountants should be behind them.

AI tools are now providing tax advice, often without qualified accountants behind them, raising concerns about accountability and reliability. As AI's influence grows, the accounting profession must step up to ensure…

Client consent for AI: what to tell clients, when to ask, and the letter to send

Whether you need client consent to use AI depends on where you practise and what data you feed the tool: US tax preparers face a criminal statute, while AU, UK and Canadian firms mostly work from professional codes and…

AI for Canadian accounting firms: CPA Canada's position, PIPEDA, and what's actually allowed

Canada has no dedicated AI law, so Canadian accounting firms using AI answer to PIPEDA, provincial privacy statutes like Quebec's Law 25, and their provincial CPA code of conduct. This guide explains what the regulators…

AI and the IRS rules: what US accounting firms can and can't do

US firms can use AI in tax practice, but Section 7216 makes unauthorized disclosure of client tax return information a crime, and the IRS made clear in June 2026 that Circular 230 duties apply in full to AI-assisted…

The AI month-end close, step by step

A tool-agnostic, day-by-day walkthrough of a month-end close with AI folded into the steps where it genuinely earns its place: reconciliation triage, accrual prep, variance commentary drafts and checklist automation.…

AI for UK accounting practices: ICAEW and ACCA guidance, GDPR, and the practical path

UK accounting practices have more official AI guidance available than most realise: ICAEW has published a full generative AI guide, ACCA has a formal position paper, and the ICO has detailed guidance on AI and data…

The Python scripts accountants are quietly writing (and how AI writes them for you)

In between "learn to code" courses and app-building platforms sits a middle layer almost nobody covers: tiny, single-purpose scripts that kill the 20-minute weekly chores in a tax practice. Practitioners are already…

Speech-to-text for accountants: talk three times faster than you type

Modern AI dictation tools like Wispr Flow and superwhisper turn messy speech into clean, formatted text in any app, and speaking is roughly three times faster than typing. This guide compares the main options on price,…

Trent McLaren 8 min read 22 July 2026

Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek and the rest: do accounting firms need a fourth AI?

Most accounting firms don't need an AI beyond Claude, ChatGPT or Copilot, but if your firm runs on Google Workspace, Gemini isn't a fourth option, it's your first. We take an honest look at Gemini's in-suite case,…

Agentic AI in accounting, explained (before a vendor explains it to you)

Every accounting software keynote now says "agentic," and most of the audience is nodding along without a working definition. Here's what an AI agent actually is, which agents are real in accounting today versus…

The one-page AI policy every accounting firm needs (write it this week)

Nearly every accountant is already using AI, but only about one in five firms has a written policy governing it, which means the real policy is whatever each person quietly decides at their desk. This walkthrough gives…

Is AI safe for client data? The accountant's straight answer

The honest answer to whether accountants can use AI with client data: yes, if you use business-tier tools and a handful of non-negotiable rules. The real risk is your process, not the model. We break down what ChatGPT,…

Trent McLaren 12 min read 22 July 2026

AI meeting assistants for accountants and bookkeepers: what works

Every client meeting creates unbilled work: the file note, the follow-up email, the actions somebody promised. The right AI meeting assistant for an accounting or bookkeeping firm is the one whose output lands in your…

Claude vs ChatGPT vs Copilot: which AI should your accounting firm actually run?

A structured, practitioner-first comparison of Claude, ChatGPT and Microsoft 365 Copilot for accounting firms: pricing, business-tier data terms, real strengths and weaknesses, and firm-type recommendations. The honest…

Trent McLaren 18 min read 22 July 2026

28 AI prompts for accountants, from tax change letters to GST

Working AI prompts for accountants, led by the one firms search for most: a client letter about a tax change, with a checklist for reviewing what comes back. The rest are organised by the real jobs in a firm (GST…

ChatGPT for accountants: what it's actually good at (and where it will bite you)

ChatGPT is the AI most accountants actually use, usually on a personal free account their firm's policy has never heard of. Here's what it's genuinely excellent at, the specific ways it will bite you on numbers, tax and…

What Copilot gets right for accounting firms (that the AI crowd won't admit)

The AI commentary crowd treats Microsoft Copilot as the boring choice, yet it keeps winning accounting firm deployments, often for rational reasons. This piece makes the honest steelman case: where Copilot genuinely…

How to set up Claude Cowork in your accounting firm: the practical guide

A practical, step-by-step walkthrough for accounting and bookkeeping firm owners setting up Claude Cowork: from choosing the right plan and settling your client-data policy to connecting the first folders and…

MCP for accountants, explained (without the jargon)

MCP is the plug standard that lets AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT talk directly to the software your firm already runs, which is why Xero, Ignition and half your app stack suddenly mention it. Here's what it…

Beau Gaudron 6 min read 9 July 2026

Karbon MCP and AI: five jobs I used to do by hand in Karbon

A Newcastle firm owner shows five Karbon jobs AI can take on. Two need only a spreadsheet export. With an MCP connector built from Karbon's published spec, Claude reassigned a staff member's work and turned one client…

Dave Sellick 6 min read 9 July 2026

AI writes 10,000 lines of code in an afternoon. We still tell most firms to wait.

Dave Sellick and Jonathan Gaunt build AI tools every day and still tell most firms to wait: why the code needs rewriting, why client data stays out, and where AI earns its place.