RSM’s AI implementation could be a glimpse of accounting’s future

AI tools are eliminating some of the manual drudgery from accounting—but are they taking work away from entry-level staff? Not at RSM, the fifth largest accounting firm in the US. The firm hires some 3,000 to 4,000 new grads each year, RSM US enterprise digital leader Sergio de la Fe told CFO Brew, and their AI-readiness makes them valuable employees.

Those new grads are entering a shifting profession. AI tools are changing the way accountants work by speeding up slow manual processes and allowing them to sift through vast datasets with ease. But some fundamentals, such as professional judgment, remain constant. And people, de la Fe said, remain at the center of AI transformation.

Amplifying research: RSM’s investments in AI have yielded new tools for accountants. For instance, RSM Atlas maps clients’ processes and controls to regulations, and identifies whether they’re in compliance or need to make adjustments. Such mapping “used to take weeks and months to do” manually, de la Fe said. Another AI tool assesses clients’ R&D expenditures and investments and “automate[s] the production of the tax positions” around R&D credits. That’s also something that was once done manually, de la Fe said. (Many of RSM’s clients are middle-market businesses, and the firm serves various industries, including healthcare, construction, manufacturing, and technology.)

A third tool the firm uses, Blue J, lets staff quickly sort through tax law and cases. If a client has a tax question, such as wanting to know whether they’re eligible for Qualified Small Business Stock, an RSM staffer can use Blue J to pull up a list of relevant regulations and references. The tool can even find tax information staff might not have known where to look for, de la Fe said.

Tools like these, de la Fe argues, allow accountants to spend less time on manual tasks and more on higher-value activities. “What AI does is it augments our professionals to help them get to judgments and to analysis faster,” he said. Blue J, for instance, claims that its users save 2.7 hours a week drafting documents and performing research. SAP estimates that AI now saves employees 75 minutes a day each.

New grads are a “major asset”: But less grunt work doesn’t necessarily equate to less need for entry-level staff. Though some companies have touted AI as a means of lowering costs via layoffs, RSM’s strategy is different. “This is not about cutting costs,” de la Fe said. “It’s about taking market share.” AI is helping staff to “be more productive and be able to do more work.”

And new graduates, de la Fe said, can “level up” and be capable of more sophisticated work. They’re often more ready to use AI tools than their more experienced counterparts, he said, as “they’ve used AI throughout their college experience,” he points out. “They are a major asset for us.” RSM’s move toward AI is “about transforming the managers and directors and partners, not our staff,” he said. “It’s the more legacy team members that are adopting and adapting.”

The human factor: What newer staff need more training on, de la Fe suggests, is, well, dealing with humans. More coaching on people skills could help, he said. “If you aren’t able to have a good conversation with a client to get the information you need to leverage the AI, you’re kind of missing the boat,” he said.

Another fundamental that hasn’t changed? Professional judgment. When dealing with clients’ financial information, after all, there’s no room for workslop. De la Fe is quick to note that his staff need to verify the information that AI gives them, and that the “layers of quality control” seen in traditional accounting, such as manager and partner reviews, remain in place. “None of those reviews have been eliminated, and so every report needs to be read and every deliverable has to be analyzed,” he said.

People are a vital component of AI implementation. RSM’s AI training, de la Fe said, involves not only prompting and accounting-specific use cases, but also process redesign and change management. Those aspects of the training help staff consider how using AI could change their day-to-day work and the way they interact with clients. “Leveraging the technology is not just about technology,” he noted. “It’s about ‘how do you transform your business?’”