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Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA: Welcome
to the Accounting Technology
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Lab, brought to you by CPA
Practice Advisor, with your
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hosts Randy Johnston and Brian
Tankersley. What I was gonna
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what I was gonna ask, I guess,
is that you know, Sasha, you've
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introduced a lot of things, and
this whole paradigm shift is
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really intimidating to a lot of
us that have been in this
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profession for a long time, you
know, how do you know? Short of
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taking the ice bucket challenge
and just jumping in with both
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feet, how do you get started
down this journey effectively
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without you know without
completely shutting the door on
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all the stuff you've built?
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Sasha Orloff: I mean, I think
about this stuff all the time as
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it comes to like our sales
process and our optimization
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process. Yeah, I would say so.
If you're listening, like if
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your listeners are there, and so
I guess if we have a bunch of
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firms that use Puzzle that start
taking the last week of the
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month, you might have more
competition on your podcast,
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because people are going to want
to figure out what to do with
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the last week of every month.
No, Brian, back to your point.
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Yeah, I think the natural
tendency I think for people that
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are new to AI is they think
about they give it a task that
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is kind of frivolous or not
really you know helpful, and
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then they go, oh, like that's
kind of cute. I think give it
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something really hard and
obscure to see. There, like
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think about what in your last
month of closing process for
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your clients, what was something
complex that just took you a lot
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of time. Now, is it going to get
it right out of the box?
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Probably not, because you're
not. Most people aren't used to
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describing their problem in an
articulate way with all of the
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different steps, and I use the
analogy of like telling my kids
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to go clean their room, and I
say go clean the room, and I
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know what that means, but like
what are the chances that they
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go and they clean the room to
the same level that I thought
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about? And so when you think
about how do you articulate to
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AI, I have to say, go into your
room, scan the room. Take your
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bed, move your sheets and your
duvet, cover it over. Put the
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pillow at the top so it's
perpendicular to your bed at the
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top. Take your clothes, take the
shirts, fold up all the shirts,
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put them in the shirt drawer.
Take the underwear, put them in
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the underwear drawer, socks and
sock drawer. Or I could come in
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and say, hey, just if I say
clean your floor and make your
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bed, and I open up the closet
door and everything comes
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tumbling out. Well, they said
you said clean the floor, right?
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So I think a lot of you point
me. So take something that is
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hard and just put it into AI.
Don't use any client
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information. Just like try
something obscure. Take your own
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personal data. Take something
that's low risk, but something
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hard and put it in, and learn
how to really articulate your
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judgment in a way that is just
like you would explain to a
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brand new super smart person who
doesn't know anything about
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accounting. Try that. That's
what I say now in Puzzle, which
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not here to mention like a sales
purpose again, because
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everything is opt out. You can
go build agents, and we put a
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bunch of safety guards in there,
so nothing ever changes in your
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ledger unless you type in YES.
Now, of course, you can always
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undo it and like fix it because
it's still ledger. Like you can
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click around, but we make it so
that you can just throw all
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sorts of crazy stuff. You can
choose from lots of templates
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that we build that are generated
on skills and do it now. If you
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don't want to use puzzle because
that's like too much, like I
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don't want to switch ledgers and
do something, you'll notice that
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one of the limitations of the
industry, because of how things
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were architected 30 years ago,
is the API or the interface
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between softwares, how they talk
to each other, is a CRUD API.
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You can create, read, update,
and delete transactions or
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journal entries. Now that is
helpful. You know that's
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interesting. Let's take out some
transactions. Let's do something
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with them, and let's change
them. Obviously, accounting is
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way more complex than just
changing a categorization of a
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transaction or something. But
you know you can take around and
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you can try individual things.
Just take a transaction. You can
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put just a transaction because
you can literally copy and paste
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it into ChatGPT or Gemini or
Claude or Anthropic, and just
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say, change. Here's a chart of
accounts. Just anonymize a chart
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of accounts. Upload a
transaction system. Say, hey,
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transaction description came in
like this. How would you
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categorize this?
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That's a very low risk way, a
low touch way to start playing
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with it now, of course, that's
frivolous and not that
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interesting. But like, if you're
just like, I've never done this
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before, copy a transaction
description, copy your chart of
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accounts, paste into an AI,
scrub for any personal
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information about your clients,
and just say, hey, what category
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do you think this would? What
category do you think this
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should go to? Again, so listing.
Yeah.
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Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA: So
what I hear you saying is that
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you're going to generate
prompts, and a prompt in your
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mind is really analogous to
almost a checklist. And you're
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going to set up a you're going
to and so that's how you're
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going to define this is how you
clean your room or this is how
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you this is how you reconcile a
bank statement and so forth.
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There, okay, well, good. I think
you've I think clarifying. These
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terms, because there are a lot
of terms like agents and prompts
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and things like that, and you
know when a lot of us enjoyed
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the Matrix movies, and you know
when we see agent, we see Agent
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Smith, and he's the bad guy, and
so it's helpful to have that
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perspective from you about this,
because again, you remember
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you're setting it up where nope,
nothing happens unless you say
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okay, and I think that's the
important thing that we have to
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remember with this: is that you
are still the boss.
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Randy Johnston: And Brian, you
heard him say earlier he has the
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AI pill from Silicon Valley. So
I think in our time together
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that you know we've discovered
that autonomous means that the
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books can close themselves, and
you find the mistakes later. But
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the alternative is, you know,
the person deciding before it
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posts through these agents, and
the profession really doesn't
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need AI that removes the
accountant; needs AI that makes
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the accountant better and the
ledger able to close itself. So
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I think that's really nifty
because you know. Bottom line is
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AI can't be accountable by
itself. So, Sasha, any parting
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thoughts for our listeners today
that we that you think is really
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important that we know?
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Sasha Orloff: I think that
everybody should start exploring
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and testing with options
themselves in the market, you
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should constantly be evaluating
how do I get better, because
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other people are, and if your
firm isn't or you aren't as
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maybe the leader of your firm,
you're going to set the culture
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change that it is okay to play
with this again in the safety
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way. Like, don't just shove all
of your client information into
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some random AI tool, like you
said, but like you should play
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with this. You can't. You can
play with this. Give some
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guardrails of like some baby
steps that people can. I do
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fundamentally believe that firms
that adopt and start learning
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are going to be the ones that
are going to make way more money
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than ever before, and we're
seeing it in almost every other
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profession that has adopted AI,
from lawyers to engineers, other
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professional knowledge work,
they're making more money and
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they're delivering a better
product to their colleagues, to
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their companies, to their
clients, and it is not too late.
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This level of automation we've
been hearing about in the news,
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we read about on Twitter the
promise of productivity in
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accounting. I would argue, I
think fairly credibly, it's only
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really started this year. It's
been somewhat novelty. It's been
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somewhat problematic last year.
I would say this year, right
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now, we're finally starting to
see the actual productivity with
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actual case studies and actual
implementation. That is a
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lesson. It is not too late. Just
get started, and have fun and
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enjoy it. If done the right way,
it doesn't have to be Agent
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Smith. It can be Q from James
Bond. It can be the helpful
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technologist that is here to
make you the best version of
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yourself.
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Randy Johnston: Beautiful. So,
Brian, any other thoughts,
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questions?
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Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA: You
know, I've been reflecting on
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this, and it reminds me of a
podcast I listened to recently
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from John Kiriaku. That's a it
was a CIA analyst that he was
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describing the experience of 911
in the CIA offices, and
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everybody was looking up at the
towers in flames, and finally at
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the end, somebody at the back
yelled, "Will somebody please
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lead? Okay, and then action
started happening. Okay, and I
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think that's the challenge to
our profession: is you know you
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may be comfortable, you know you
may have started like I did in
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the days when people smoked at
their desks and had a 10 key on
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their desk in a five 714 column
paper, but I got to tell you,
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those people that refuse to
change from that world, they're
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in the distinct minority, and
they're not, and they're
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struggling to make a living now.
Okay, so I think it's a matter
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of it's a matter of of you
getting out of your comfort zone
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and providing the leadership in
these uncertain times with this
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evolving with these evolving
things here, you know you don't
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have to buy any particular
solution, but you need to get
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your hands dirty, okay? Because
the problem here is that you
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know if you don't know anything
about cars and you walk into a
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car dealership, they're going to
have their way with your bank
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account, okay? The thing you've
got to do here is you've got to
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get you've got to get enough so
that you can develop the filter
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of this works, this doesn't, and
you can lead. Okay, and so I
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would just say you know for the
love of God, you don't have to
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do what we tell you to do, but
please do something. Okay,
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that's how I'd say it.
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Randy Johnston: So, Brian, thank
you for that. And I was
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thinking, with Sasha's taste,
maybe you should have talked
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about like carbon fiber bikes
rather than cars. But I don't
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know what he's got because we
didn't talk about that. However,
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Sasha, your time is valuable. We
thank you, as we appreciate you
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being here as a our guest, and
we. Wish you continued and
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greatest success. So, until you
are able to join us in another
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accounting technology lab,
Brian, Sasha, and I all wish you
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a very good day.
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Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA: Thanks,
guys. Thank you for sharing your
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time with us. We'll be back next
Saturday with a new episode of
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the Technology Lab from CPA
Practice Advisor. Have a great
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week.
00:00:00,630 --> 00:00:02,250
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA: Welcome
to the Accounting Technology
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Lab, brought to you by CPA
Practice Advisor, with your
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00:00:06,060 --> 00:00:10,020
hosts Randy Johnston and Brian
Tankersley. What I was gonna
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what I was gonna ask, I guess,
is that you know, Sasha, you've
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introduced a lot of things, and
this whole paradigm shift is
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really intimidating to a lot of
us that have been in this
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profession for a long time, you
know, how do you know? Short of
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taking the ice bucket challenge
and just jumping in with both
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feet, how do you get started
down this journey effectively
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without you know without
completely shutting the door on
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all the stuff you've built?
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Sasha Orloff: I mean, I think
about this stuff all the time as
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it comes to like our sales
process and our optimization
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process. Yeah, I would say so.
If you're listening, like if
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your listeners are there, and so
I guess if we have a bunch of
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firms that use Puzzle that start
taking the last week of the
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month, you might have more
competition on your podcast,
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because people are going to want
to figure out what to do with
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the last week of every month.
No, Brian, back to your point.
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Yeah, I think the natural
tendency I think for people that
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are new to AI is they think
about they give it a task that
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is kind of frivolous or not
really you know helpful, and
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then they go, oh, like that's
kind of cute. I think give it
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something really hard and
obscure to see. There, like
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think about what in your last
month of closing process for
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your clients, what was something
complex that just took you a lot
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of time. Now, is it going to get
it right out of the box?
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Probably not, because you're
not. Most people aren't used to
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describing their problem in an
articulate way with all of the
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different steps, and I use the
analogy of like telling my kids
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to go clean their room, and I
say go clean the room, and I
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know what that means, but like
what are the chances that they
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go and they clean the room to
the same level that I thought
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about? And so when you think
about how do you articulate to
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AI, I have to say, go into your
room, scan the room. Take your
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bed, move your sheets and your
duvet, cover it over. Put the
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pillow at the top so it's
perpendicular to your bed at the
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top. Take your clothes, take the
shirts, fold up all the shirts,
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put them in the shirt drawer.
Take the underwear, put them in
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the underwear drawer, socks and
sock drawer. Or I could come in
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and say, hey, just if I say
clean your floor and make your
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bed, and I open up the closet
door and everything comes
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tumbling out. Well, they said
you said clean the floor, right?
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So I think a lot of you point
me. So take something that is
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hard and just put it into AI.
Don't use any client
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information. Just like try
something obscure. Take your own
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personal data. Take something
that's low risk, but something
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hard and put it in, and learn
how to really articulate your
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judgment in a way that is just
like you would explain to a
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brand new super smart person who
doesn't know anything about
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accounting. Try that. That's
what I say now in Puzzle, which
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not here to mention like a sales
purpose again, because
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everything is opt out. You can
go build agents, and we put a
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bunch of safety guards in there,
so nothing ever changes in your
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ledger unless you type in YES.
Now, of course, you can always
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undo it and like fix it because
it's still ledger. Like you can
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click around, but we make it so
that you can just throw all
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sorts of crazy stuff. You can
choose from lots of templates
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that we build that are generated
on skills and do it now. If you
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don't want to use puzzle because
that's like too much, like I
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don't want to switch ledgers and
do something, you'll notice that
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one of the limitations of the
industry, because of how things
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were architected 30 years ago,
is the API or the interface
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between softwares, how they talk
to each other, is a CRUD API.
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You can create, read, update,
and delete transactions or
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journal entries. Now that is
helpful. You know that's
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interesting. Let's take out some
transactions. Let's do something
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with them, and let's change
them. Obviously, accounting is
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way more complex than just
changing a categorization of a
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transaction or something. But
you know you can take around and
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you can try individual things.
Just take a transaction. You can
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put just a transaction because
you can literally copy and paste
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it into ChatGPT or Gemini or
Claude or Anthropic, and just
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say, change. Here's a chart of
accounts. Just anonymize a chart
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of accounts. Upload a
transaction system. Say, hey,
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transaction description came in
like this. How would you
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categorize this?
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That's a very low risk way, a
low touch way to start playing
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with it now, of course, that's
frivolous and not that
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interesting. But like, if you're
just like, I've never done this
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before, copy a transaction
description, copy your chart of
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accounts, paste into an AI,
scrub for any personal
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information about your clients,
and just say, hey, what category
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do you think this would? What
category do you think this
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should go to? Again, so listing.
Yeah.
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Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA: So
what I hear you saying is that
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you're going to generate
prompts, and a prompt in your
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mind is really analogous to
almost a checklist. And you're
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going to set up a you're going
to and so that's how you're
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going to define this is how you
clean your room or this is how
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you this is how you reconcile a
bank statement and so forth.
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There, okay, well, good. I think
you've I think clarifying. These
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terms, because there are a lot
of terms like agents and prompts
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and things like that, and you
know when a lot of us enjoyed
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the Matrix movies, and you know
when we see agent, we see Agent
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Smith, and he's the bad guy, and
so it's helpful to have that
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perspective from you about this,
because again, you remember
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you're setting it up where nope,
nothing happens unless you say
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okay, and I think that's the
important thing that we have to
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remember with this: is that you
are still the boss.
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Randy Johnston: And Brian, you
heard him say earlier he has the
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AI pill from Silicon Valley. So
I think in our time together
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that you know we've discovered
that autonomous means that the
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books can close themselves, and
you find the mistakes later. But
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the alternative is, you know,
the person deciding before it
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posts through these agents, and
the profession really doesn't
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need AI that removes the
accountant; needs AI that makes
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the accountant better and the
ledger able to close itself. So
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I think that's really nifty
because you know. Bottom line is
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AI can't be accountable by
itself. So, Sasha, any parting
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thoughts for our listeners today
that we that you think is really
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important that we know?
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Sasha Orloff: I think that
everybody should start exploring
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and testing with options
themselves in the market, you
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should constantly be evaluating
how do I get better, because
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other people are, and if your
firm isn't or you aren't as
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maybe the leader of your firm,
you're going to set the culture
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change that it is okay to play
with this again in the safety
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way. Like, don't just shove all
of your client information into
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some random AI tool, like you
said, but like you should play
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with this. You can't. You can
play with this. Give some
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guardrails of like some baby
steps that people can. I do
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fundamentally believe that firms
that adopt and start learning
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are going to be the ones that
are going to make way more money
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than ever before, and we're
seeing it in almost every other
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profession that has adopted AI,
from lawyers to engineers, other
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professional knowledge work,
they're making more money and
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they're delivering a better
product to their colleagues, to
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their companies, to their
clients, and it is not too late.
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This level of automation we've
been hearing about in the news,
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we read about on Twitter the
promise of productivity in
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accounting. I would argue, I
think fairly credibly, it's only
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really started this year. It's
been somewhat novelty. It's been
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somewhat problematic last year.
I would say this year, right
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now, we're finally starting to
see the actual productivity with
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actual case studies and actual
implementation. That is a
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lesson. It is not too late. Just
get started, and have fun and
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enjoy it. If done the right way,
it doesn't have to be Agent
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Smith. It can be Q from James
Bond. It can be the helpful
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technologist that is here to
make you the best version of
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yourself.
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Randy Johnston: Beautiful. So,
Brian, any other thoughts,
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questions?
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Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA: You
know, I've been reflecting on
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this, and it reminds me of a
podcast I listened to recently
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from John Kiriaku. That's a it
was a CIA analyst that he was
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describing the experience of 911
in the CIA offices, and
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everybody was looking up at the
towers in flames, and finally at
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the end, somebody at the back
yelled, "Will somebody please
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lead? Okay, and then action
started happening. Okay, and I
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think that's the challenge to
our profession: is you know you
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may be comfortable, you know you
may have started like I did in
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the days when people smoked at
their desks and had a 10 key on
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their desk in a five 714 column
paper, but I got to tell you,
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those people that refuse to
change from that world, they're
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in the distinct minority, and
they're not, and they're
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struggling to make a living now.
Okay, so I think it's a matter
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of it's a matter of of you
getting out of your comfort zone
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and providing the leadership in
these uncertain times with this
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evolving with these evolving
things here, you know you don't
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have to buy any particular
solution, but you need to get
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your hands dirty, okay? Because
the problem here is that you
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know if you don't know anything
about cars and you walk into a
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car dealership, they're going to
have their way with your bank
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account, okay? The thing you've
got to do here is you've got to
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get you've got to get enough so
that you can develop the filter
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of this works, this doesn't, and
you can lead. Okay, and so I
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would just say you know for the
love of God, you don't have to
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do what we tell you to do, but
please do something. Okay,
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that's how I'd say it.
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Randy Johnston: So, Brian, thank
you for that. And I was
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thinking, with Sasha's taste,
maybe you should have talked
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about like carbon fiber bikes
rather than cars. But I don't
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00:09:49,480 --> 00:09:53,140
know what he's got because we
didn't talk about that. However,
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Sasha, your time is valuable. We
thank you, as we appreciate you
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being here as a our guest, and
we. Wish you continued and
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greatest success. So, until you
are able to join us in another
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accounting technology lab,
Brian, Sasha, and I all wish you
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a very good day.
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Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA: Thanks,
guys. Thank you for sharing your
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00:10:18,030 --> 00:10:21,740
time with us. We'll be back next
Saturday with a new episode of
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00:10:21,830 --> 00:10:26,330
the Technology Lab from CPA
Practice Advisor. Have a great
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00:10:26,390 --> 00:10:26,510
week.
