In this session, we’ll peel back the layers and explore the practical applications of AI in accounting, and you’ll gain insights into; what’s new and useful: The latest AI innovations and how to use them, the smart way forward: 7 steps to understanding and managing AI in your accounting firm, additionally, how industry peers are harnessing AI’s potential. If you haven’t already, why not download our whitepaper Beyond the hype: the real benefits of AI for your accountancy firm.
Sure. Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to today’s webinar, Beyond the Height, the Real Benefits of AI for Your Accountancy Firm. My name is Phil Hovland. I’m, the senior product manager here in the UK, leading the UK product team for Silverfin. And I’ve got an excellent guest. And, well, I guess we’ll get to proper intros in a minute, Russell. So I don’t wanna, like, jump the intro slide that we’ve built. So, like, whilst people are are are flooding in because I’ve opened doors a bit earlier, how are you? Are you well? What’s the let’s see the typical opening of a webinar conversation. What’s the weather like where you are today? Oh, I’m not sure if Russell can hear me. Yep. Sorry. I’m sorry. Yeah. Just saying what’s the what’s the weather like where you are today, Russell? It’s various different degrees of rain at the moment. It’s, gentle rain right now. It was harder rain a minute ago, which was, gonna be a potential noise issue, but it’s just wet and dismal. Oh, oh, this is quite nice in London today, actually. I’ve come up on a on a relatively pleasant day, which is nice because I forgot to bring an umbrella. Oh, this by the way, this is definitely the high level of conversation that people have, people are giving up their time for on a, on a Tuesday morning. Good. Good. Good. Well, look, people are starting to come in. So we’ll give it another twenty, twenty, thirty seconds, and then as soon as people, few more people are in, we’ll kick off with our webinar. But, thank you all for joining us. Always great when people give time out of their day to come and listen to us talk about something. But, Russell, I think AI is a topic that’s, close to your heart. Right? I think we’re gonna properly get under the hood of this one today. Absolutely. It’s it’s the the in buzzword in the in the space at the moment. And I think if you’re not looking at it, you’re not paying attention, then you will definitely be left behind. So I’ve I’ve been very much keen to get under the bonnet of this one since the start, and it will only only increase going forward. So I think this is a great start to a conversation. Nice. Well, look. Let’s let’s get started then, and let’s start with our, next slide, which nervously I’m trying to, get up. But, clearly, the button wasn’t working for me. So there we go. Right. Here we go. So, look, I’ve already given my introduction. I’m Phil Hopton, UK product lead at at Silverfin. I joined Silverfin just over a month and a half ago. So I’m very new to Silverfin, but new not new to the industry. I’ve been working with accountants and technology for around the last ten years in a in a couple of different roles, but, very happy to be joining the, the very cool team here at Silverfin. Russell, do you wanna introduce yourself and give a bit of your background as well? Absolutely. Thanks, Phil. So, yeah, Russell Frayn, director of transformation at Gravita. I’m also quite new into my role, previously a top ten firm, dealing with software implementation and, adoption throughout live practice. Moved to Grabra recently, mid December, running out a number of transformation projects within the practice, but also, how we sort of deliver technology led, services for our clients at the same time. Fantastic. And we’ve come across each other a a few times in our various different roles previously. So, hopefully hopefully, we should be able to bring this this AI chat to life, which will be good. Like I said, I only joined Silverfin, about a month and a half ago, but Silverfin is a is a product, and a business I’ve been aware of for a lot longer than that. And I I’ve popped a slide up that just kinda gives you a little bit of an overview of Silverfin as a business. We service over eight hundred and fifty accountancy firms, across our different regions and different offices, and including thirty percent of the UK top one hundred. And and and the firm that Russell’s come from and and and where you are now are both users of Silverfin, which is always good. We manage over, three hundred and forty thousand client files, and over a hundred firms are using our Silverfiner system, which is our AI tool, which I’m sure we will chat about a bit later. And in fact, looking at that I AI side, a lot of that came from when in two thousand twenty one, Silver Fin bought an AI and machine learning business, and we established what we now call it our AI lab. And AI is very much embedded into our software to improve data accuracy and insight. And SilverStone system was launched back in twenty twenty three in August, in the UK as an intelligent tool that spots anomalies and opportunities in client data. So I’m really excited by, where AI is going to go. And if I’m being if I’m being really honest, I’d already used AI this morning. I’m I’m I’m playing out with a few new AI tools. One of the things that we’re looking at Silverfin is empowering our teams to use AI on a daily basis. So whether that’s in product or outside of product and in the general work we’re doing. So so we’re really trying to embed that AI piece into everything we do here at Silk. We’ve been both in and out of our product, which is quite cool. So, yeah, I was having a play. I can’t tell you what it was, but I was having a play on a very cool tour this morning. Because if I told you, I’d give something away. So, but, there you go. So, look, we’re gonna start with our first poll, and I always like to have a good poll, to to get people going. And I think this is this is a really prevalent one. Right? Because a lot of people think of AI as just a you know, just chat GPT. Right? So people look at it and go, oh, chat GPT and and all of this. But, actually, AI is so much more than chat GPT. So our first poll for this morning, first of three, is are you using AI beyond chat GPT? So are you using AI beyond chat GPT? So if you could, give us some thought process into the poll, and that will be very good. I think, you know, when we were building these slides, we flagged a story around the accounting watchdog quizzing the big four on AI exam cheating. That’s the thing now, Russell, people using AI to cheat on their exams. I bet my daughter she’s in year nine. Right? So I bet, like, she’s already thinking, how can I use AI to help my homework? The interesting thing there is there’s actually AI to anonymize and beat GPT exam cheating. So there’s already an AI to mask that in literally out there already. So there’s an AI to hide the AI. Yes. And, of course, when someone gets super smart and works out that AI, they’ll have to build an AI to hide the AI that’s hiding the AI and and and so on and so forth. Exactly not. Well, surprisingly, we’ve got a pretty even split, actually, and we’re about fifty fifty, or or more accurately because a vote has just come in fifty five forty five. So so fifty five percent of people are saying, yes. They are using chat, AI beyond chat GPT, which I think is really interesting. I would have expected maybe this to be a little lower. But I guess, actually, if you’re dialing for a webinar about AI, maybe you are a bit more savvy on that. And on the other hand, about forty eight another vote just come in. So about forty eight percent of people not using, AI beyond chat gbt. So I’m gonna end that poll now. I’ll share those results, so they’ll be on the screen for a few seconds. You could just have a look through that. Does that surprise you, Russell? Do you did does that tally with what you thought it would have been? I I don’t think it’s surprising. What I would say is in the nose there, there’s probably an undertone of they don’t realize they’re using AI. So they they will be experiencing AI in different guises, without them probably being aware of it. So whilst the even split is there in terms of those that are saying they’re not using chat gbt, that’s great. But I would say of the forty eight percent that aren’t using or don’t think they’re using AI, they probably are. Yeah. I think I think that’s a really, really good point. And and you it’s surprising, isn’t it, how much AI has has kind of got into our day to day. And if you look at the news and if you’re a a tech fan as as I am, you know, they’re talking about Apple and and their next load of software really bringing in, like, AI in and and embedding it on phone. So I think, you know, that will be consciously or unconsciously a lot higher. So that’s good. By the way, I think the webinar is in for about thirty five ish minutes today. I’m gonna be honest and say, we were running through the slide yesterday, and we were like, we probably will overrun a little bit, which is fine. So if you do have to dial off on the hour, that’s absolutely fine. You can get the recording. It will be sent out to you so you can pick the rest up. For those of you that are on the journey, we’ll try and keep it under forty five minutes, but, I think Russell’s got quite a bit to add to this, which is gonna be good fun. So let’s go to our next slide. So a quick agenda. So what are we gonna be talking about today? We’re gonna be asking four quick quick questions. What’s really at stake, and, you know, does my firm need AI? What are the smart steps forward? So how do we get started? What are my peers doing? And and Russell can talk very very much from a a couple of different bigger firm perspectives on this and, you know, what lessons can people take away. And then what’s new and useful? So so what tools should we be trying both in house and and and maybe a little bit externally? So that’s a little bit about our agenda today. But just to kind of, I think, to to put this into context, we were having a conversation yesterday about cloud and the fact that, you know, people are still on a cloud journey within the UK, and I think there’s a you know, we look back at Xero. Xero launched in what was it? Twenty twelve, I think. So it’s it’s pretty well established now. But in the UK, not every firm is still a hundred percent cloud based, and I don’t think I they will be for a long time, Wayne. And and you’ve got a you you’ve got some thought process on this, Russell, haven’t you, about that kind of cloud and and and AI journey and how it mirrors? Yeah. It’s it’s quite interesting, really. So whilst we’re looking at AI today and we’ve been talking about, you know, efficiencies and removing manual tasks and all of that good stuff that AI is gonna deliver for us. Let’s be honest, the cloud accounting sort of phase was also supposed to have done that in terms of basic automations, you know, open banking with bank feeds, rules, that sort of thing. And whilst MTD was largely a driver as part of that journey, the fact that we’re still here sort of ten years plus talking about being first movers, early adopters in that space. I think, you know, we’ll find out quotes about twenty, twenty five percent of firms are probably, you know, in the cloud, which means seventy five percent have taken the optional element that they didn’t want to go that route just yet. For me, AI is taking the optional element away from that. Like, if you’re if you’re gonna be one of those those sort of firms that wanted or didn’t want to optionally adopt cloud accounting, they didn’t wanna take that step in, AI is gonna take that option element around, and it will soon highlight the gulf between those firms that are tech enabled and and aren’t. Whereas at the moment, it’s largely masked by, I suppose, chaotic servicing of clients in a less tech enabled way. So that sort of gulf isn’t really there, visible at the moment. I think AI takes all of that away. So for us, for me, definitely, the AI journey is one that we need to get on as early as possible, and we’ll talk about how we do that in a moment. Yeah. That’s interesting. I know we’ll come on a little bit later to kind of actual steps people need to take and what people need to consider, and we’ll talk heavily around data on that because I think data is is is critical. But you’re you’re right. Like like, it still amazes me when I I talk to firms and and they still aren’t fully cloud enabled. And you’re like, you know, what’s been the delay? What’s been the, you know, the the the hesitation? And and partly, it’s client led. Right? But I think sometimes you have to lead the clients. You know, let’s be honest. Some clients would still be quite happy to to bring in boxes of shoe box, boxes of, shoe boxes of receipt if we let them. Right? So we have to lead that client. But whereas MTD was always gonna be seen as that driver to bring people to cloud because it delays everything else. I think you’re right. I think AI might finally be that driver because the gulf between the haves and the have nots is gonna get much wider than it ever was on the cloud. Right? Like, what you can do and the efficiencies and the services you can provide with AI against those that are still using desktop software or desktop compliance tools, that gulf’s gonna be ginormous. Right? Yeah. Huge. Absolutely huge. I had a conversation with a with a client the other day where they had multiple instances of desktop based software. And their their issue was they wanted to try and streamline their reporting. I was like, well, it’s nearly impossible because you’ve got, I mean, significant numbers of different entities in different desktop structures. The only way that you can do that is transition to cloud. Now they’ve just evolved a out of date, way of working and just continue to scale it without thinking about breaking the way they’re they’re running their business. But, yeah, the the the conversation we’re having them now are are much different than they were in the past. It’s a case of, right, how can we, as you just mentioned, aggregate your data into one central place? How can we slice and dice that data to get true insights? And by the way, it’s a click of a button as opposed to you spending two and a half days every single week extracting reports and then compiling them in Excel outside and running your business that way. So it’s it’s just things like that at the moment where people accept the pain, but they don’t really see that future state. And those that you show that future state vision to can’t wait to go on the journey with you. Well, look. I think, I think we’ll we’ll go to a a quote from someone that, kinda knows what oh, it’s you. There you go. It’s a quote from you, Russell. So, do you wanna walk through do you wanna walk through this quote, right, and talk a little bit more about this? Because I think this really does highlight this whole point about what’s at stake and and and everything else. Yeah. And and so this for me has always been the same kind of statement when cloud accounting first came out with people’s nervousness about it replacing their roles and all of this sort of stuff. And for me, like, technology is always in the neighbor. You know, you’ve always said this as well, Phil. It should replace processes, not people. But with AI, I’ve kind of got my new statement, which is if you make yourself replaceable, you can be replaced by AI in the future. And it’s a scary statement, but we’re in control of that destination. So where we’re looking to automate our processes that we’re doing manually, you know, if we’ve got unstructured, you know, unaggregated data in different places, bringing all of that together to pull from, it should give us so much more time back to have. Actually, what our clients value, which is those added value conversations, really understand their business, their goals, their needs, their wants, as opposed to just focusing on compliance. There’s too much still too much focus on month end, quarter end, year end compliance, and we just run into that. You know? If we gave all this time back to our advisers, the question is, what would they do with that? And it the answer always is better service your clients. And you can’t get AI to do that. That is a people thing. So for me, it doesn’t replace So for me, it doesn’t replace you. It replaces the processes that you shouldn’t want to do. And the the statement has always been that it was cloud accounting. It’s AI now. And as these things develop, like I say, you would need need to step into your lane, which is be that trusted adviser. Technology can’t be the trusted adviser. Only we can do that. Yeah. No. I love that. And I think when you look at this what’s at stake and this fear that AI will will replace people, and I think you you’re actually right. If you make yourself replaceable, you will be replaced. And you look at the great history of of businesses across the UK. I was laughing yesterday with my wife that I read a story that our price was coming back. Now anyone that’s under the age of forty five on this call will probably not know what the hell I’m talking about, but but our price was like a pre HMB, pre Virgin Megastore type shop. So it’s an old old school record shop. Right? But it was one nice thing that that just didn’t evolve. You know, let’s look at it like like Blockbuster is the perfect example of a business that that didn’t evolve. It may evolve. It made itself replaceable, and someone came along and replaced it. Kodak and, you know, history and and technology littered with those businesses that that made themselves replaceable. And, actually, what came later was arguably better, but every one of those firms, every one of those businesses have the ability to evolve and and drive that change rather than being driven out by that change. And I think that for me is the key thing. You can drive change or be driven out by change. And we’re almost at a road now where I’m not sure there’s there’s any other option than to drive the change or or or to, you know, to go backwards. So good. Right. Well, look. I see there was gonna be a couple of polls on this one today, and if I can, just get this one up. We’re gonna do a second poll, and this poll is going to be about, what are your views around AI? So I’m gonna launch this poll now. There we go. So what is your view of AI and its impact on your job? So love it, bit nervous, scared, or confused dot com. Russell, just you know, you’ve come from two businesses, where you are, work previously, and where you are now. What were the mindsets in in the business you come from, the business you’re at now around AI? Were they similar? Are they diverse depending on who you’re talking to? So, my both previous practice experience in this sort of AI era are both from large private equity. So as you can imagine, you get very mixed views with the different types of, legacy firms that you have with the different cultures and and ways of working. I would say where I currently sit, there’s great appetite for it. We we, you know, we’re we’re starting to lean into, an AI sort of, embracing phase with people like, you know, like yourselves testing different platforms and ways of working. So we’ve got a lot of interest in that at the moment. So I’d say less resistance at the moment. But definitely in the early stages, it was and, again, you know, was covered at DAS. Like, the the the headline stuff was just drawing attention, and people never really actually read the detail below. So it was the the kind of AI scaremongering that people focused on as opposed to, you know, what we’re doing is kind of these sort of webinar contents is contextualizing the messaging and saying, actually, there is plenty that you can do about it. It’s not gonna take your job. It’s not gonna take your role. So Yeah. And and, look, I think there’s a an interesting result. So sixty one percent of people love it. So sixty one percent of people on this website are loving AI. You are absolutely in the right place today. So there’s twenty five percent that’s a bit nervous, and I think actually that’s fair. Right? Like, you should be a bit nervous by any new technology. I think it it it you know, that that degree of trepidation in in implementation means you’re probably gonna implement it right. And then there’s a few people on the call that are are confused by it and and and not quite sure how it’s gonna impact them and and everything else. I think, actually, if you put that out there in general to an even wider audience than than the webinar, I think that would probably be reflective. Right? I think, you know, people are excited by technology, but there is that slight hesitation of what it could do and and, you know, God forbid, we’ve all seen the Terminator. Right? We don’t wanna wake up one day with, with Arnieard or, shouting he’ll be back back or or or whatever. Right? So there there’s always I think films have a lot of I think film I’m a film fan. Right? I think films have a lot to answer for with technology and scaring us. Right? Yeah. Definitely. I think that would be indicative of the the audience that we have here on an AI webinar, whereas if you enter more traditional type firm firms, I think that swing would be totally different. A lot more more scared, a lot more nervousness. But, yeah, everybody that’s joined today, that that would ring true for this webinar content definitely. Yeah. Absolutely. So, so coming on this theme of kind of what’s really at stake, we’ve got some statistics. We love a good statistic here, but up to fifty percent of activities carried out by accountants have the potential to be automated using technologies. Fifty percent. And then forty percent increase in productivity. Accenture predicts AI could help accountancy firm boost productivity by forty percent by twenty thirty four. Well, that’s a huge number. Right? Like like, in a in an industry that is beset with a people challenge and I I still think today, you know, we’re talking about technology, but one of the biggest challenges in accounting is still people. Right? And getting and making sure that you can replace hate count. I think, you know, the impact of AI could could clearly be huge. And and on the side of this graph, it’s a little bit about six areas of where AI, when implemented effectively, can affect your account above market position. So clearly account, capacity and efficiency, and that’s born out of those statistics. Consistency, accuracy, and quality, we’re humans. Right? We make a mistake. And I think that’s one of the things people saw with the move from Excel into to a cloud accounting and and and other areas that some of that human error that you got with Excel is taken out. Customer service, talent attraction and retention, competitiveness, and financial performance. We’ll dig into a couple of those along the way. But, Russell, I think this this next one is definitely, I think, you know, a what would you do if you have more time in your firm? You know, would you go out riding a, an AI created unicorn is the big question. But but, genuinely, right, like like, if if AI is going to make forty percent capacity in a practice. What can you do with that? And when when I was researching this, one of my colleagues, Ken, wrote this great blog around AI, and he he reminded me of that that awesome Homer Simpson episode where he automates the tasks in his office with the the water bird, and he said, drink the now, you know, doesn’t work out well for Homer, but it never does. For us, it’s gonna be completely different. But but it’s a good analogy. Right? Like, it’s that boring task of pressing a button every x amount of time? Well, AI can can press that button. So what are you gonna do with your your extra time, Russell? I mean, this is this is part of the the question why people are nervous is that they don’t know how to fill their time. But I think I never got into accountancy to do minor repetitive tasks. When I did that as a junior, I literally pulled my hair out. Giving us time back should enable us, a, not to have to put down, you know, additional hours on our time sheet, you know, pad the day up for stuff that we should. We know as a profession, we do this. Right? Time sheet is one of the biggest problems that we have. You take apart that problem away, and you actually give time back to then go, actually, we can speak to our client more often. At the moment, the time sheet and the cost budget dictate how many contact points you have with your client and how many times have you been in office and you see eyes roll when a client picks the phone up to you to ask a question. Because you’re like, can I charge this? Is it taking me away from the current job that I’m doing? I’m running over budget on that one. Where do I put the time? How do I bill it? So the fact that you can give more time back to have contact points with your client, understand them better, are things going the right way, ask you simple questions of their business, I would absolutely be filling my diary with that type of task. Added value and advisory is the big thing. So once you’re having those contacts with your clients and you’ve got more data to actually pull from, actually spotting opportunities for your client before they become things is absolutely key as well. So that’s also why I’ll be focusing a lot of my time. And just because we all get bored and there’s always areas that we’d like to pivot and move into, like, I I’m hoping to see lots of different types of firm activity in the future where they either double down into different niches or they start pivoting into new areas and service delivery. And then, you know, we end up the worry is that AI ends up giving us vanilla accountancy practices just doing the same thing. I see it the total opposite. We’ve got so much opportunity to pivot in lots of different areas that you’ll see this this whole new playing field of different accounting practices. So for me, capacity given back is only a good thing. We’re not throwing body bodies at the problem. We’re throwing technology, and they’re the three areas that I would go to. And, I think you’re you’re absolutely right. That ability like, advisory has been a buzzword since when I came in ten years ago, and it was it was almost a threat. Right? You have to do advisory work. Compliance is dying. Compliance is never dying. Compliance will always be there, and and rightly so. Right? It’s a hugely important part of what accountant does. But I think, actually, where I think advice what advisory is is the blending of compliance with actual support and advice around your business. So this is what you’ve done, and we’ve helped you be compliant and and do all of that. And this is what you can do, and this is how we can help you, and this is what we can do to to change that number next year. So taking that data from the compliance, making more human with with reporting and analytics, and then delivering it in a way that that actually will will inspire business owners to do more. Because I would say this, and we said this a lot during the pandemic. And by the way, yeah, if anyone had pandemic on your webinar bingo card, now is a good time to tick it off. But we said this during the pandemic way. Accountants were the superheroes, for businesses. They were helping them. They were businesses didn’t know what was going on. They were phoned their account and they were, what do I do about this, and how do I do furlough and all of this? And accountants become the became the lifeline for businesses. And after COVID, a lot of firms just went back to doing what they did before. And that was such a shame for me because I thought that maybe we we kinda cracked that advice and support area. And I think a lot of them went back to it. I I absolutely think that that is huge. And that idea to pivot and do more is is great. So I guess the answer is is that we’ve done a little bit of blue sky thinking, right, about kind of what AI could do and and and why we need it and and why it’s gonna be important. So what are the steps that people need to take to start getting ready? And and we’ve broken it down to seven steps. Kind of I guess you’ve gone for a few of these steps yourself. Right? The the the prepare your company mindset and staff is is an interesting one. How do you prepare a business in the size that you’ve worked in for change? Must be quite complicated. Right? I think change is always complicated, and it’s not given the sort of focus that it really deserves. And it is you know, I’ve spent a long time in this space from a a small local practice all the way through to to large private equity. And, you know, the the days of throw something at the business and hope it sticks is is long gone. And, you know, the the company mind mindset shift comes, you know, too often top down. But for me, I’ve got another quote that I I also found recently, which is, all transformation happens from the neck up, which means it’s your technology. It’s not it it is literally all in the head. It’s that change of mindset, and that is always the first hurdle. So for me, it is building a top down, bottom up approach. So whilst top down gives you the strategic vision, you know, if you wanna be a tech enabled, tech led type firm, but you need to get the hearts of the mind, the buy in of those from the bottom up. And it’s bringing the harmony between the two and the balance. And what we just talked about, understanding it’s not your jobs at risk. We’re trying to pivot, change the processes, give you jobs and tasks that you want to do, not the ones that you don’t want and the clients don’t value anyway. And it’s building that sort of focus group, you know, the buzzwords, champions, advocacy teams, all of that sort of stuff, is is very much the front end. And I spend a lot of time, you know, we talk we talk maybe about in a moment about the Silverfin rollout for us, and I’ve spent a lot of time at the front end with the hearts and minds and the understanding about why Silverfin, why the change, what does it mean for you, and future state. So getting people’s heads and minds and hearts all into the process is fundamental of any of that change management. Yeah. And, look, we could we could talk about each one of these and go into detail. We could probably do a webinar around just this part of it. Right? And maybe maybe, actually, that’s a good follow-up for us to do is, it actually dive really deep into these stages. All of these seven points are available in our white paper, and I’ll I’ll bring up a code at the end. And I’m sure when we do the follow-up of the webinar afterwards, we’ll share that link. But, all of these points are in that white paper, so I’m not gonna dive deep onto everyone. I know data is a key one for you and and and bringing the data together. And it’s probably while I go on to the next slide, it’s probably worth you going a little bit into that data point and and just kind of talking a bit more about that. Yeah. I think so so for me, in terms of the the with the seven, I I summarized them in largely four buckets anyway, which is data. So first and foremost, get your data quality ready, where it sits, how it’s being stored, and how you can access it. Partner with, you know, firms like Silverfin and other vendors that are investing in an AI roadmap, upskilling your staff to make sure that they leverage AI and how they how they can do that going forward, and then just start to introduce it into your tech stack. So that overall in terms of the whole data piece, it’s really how you enable that. So clean up your data. The reason why I very much like Silverfin in the firms where we’ve embedded it previously was it becomes that unstructured data aggregator, and it kind of pulls everything together in one space where we do our day job. So when we’re doing working papers and accounts, it’s pulling data from multiple different sources in different formats, different chart of accounts, and it’s unifying that in one place. Now all of a sudden, you can then pull so much more insight from a unified dataset as opposed to if I just went to go to Xero and pull a back end API out there, for example, a thousand clients could have a thousand different charts of accounts, a different structure. So, again, it’s taking the customization out of it and allowing us to really dig deeper into the insight, as opposed to, you know, just looking at lots of different data sources and then trying to aggregate them elsewhere. Yeah. I think I think that data upgrade the word you said, which clearly I can’t say right now, is is so key because you’re right. There are a million different sources there, and we’ve become so fragmented. We’ve got, you know, back in the old days, it was really easy. Right? You’d have Excel. You’d have Sage or some kind of desktop software, and then, yeah, that was pretty much it. Right? A little bit of compliance tools in the middle. But we’ve become so fragmented with all the different data and all different ins and outs But having some way to to to bring that together and then standardize that process to then be able to have that standardized way of working across the firm. Yeah. Especially with the p move within the industry. Right? That standardization, being able to plug firms in, plug businesses into what we do is so much easier than going excuse me. Going around, oh, we’ve gotta now transfer to cloud, and then we’ve gotta transfer your bookkeeping software. We’ve gotta transfer this. We’ve gotta and and, like, I would argue that firms that have that more standardized data approach are far more attractive to a buyer than those that are, you know, more fragmented and and and and pulled apart. Building on your quote earlier, Russell, I this is something, I think you like, I like as well. AI will not replace humans, but software with AI will replace software without AI, and humans with AI will replace humans without AI. I think that’s I think that kinda says it all. Right? Like, you know, we we we fear change. History fear is a fear of change. Right? We fear the cloud, but we think the same as streaming. You know, back in the day, game show my age. People were scared that VHS was gonna kill the cinema, and it it it never did. Right? And those who adapt and change are the ones that cross that. So I wanna dive a little bit into, your experience with, Silverfin and and the journey you’ve been on and and how you’ve done that and and talk a little bit more about how that’s looked for you. So do you wanna I know you’ve dug a little bit into that standardized data, but kind of, you know, what are the key points that where you utilizing AI and how that’s working for you and and making changes? Yeah. So, like, on that Silicon journey, the the standardization piece is key. And, like, you you hit the nail on the head with the private equity side of things. Absolutely. Standardization is one of the top priorities that gives you consistency and scalability. And having a product that sort of aggregates in the middle is is absolutely key. What it allows you to do is be sort of front end agnostic with your client base as well. And, you know, clients have different needs and wants, so you can go out and be, you know, service specific for those clients and have custom chart accounts, custom structures, whatever means value to them. Whereas the bit that I like about Silverfin is the rigidity of the chart of account structure and the mapping. And you guys don’t bend over that easy in terms of where we say, could we just have this one? Could we have that? It’s like, no. Not really, unless there’s a really specific need and want for that. So that for me is absolutely key. And on the the sort of the AI side was part of the reason for partnering with Silverfin was, obviously, I knew about the acquisition of the AI Lab, where that’s going. I’ve spoken to numerous within, the you know, within Silfen as well about where you’re going, what the roadmap looks like with AI. And for me, it’s getting on that journey as soon as possible to then absolutely take a full advantage of the benefits as they evolve and deliver over time. The so much so that pre joining Gravita, we were going kind of going through the Silverfin commercials, and Silverfin assistant was one of the things that I said, absolutely keep on the list of things that we’re gonna purchase. Because for me, it absolutely felt right, and it sets us up to succeed. And as soon as I’ve come in, we’ve we’ve taken Silverfin Assistant as part of our training rollout. Everybody gets trained on it. We have regular catch ups internally. I ask about the good, the bad, and the ugly in terms of what it’s surfacing, and then we feed that back to Silverfin as well. So very simple things like the fact that Silverfin assistant on screen now is in the platform at a working template level is huge. Before, it’s kinda hidden, and feedback has now, you know, brought about those changes. So, literally, as you’re doing your day job, you can have an assistant prompt, which you’re gonna click on to the side of the screen. It will tell you what it’s looked for, why it’s looked for it, what it’s telling you. It’ll give you some full background information as well. So great for training. We use optional, in India quite a bit as well. So, like, they get consistent messaging around what these things are surfacing and why it’s being surfaced. They can ask better questions in the UK as well, and we just get a more complete file. Now that is just the start. Like, I’m more excited about where this can go because bringing the data into one place, having it structured, and let’s be honest, the transactional level data that we’re bringing into the platform, like, the opportunity is endless in terms of the insights and the sort of automation that we could potentially surface in the future. So for me, it was getting there early, take it full advantage, get it embedded in the to the mindset of the teams, and then take the full advantage as this stuff, develops in the future. Yeah. And, look, I flashed up a slide about silicon AI, and and silicon assistant. And, look, obviously, we’ve talked broadly around AI, and and for sure, you know, for me, this is one of the things that attracted me to this business is is that the AI is not an add on. It’s not something that sits on the the the site. It’s embedded into the platform. And some of the stuff that I’ve seen and and some of the stuff I’ve I’ve seen that that that that the team are working on is really cool. But I don’t wanna just talk about this from a perspective of Silverfin and and trying to sell why Silverfin system is great. Right? In terms of an impact for you as a firm, you talk about training. I think that’s something like, we’ve got about five minutes left. So I I can’t dig in too much, but I’d like to just get a little bit about about how you’re using the AI to train staff and and that consistency. Because I think that’s all that people overlook is getting everyone up to speed and and doing it in a consistent way. Yeah. I think too too much training is delivered by outdated or, you know, well versed accountants training how they were trained. You know, I was trained this way. This is how I pass my knowledge down to the next generation. I think part of that is what’s leading to this sort of, recruitment issue in accounting is that the profession has seemed a bit boring, a bit outdated. It’s not It’s not Exactly. Like, if you look at where well, I had this conversation with a firm down in Sussex, and they were like, if you go to the colleges, they’re still training people on Sage desktop. Now no knock on that software at all, but it’s a desktop product in a cloud based world. Yep. It’s like it’s like teaching people to do engineering, a a car mechanic on a nineteen twenties form. Yeah. Some of the principles are the same, but you take it to the modern technology, and it’s just not the same. Exactly. And it and it’s bonkers. I think this is part of this this shift in the profession is that if we can start having firms embracing AI and bring it as part of their core and using it to enable and train staff. It it just it just just really helps with that sort of, from my my perspective, like, that that sort of interest in your firm and the profession, and it should start getting us moving forward a lot faster. By the way, I’m not ending the webinar, but what I wanted to do was give people, a link to get to the white paper. Right? Because I think a lot of what we’ve talked about today, especially around those seven steps on that white paper, I think it’s really important to to kind of take that learning. Because one of the things around AI, and I think, Russell, you’re a big proponent of this as well, is is, like, do your research. Right? Find out what’s out there. Find out what’s coming, and and really kind of look at how that’s gonna impact you, but also look at the trends. Go to talk to if you’re heading to account techs in a couple of in couple of weeks, I think. Yeah. Couple of weeks. Right? I can guarantee you a load of talks in there will be about how AI will impact your firm and how AI will change the way you’re doing things in a positive way. So rather than defaulting to the standard, let’s go listen to it, the talk on MTD, which everyone does. Right? It’s always the busiest talk. Go listen to talks on AI and and see how that is changing, implementing, and and and in areas unlike training and like everything else. Because I think that’s really important. Yeah. A hundred percent. I can emphasize that enough. Like, I took a team to DaaS a few weeks ago and made sure that they were spread out across different talks, And they came back with lots of different perspectives on AI, whereas, you know, you go to the MTD talk. It is you know the MTD. It it’s sort of facts and figures right and rollout and does it doesn’t happen. With AI, there’s so much that can happen. There’s so many different contacts. And I think once people do embrace that and they start to understand it better, the the nervousness, percentage will start to go down, and then people then jump up to the embracing level. Yeah. I agree. Look. I’m gonna launch our final poll, and it’s just to find out, about everyone that’s on the webinar, thank you for attending. Really great to to to have you here. And just an option to say, look, would you like some more in information about Silverfin? I know we’ve got some existing peep users on here, which is great. Some people looking at us. So, just please just have a go, and and if you’re interested, yeah, we’ll reach out and and kinda have those conversations, and you can see how, you know, Silverfin Assistant could potentially benefit your firm. Russell, look. Thank you as always. It’s always brilliant to talk to you, and and I’m really struggling today because we’ve got forty minutes in the subject that we could have taken five hours on. But really thanks everyone for listening. Russell, anything else you wanna add just at the end around AI and kind of, you know, what you’re looking at moving forward? So the last thing for us really, which is what we’re looking at. So we’re embracing the the the business at the moment. So we’re getting people from the business to tell us where they think AI would make the biggest impact to them in their day job. So I think too many people look top down in terms of AI approach, whereas you really do need to dig under the bonnet and get people doing the day job to really identify where the big wins are. So that’s where we’re looking at the moment, in terms of where we go next with with using AI in the firm. Perfect. And are you talking at Caltex? They too, I believe. Excellent. And is that about AI? No. AppStack is an advisory. Oh, okay. Well, it’s just favorite subject. Yeah. Yeah. Well, then it’s like the second the second best topic. Right? Like, when you and that’s what you’re gonna do with your capacity. You’re gonna free up that capacity with AI, and then it’s gonna give you the ability to open up some of those other cool apps that sit within the technology space in the app stack to be able to go out there and, and do more and and and deliver a better service to to to your clients. So I think that’s great. I’m I’m there day one talking about something nothing to do with AI, but, social media, which is my other passion as you well know. Russell, thank you so much for your time today. If people wanna connect with you, I’m sure, you’re open to that on LinkedIn, and you’re on LinkedIn. And if you’ve, thank you for everyone that kind of asked for more information about Silverbitt. We’ll reach out to you, and and do that. And so we haven’t had time to take questions, but if you would like to ask any questions around AI, around technology, please send them to me. My email address is phil dot hovden at silverfin dot com, and I’ll pass them on to Russell or to our internal team, and we’ll be more than happy to to pop back out and have that conversation with you. So once again, thank you very much, Russell, for, joining us on this webinar. Thank you everyone for attending, and we look forward to speaking to you again in the near future.