Year: 2025
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How AI Helped a Mid-Sized Accounting Firm Cut Month-End Close Time by 40%
The month-end close has always been the accounting world’s ultimate endurance test. For Western & Co., a 45-person regional accounting firm, the process routinely spilled past 12 days each month. Their bottlenecks weren’t shocking: manual reconciliations, slow data gathering from clients, and staff spending hours combing through spreadsheets to find errors. By Q3, the leadership…
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Using AI to Detect Fraud and Anomalies: A Real Case From an Internal Audit Team
Internal auditors are no strangers to detective work. But one healthcare organization’s audit team discovered how dramatically AI could improve their investigations—especially when the clues were buried in thousands of transactions. The Background A regional healthcare group was concerned about rising operating expenses, particularly in facilities management. Nothing seemed blatantly off, but leadership wanted a…
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How AI Helped a Startup CFO Build Rolling Forecasts in Hours, Not Days
Startups move fast. Their finances do not. For Maria, a CFO of a growing SaaS company, forecasting had become a nightmare. Every month she rebuilt models, re-validated assumptions, and begged department heads for updates. The process took 20+ hours. But after implementing AI, forecasting became a two-hour task—accurate, dynamic, and always up-to-date. The Old Forecasting…
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AI in Tax Accounting: How One Tax Team Cut Prep Time by 50%
Tax season is controlled chaos. But one corporate tax department discovered how AI could reduce their prep time—even with messy client data. The Real Issue The tax team at a construction company struggled with: How AI Helped They introduced: A Real Scenario A contractor submitted 400+ receipts in a shoebox—literally. The AI: What once took…
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Turning Data Into Advisory Insights With AI: A Controller’s Story
Controllers often feel stuck between daily operations and strategic work they want to do. That was true for Sam, a controller at a wholesale business. The Problem Sam spent most of his time: He wanted to provide insights, but the workload left no room. How AI Transformed His Workflow Sam implemented an AI dashboarding and…
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CPE is More Than A Boring Task
For many CPAs, continuing professional education (CPE) can feel like one more administrative task to squeeze into an already full schedule. But in reality, your state’s CPE requirements are much more than a regulatory hoop — they’re an investment in your credibility, confidence, and long-term career success. The Purpose Behind CPE Every state board of…
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Ethics Link to Modern Finance
In finance, numbers are only half the story. Behind every spreadsheet, report, and audit lies something less visible but infinitely more powerful — trust. And trust begins with ethics. Why Ethics Still Matters in Modern Finance Ethics is often discussed in abstract terms — “doing the right thing,” “acting with integrity” — but in finance,…
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PivotTables Like a Pro: Transforming Raw Data into Financial Insights
PivotTables are the Swiss Army knife of Excel for finance professionals. Yet most CPAs only use a fraction of their potential. Mastering just a few intermediate tricks can turn a basic trial balance dump into management insights in minutes. 1. Start with a Clean TableAlways begin with structured data (headers in row 1, no blanks).…
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Turning Your CPE Hours into Career Growth
Your CPE hours can do more than renew your license—here’s how to turn them into real professional momentum.
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Supercharge Your Reconciliations with Advanced Lookup Functions
Every accountant knows the pain of reconciling two lists that don’t quite match. Whether it’s AP vs. GL or bank vs. book, Excel’s lookup functions can turn that nightmare into a streamlined, repeatable process. 1. The Problem with VLOOKUPWhile reliable, VLOOKUP is rigid—it breaks when columns move. CPAs who rely on legacy spreadsheets are particularly…
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