What's Next For Accounting? - Issue #69
Jason Staats
February 09, 2023
🧑🚀 New Launch
I soft-launched a new app over the weekend, ScanStraight. It's steeply discounted for the next week while it's in early access, but essentially converts terrible smartphone document pics into tidied-up scans. Imo this ought to be in the toolbelt of every firm admin.
🗓️ This Week
Here's a roundup of the coolest new stuff I personally picked up in 2022
"The best desk in the world" because your standing desk isn't fancy enough
A free Chrome extension to simplify your Twitter interface 💯
TigerBeetle raises $6M as a scalable double-entry backend for your apps
My pod this week ran through ChatGPT, offering background, dispelling myths + a trip to the hospital
Herman Miller launched a wee portal table
Keeper Xero support is now out of beta and anyone can use Keeper with Xero
A good discussion highlighting aspects of our profession that still can't be automated
The four best chatbot builders according to Zapier - I ran through situations where chatbots are better than web forms in this podcast
The comments on this video of a super-fast 10-keyer prove accountants had a hard time in high school
⚠️ AI Stuff Ahead ⚠️
Big news this week was Google announced their ChatGPT rival, Bard. It's in private beta now, will be released 'soon', and will also somehow be incorporated into their search experience
Not to be outdone, the next day Microsoft held a press conference announcing a new version of Bing (which is now live) that's like search had a baby with ChatGPT and it's every bit as confusing as that sounds
Ghostwriter is a Microsoft Word add-in that gives you a ChatGPT-like writing assistant
Google invests a whopping $300M in Anthropic, company of former OpenAI researchers with a ChatGPT-like model, Claude
💎This Week's Sponsor
🤖 Automate My Thing
Generate QBO Reports on an Automated Basis
QB's scheduled reports functionality lets you get your hands on PDF or Excel versions of reports without lifting a finger. It's available on any version of QBO and can run as frequently as daily.
Create a rule to route these emails to an automation app like Zapier or Make to level this up:
🟢 Beginner
Log BS and P&Ls to your file system on a monthly basis (for the clients you don't do the accounting for)
Each quarter pull the "Recent Transactions" report for your non-bookkeeping clients, to see if they're keeping current & ID those who need help
Pull the 1099 transaction detail report each month to see if they need to send out W-9s lul ya right
⚫ Advanced
Generate a daily unpaid bill list to incorporate into an automated cash reporting email
Use a PDF extraction app like DocParser or Microsoft AI Builder to pull data from reports
Use a data processing app like Parabola to pull structured data from the Excel report
😍From The Community
Month #2 of Swiping Right this week. This is a series that genuinely would had changed my life had I heard it early in my firm-running days. How to nail down your perfect client & manage those engagements successfully.
02/09 📗 Book Club - S04E03 with Kate Presto
02/14 💘 Swiping Right with Kellie Parks
02/15 📗 Book Club - S04E04 with Kate Presto
02/16 🏫 Hall Pass - Identifying a Niche with Brandon Hall
02/21 📗 Book Club - S04E05 with Kate Presto
02/22 🐠 EOS-Ish - The Model with Rachel Fisch
02/27 🕸️ Into The Chadiverse with Chad Davis
03/01 📗 Book Club - S04E06 with Kate Presto
03/01 🎤 Who Runs The World - “It’s me, Hi, I’m the problem it’s me” with Twyla Verhelst
My community Realize is a private space for people to swap ideas & collaborate. At $180/mo it’s also the way I finance everything else I do, pay a full-time creative director, and a part-time developer in an effort to make the accounting industry a slightly better place 💗 The community is currently about 280 members strong.