HLB Mann Judd unveils automation plans for this year
The future rollout of Microsoft Office 365 to small and medium firms could see a significant acceleration in the use of AI by the accounting industry, according to HLB Mann Judd.
HLB Mann Judd, partner, business transformation Fiona Dixon said while HLB Mann Judd has been on its automation journey for some time, first creating its automation and business transformation division back in August 2021, the firm will further explore how it can expand its use of AI across different types of work this year.
“We’ve been on the journey for around three years now and there’s still quite a bit to do on the automation side in terms of trying to automate some of the more chunky work in audit and tax engagements,” said Ms Dixon.
Over the past few years, the firm has created a variety of bots through Microsoft Office 365 and UiPath, each with its avatars and personalities.
The bots perform a wide variety of tasks such as sending quarterly reports to clients; creating planning letters, closing letters and audit reports; and performing searches on ASIC and the personal property securities register.
Ms Dixon said in the year ahead, the firm will also be looking at how AI can assist with explaining technical issues to clients.
“A lot of firms are now looking to create their own Azure AI platform where they can bring their data into their own OpenAI service so that it’s available for staff to research,” she said.
However, Ms Dixon said the rollout of applications such as Microsoft 365 Copilot to small and medium firms in the future is likely to drive the greatest change across the accounting industry over the next couple of years.
Microsoft announced its Microsoft 365 Copilot tool in March last year, which leverages large language models in combination with data from Microsoft Graph and Microsoft 365 apps to perform a wide range of business functions.
The tool was only made available to Microsoft 365 Enterprise customers from the start of November last year and is expected to be rolled out for small and medium firms at a later point.
“That will be quite interesting because it may do a lot of what Azure OpenAI was going to do to an extent because it will be able to go into your SharePoint if you have your data there and find what you’ve done before and produce something. It will also be walled off and secure,” she said.
“We’re waiting to see what that looks like as opposed to building our own. We’ve spoken to other firms that have built their own but still have trouble getting to work properly and easily.
“Once Microsoft 365 Copilot becomes available to the smaller end of town I think that will really push the AI journey ahead quite quickly and strongly because it will be embedded into everything you do if you have a Microsoft 365 licence.”
Ms Dixon said this will help to make AI more accessible to firms as it will not require the same level of technical skills required for implementing Azure OpenAI.
“That’s where we will see the smaller accounting firms and even finance teams really being able to utilise [automation] and grow from there. It’s certainly something we’ll be looking at,” she said.
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