The doomsayers are out there… but will accountancy and outsourcing come to a sticky, AI-driven, end? Vipul Sheth provides his current thinking.
I was recently asked the blunt (and rather chilling) question: ‘If AI is a job killer, will it remove the need for accountants and by definition, outsourcers?’
The ‘if’ in the question was, in my opinion, doing quite a bit of heavy lifting. Ultimately, I gave an answer – one that itself required a few steps, so bear with me as I retread that path.
Face-to-face
Just a day or two before being asked the question, I’d visited a software vendor and two accounting practices that work with Advancetrack. During the three separate conversations, they all said that their business was having to spend an increasing amount of time face-to-face with customers, dealing with their queries.
All three suggested that they hope AI will take up slack and improve processes and communication – so they can do more client-facing work, of a better quality and with better outputs.
I think it’s an important point to make that, even in a profession that is so focused on compliance and technical expertise, it’s the human relationship built with clients that ultimately leads to value being created.
Data quality trumps all
The relationship, however, is on a foundation of expectation that any work undertaken is of a high standard; and that requires flows of accurate information moving between systems and computed properly.
For AI to provide value, it needs all those parts working optimally – from relationships to data to computations.
Many of these steps are, and will continue to be, delivered with a combination of offshore resource and technology. Exactly what that looks like I can’t be 100% sure…
But what Advancetrack (and others) will need to deliver is quality outputs. We are a tech-first business with people at our heart. We’ve been cloud-based for more than 20 years and have always pushed the boundaries of what tech can help us deliver. This will continue.
People businesses
But then, there’s people. Let’s take one of those accounting practices I referred to earlier. It’s a firm that’s passionately independent, with great people and therefore a succession plan in place. They recruit graduates who stay on in the firm, because they allow them to cut their teeth with technical work and have them work closely with their clients.
They will use more tech, AI and outsourcing services as they evolve, but people will be at the heart of what they do. The world is getting more complex, and the outputs we help them produce need context on a client-by-client basis.
And then there’s Advancetrack’s people. My team members ask: ‘what does all this change mean to me and my role?’
I believe their outputs will become more nuanced and valuable – the work will move up the value chain and so will their roles. You only have to look at the shared service centres of the Big Four, and the roles their staff fulfil now, compared to 20 years ago.
Discuss change with your peers
But none of this monumental change is for the faint-hearted. There will be businesses and jobs in and around accountancy that fall by the wayside, for sure.
The conversation will continue, and perhaps my thoughts will change – certainly, the general direction of travel seems to shift with each passing week. Discussions about AI and much more will be happening at Advancetrack’s gbX London 2026 conference on 12 May – the day before Accountex kicks off. I hope you can join us.
Vipul Sheth is founder and MD of Advancetrack
If you’d like to find out more about gbX London 2026 then click here.
