AI for your role

AI for CPAs

Automate the compliance base so you can sell the advisory that clients actually value.

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The shift

How AI is changing the CPA (Public Accountant) role

In 2026, AI is automating the compliance core of public accounting — reconciliations, standard reporting, and routine bookkeeping — that once consumed busy season. Language models research a standard, analyze a client's financials, and draft the memo in minutes. What grows in value is the CPA as interpreter and advisor: applying judgment to gray areas, guiding client strategy, and standing behind a signature.

What AI can take off your plate

  • Reconciliations and routine bookkeeping cleanup
  • Drafting standard financial statements and reports
  • Populating compliance workpapers and checklists
  • Categorizing transactions and flagging anomalies
  • First-draft client correspondence and memos

What stays distinctly human

  • Applying professional judgment to gray areas
  • Advising clients on strategy, not just compliance
  • Standing behind an opinion and a signature
  • Managing risk, ethics, and independence
  • Building long-term client trust and relationships
Tools

Five AI tools for CPAs

QuickBooks (Intuit Assist)
AI bookkeeping that categorizes transactions, reconciles accounts, and drafts reports for your review.
Try it →
ChatGPT
Research a standard, draft a client memo, or turn financials into plain-language talking points.
Try it →
Thomson Reuters Checkpoint Edge
AI-assisted accounting, audit, and tax research across authoritative content.
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Karbon
AI practice management that drafts client comms, summarizes emails, and keeps engagements on track.
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Digits
AI accounting that automates categorization, reporting, and client-ready financial insights.
Try it →
Prompts

Five prompts to try today

Paste these into Claude or ChatGPT and replace the bracketed parts with your own details.

1. Research an accounting treatment
How should [transaction/item] be treated under [GAAP/IFRS]? Summarize the applicable standard, the options, and the disclosure implications, and tell me what to verify against primary authority.
2. Prep for a client meeting
Here are a client's financials: [paste]. Identify the 3 most important trends, risks, and opportunities, and draft talking points that lead with what they should do about each.
3. Draft a client advisory memo
Write a memo advising [client] on [issue/decision]. Cover the options, the tradeoffs, my recommendation, and the assumptions it depends on. Professional but readable.
4. Explain a variance
Revenue/expense moved [describe] versus [prior period/budget]. List the most likely drivers, the follow-up questions I should ask, and how I'd confirm each.
5. Summarize a standard change
Summarize [new standard/regulation] and its practical impact on a [client type], including what changes in their reporting and what I need to do about it.
The playbook

Every AI play for CPAs

Your full AI playbook for your role — updated every week. Tap any card for a step-by-step walkthrough and examples.

✦  New AI plays are added every week — and go straight to subscribers in their morning brief. Skip the scrolling and get yours delivered free. Get my free brief →
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This is the kind of brief a CPA (Public Accountant) gets, every weekday morning.
Monday morning
✦ Personalized for: CPA (Public Accountant)
Your PlaybookFirst drafts
Turn a blank page into a solid first draft

The move that gets you past the hardest part of any task — starting. Works for an email, a plan, a report, a tricky reply. Free, no login.

ChatGPT  FREE  a free AI assistant that drafts, rewrites, and thinks through problems with you

1

Go to chatgpt.com (the free tier is fine) and describe what you need in plain words. Give it the goal, the audience, and any facts it should use:

I need to write [what]. It's for [who], and the goal is [what you want them to do or understand]. Here are the key points: [paste your rough notes]. Draft it in a clear, direct tone. Ask me anything that's missing first.
2

It drafts. Now make it yours — push back in the same chat:

Make it shorter and less formal. Cut anything that sounds generic. Keep the part about [X].

You go from staring at nothing to editing a real draft in two minutes. Editing is always easier than starting.

Your role, all in one place
  
Tools, prompts & tricks
Your full library, one tap away.
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Your playbook
Every entry, building each week.
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How AI is changing your role
Where your work is heading.
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