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Remember the old computer saying 'Rubbish in Rubbish Out' even when we have advanced systems like these. Small businesses still need professionals to ensure they have the correct information to use.
John, no disrespect, but I had to laugh when I read this rubbish.
AI is gone, a bit like the old 8 track. We will soon be programmed with a chip in our head somewhere to do anything. (I jest not)
Can you imagine little kiosks dotted around the country doing "chip" repairs and upgrades. Just imagine how much information could be stored in a breast implant.
I wonder how much spreadsheet Phil will put aside for this new technology.
I totally agree with you Roy and, whilst we have been rolling QuickBooks Online out from our largest clients down, so far this year there has not been a single client that has decided to start dealing with the prep/management of their accounts themselves.
Just this week three clients contacted me with queries about getting information from QuickBooks (where we do all the data entry/management) and one now wants us to prepare budgets etc next year for them - a real breakthrough moment. The trend is that clients are seeing this as a step up in our service not an expectation of a step down in our bills.
Ultimately for all the advancement of tech, datafeeds etc require review and that requires knowledge to know if something is right or wrong. Bankfeed data learns but only if you teach it correctly in the first place.
For our smallest business clients then, lets be honest, they are never going to want to become bookkeepers and if we get their systems running smoothly then why would they want to jump ship?
Personally I'm glad we chose QuickBooks over the hype of others as at this point I feel that we are in control. Clients actually tend to be more scared of software than they would have been, say, to a red ledger book but the reality is still the same which is that if clients present us with data there is inherent risk and most importantly they are going to be spending their time and later in the year paying us for our time in fixing it.
QuickBooks Assistant sounds like something we can sell to our clients as an added benefit e.g. if we are helping you manage your accounts then when you ask the question you can have greater confidence that the answer you get back will be correct. When you think about it as well, being able to ask a question such as "what was my profit in January" is better than a client trying to manually find the report.
18 months ago this all scared the hell out of me but right now we all need to force ourselves to take a leap of faith.
I'm hoping the leap of faith will ultimately maintain our fee level, or increase, and reduce our working week down to a lovely round number like 40 but that is truly a leap of faith!
Whatever I ask my Honda Legend, it invariably responds "turning off air-conditioning" and then it fails to recognise the string of invective that follows...
Whoopee-do.
Where's the accounting machine where I can feed in scraps of dog-eared paper at one end and out comes a set of financial statements on the screen?
Wake me up when something really useful's been invented.