What do tech vendors have in store for 2024?

December 27, 2023 9:00 AM

Technology developers who serve the accounting profession have planned a bevy of new products, features, capacities, integrations, partnerships, initiatives and other major developments for 2024 that are all aimed at helping practitioners be more efficient and produce more value. We wanted to learn more about the specifics, so we reached out to accounting solution providers of all types and sizes to get a 10,000-foot view of what professionals might expect over the next year.

Many of the planned developments track the wider trends we observed from the 34 Vendor Spotlights we ran over the course of the year (see previous story), including a broad focus on AI and automation to improve product functionalities; enhancements to the user experience via things like interface redesigns and workflow efficiencies; a big focus on integrations and partnerships to expand market reach and improve product functionality; a continual move towards cloud-based platforms aimed at providing real-time data access, enhanced security and remote work capabilities; and more customization or personalization options.

Though we cannot claim to have a crystal ball, we can see that 2024 will be a year where technology is front and center, used to further enhance the skills and capabilities of professional accountants as it continues on its journey of digital transformation. Below are the answers of dozens of accounting solutions providers to this one simple question:

What are your accounting technology plans for 2024? This could include new products, new features, new partnerships, new integrations, new initiatives, new R&D, new areas of focus, or even new organizational shifts. The operative word here is "new." What will be new from you, in terms of accounting tech, in 2024?

Next week, we hear what advice these vendors have for accountants (other than buying their products or services).

Aiwyn

https://www.aiwyn.ai/

We plan to add a significant number of new partners to "Relay," our newly launched data and integration platform that is creating more connective tissue across the disparate tooling in our profession. Building more bridges across tech vendors enables us to unlock powerful automation capabilities and eliminate manual, repetitive tasks that lead to mistakes, and give clearer visibility into business performance that will enable accounting firms to take their practice to new heights.

We're also integrating cutting-edge generative AI into our solutions, including harnessing the power of large language models to deliver personalized and intelligent interactions. One example is crafting late invoice reminder emails personalized to individual customer personalities and payment history. With AI, we are not only saving time and freeing up capacity, but also improving the quality of life for accountants by helping with mentally and emotionally painful tasks.

Audit Dashboard

https://www.auditdashboard.com/

In 2024, our customers will see new automation, new integrations, and new insights. We're not rushing to market with half-backed AI features, but do plan to release one of our most ambitious R&D initiatives since inception.

Avalara

https://www.avalara.com/

For 2024, Avalara will be rolling out a new, reimagined partner program. This overarching program will build on our almost 20-year history of being a "partner-first" company, and introduce new tiers, benefits, technology infrastructure, and support services for our partners. We have received very positive early feedback on this program from the accountant community, and believe this will help our partners better address the growth and labor challenges that the accounting field is facing.

Avii

https://avii.com/

In 2024, Avii will introduce several new core elements to our broad accounting practice management platform, including Digital Signature (Avii E-Sign), Questionnaires, and Engagement Letters — all seamlessly automated throughout Avii Workspace. These enhancements will satisfy or replace the need for firms to have standalone, non-automated survey software (i.e., tax binders/questionnaires, digital signatures, and audit software for things like SOC).

New features are integrated and fed into the Avii platform, solving the problem of disconnected accounting processes and software that directly reduce an accounting firm's productivity and profits. Our flexible platform allows firms to replace some of their software, then interconnect with much of their remaining software, workflows, automations, and data to drive better experiences and outcomes for clients and the firm.

Bill

Bill.com

BILL understands the unique challenges and needs of small and medium business (SMBs), which motivates us to continue innovating to help businesses and their accountant partners transform their financial operations. SMBs want more control, efficiency, and visibility over their finances. To help, heading into 2024, we want to continue to empower accountants and SMBs by equipping them with the essential tools for managing their financial operations and cash flow effectively within a single platform. Helping accountants accelerate client business even more remains important. We understand the need for powerful and streamlined solutions that give firms more automation, integration, tools, and capabilities to enable even more opportunities to support clients.

Bitwave

https://www.bitwave.io/

In 2024, Bitwave is set to revolutionize accounting technology with several groundbreaking initiatives. We're leveraging AI to expedite the accounting process for complex crypto transactions, ensuring accuracy and efficiency. Our software will go beyond standard accounting and financial statements to encompass a comprehensive suite for Treasury and Risk Management, as well as Financial Planning and Analysis. We're also planning deeper integrations with traditional fiat systems, including enhanced connectivity with bank interfaces, conventional accounts payable systems, and traditional treasury management systems. Furthermore, Bitwave is developing vertical-specific product capabilities tailored to the unique needs of diverse sectors such as miners, blockchain foundations, digital asset funds, and creators. Lastly, we're heavily investing in custom solutions to meet the intricate requirements of large institutional players, demonstrating our commitment to innovation and excellence in the accounting technology landscape.

Botkeeper

https://www.botkeeper.com

Botkeeper is set to revolutionize the accounting tech landscape in 2024. We're launching a new AI-driven, tech-only accounting option, "Botkeeper Infinite", accessible to all size firms.

Building on our existing tools like Transaction Manager and Smart Connect, we're adding new features such as Activity Hub, Self-guided Onboarding, Journal Entry Automation, Bot Review, Automated Bank Reconciliations, and a Zapier Integration.

Later in the year, we're working on:

New GL Integrations for expanded compatibility.
Allocation Automation: Automated handling of split allocations.
One-Click Access: Simplified task access without login hassles.
ML Customization: Tailored AI models to fit firm preferences.
GenAI Predictions: Advanced forecasting for complex transactions.
Variance Alerts: Instant notifications for financial discrepancies.
Industry-Specific Models: Optimized machine learning for industry nuances.
Botkeeper Community & University: A platform for knowledge exchange and comprehensive training resources.

These initiatives signify Botkeeper's commitment to advancing the frontiers of accounting technology, empowering firms to thrive in a dynamic environment.

Campfire

https://www.meetcampfire.com/

We are launching our modern core accounting software, which is a general ledger that is a full replacement of Netsuite, including department-level P&L's, native multi-entity and multi-currency consolidation, and advanced reporting such as revenue recognition and ARR waterfalls. You can see a live demo here. The product is currently in private beta and will be publicly released in Q1 2024.

Canopy

https://www.getcanopy.com/

Canopy is focused on helping accounting firms achieve practice success by empowering them to manage their firms more effectively, efficiently, and productively. To support these goals we continue to further develop AI capabilities in our software and also add new modules (such as payments, insights and engagements) to provide a flexible yet full practice management suite for firms of all sizes.

To enable accountants to elevate and automate their client experiences and workflow we will continue to add additional capabilities in the Canopy suite, including new features with in-demand tools such as document automation, further expanding our engagements and proposals, improved client experiences, notifications, and integrating time and billing into everything that we do.

We will also continue to provide education, resources, and support for the accounting community through our new podcast Practice Success, our 2024 Canopy Summit, and partnerships with industry leaders.

Caseware

https://www.caseware.com/

Caseware will continue to partner for success - we'll share news on this early in 2024. We're introducing new, innovative products around the world next year, and, through the launch of our Caseware AI digital assistant, we'll open up game-changing possibilities for professionals focused on accounting and audit to streamline their engagements and working practices with customers.

As creators of the technology engine powering OnPoint DAS, we're excited to see even more firms gain competitive advantage thanks to our Cloud technology. The OnPoint Suite is a comprehensive set of integrated applications built on the Caseware Cloud platform, developed with the AICPA, CPA.com and leading practitioners from the top 100 firms in the US. In 2024, we'll see more firms enhance their audit and assurance engagements as they choose the path to true digital audit transformation.

Look out for our 2024 State of Accounting Firms and State of Internal Audit Trends Reports, due for publication in January.

Client Hub

https://clienthub.app/

Client Hub will continue to focus on our commitment to develop more AI enabled features to help increase productivity for the accounting and bookkeeping profession which will include a deeper integration with QuickBooks Online. We will continue to build strong relationships with others in the accounting technology space and will be providing more quality educational content to help bookkeepers and accountants better manage their practices and deliver exceptional client service.

CloudCapcha

https://www.cloudcapcha.com/

Our company's mission is to reinvent time recording in the accounting world, empowering firms to boost productivity and profitability. As we pursue this mission, we will further enhance the efficiency of the time-recording process.

In Q1 of 2024, we'll add new AI capabilities to WorkCapcha, our automated time recording application within Microsoft Teams. Our aim for the application is to autonomously generate timesheet entries where users validate the recommendations made by the AI engine, optimising a user's time management.

To enhance the comprehensiveness and accuracy of daily activities that feed a user's DayBook we will launch the WorkCapcha Desktop application, designed to capture all the applications a user accesses to perform client work. Applications such as CaseWare and other audit systems will now generate activities which can become time entries.

Corvee

https://corvee.com/

In the year 2024, our focus sharpens in on Corvee's newest product – Instead, a tax management platform for key tax positions and a massive forward leap in the tax technology domain. We are set to unveil a suite of advanced tax positions designed to arm tax professionals with robust tools to unearth unprecedented savings for their clients. Key additions like Depreciation, Home office, and the Augusta rule will be part of this expansion. These enhancements are not merely about crafting tax positions but embodying them through to the finish line of compliance, thus streamlining the tax season's filing rigors. This will allow firms to make meaningful progress on the transition from tax compliance to tax advisory services.

Having already catalyzed transformative shifts in recent quarters, we expect 2024 to mark significant leaps in the entire tax life cycle driven by the ever-increasing power of artificial intelligence.

Digits

https://digits.com/

Digits will continue to invest in bringing the latest innovations in machine learning and AI technology to the accounting industry. Our ultimate goal continues to be automating tedious accounting workflows so that we can help unlock accountants' full potential and allow them to focus on the work that matters, making their clients successful. Leveraging our proprietary vector similarity modeling engine, vendor database, classification models, and self-critical agents, alongside our recently announced API, Digits will push new technologies to continue automating bookkeeping in 2024. These investments will look like a full bookkeeping automation suite of advanced tools that drive better quality control on the ledger, automatic transaction classification, document storage, and extraction. All while continuing to invest in our industry-leading reporting product. By enabling the automation of tasks throughout the bookkeeping and accounting close process, Digits will enable the "Firms of the Future" through deep automation of workflows and AI built into their core. We truly believe that our investments in this space will allow accountants and bookkeepers to 10x their day-to-day productivity within the next year.

Drake Software

https://www.drakesoftware.com/

Drake Software will continue to innovate and utilize technology in our applications to drive maximum productivity and efficiency for our customers in 2024. We are focused on making significant improvements to existing products, as well as providing additional capabilities that complement the end-to-end tax workflow. A key initiative for 2024 is the introduction of Drake Pay—a modern, fully integrated payment solution that allows Drake customers to securely accept credit, debit or contactless payments from their customers. Drake will continue to pursue partnerships in 2024 that bring additional value to our customers such as Practice Management and Crypto transaction reporting/integration. Finally, Generative AI and its application to professional software is a hot topic in the profession, and Drake Software is committed to the evaluation and pursuit of this technology for the benefit of our customers and their clients.

Earmark

https://earmarkcpe.com/

In 2024, Earmark will be focusing on integrating AI into our daily workflows for creating CPE courses. With AI, it is possible to significantly reduce the cost of creating continuing education courses, which will be a huge benefit for the profession. This will enable high-quality courses to be offered at a lower cost. If we do it right, our users won't even notice the difference.

Expensify

https://www.expensify.com/

In 2024, Expensify is further expanding its chat-based platform, New Expensify. New Expensify aims to improve both accountant-client and accountant-accountant relationships by opening lines of communication and community-building. With its chat feature, the platform offers a direct method for accountants to reach out to their clients with any financial document requests in real time, saving time not only around tax season but also at each month-end close.

New Expensify fosters community-building by making it easy for accountants to share best practices within their firm, or across organizations. Members can form topic, event, or mission-based groups that can stay connected and use each other as resources.

The platform isn't only relevant to the accounting industry, but every Expensify member. By creating collaborative spend management features available to both businesses and individuals, New Expensify unites members looking to manage personal payments and business spend, all while collaborating in real-time within the same app.

Fieldguide

https://www.fieldguide.io/

As we all know, the most significant challenge facing every firm today is the escalating talent crisis. In fact, by 2028, we project a global industry shortfall of several million practitioner hours. To address this issue, we're investing in technology that allows practitioners to leverage the power of cloud-based collaboration, practitioner-centric AI, and new-to-the-industry insights and analytics.

At Fieldguide, our commitment is to continue building AI that is purpose-built for practitioners and seamlessly integrates into the end-to-end engagement workflow - improving both efficiency and audit quality. We'll also continue investing in deepened workflow automation to include many Advisory and Audit service lines - dramatically streamlining engagements ranging from SOC, PCI, HITRUST, and ISO to NIST, CMMC, and FedRamp to SOX404, Financial Audit and Reviews, and more. And finally, we remain committed to serving leading CPA firms with continued investment in our enterprise-grade features, including nuances in governance, security, permissions, and interoperability.

FreshBooks

https://www.freshbooks.com/

FreshBooks Payroll powered by Gusto will launch January 9, 2024 - a full service payroll solution that U.S. based customers can add to their monthly subscriptions, allowing them to run payroll for employees, file payroll taxes, and maintain labor compliance. FreshBooks payroll will streamline the payroll process, allowing accountants to focus more on strategic financial advising.
FreshBooks will continue to redefine the profession with our proprietary Collaborative Accounting™ model and certification program. We offer a comprehensive ecosystem of support for accounting professionals. This includes a robust suite of accounting features and an in-depth education program tailored to guide accountants through their Collaborative Accounting™ training and certification journey.
A new Audit Log is slated for release around March: This will allow accountants to track all relevant GL-impacting activities in a central place.
Evolution of Financial Reports - We'll release new reporting architecture to empower accountants - with table customizations, improved filters, and in-report drill downs.

Gusto

Gusto.com

Heading into 2024, we plan to build more AI-powered tools designed to automate manual tasks, so accountants can focus on higher-value strategic work. A lot of AI out there is about hype, not help. But our philosophy is to be genuinely helpful today by helping accountants save time and money. That's why we recently built tools that help accountants easily import key data, help their clients prevent and resolve tax notices, and support building customized reports.

Beyond AI, we're also helping firms with one of the biggest challenges in the industry – hiring the right talent. We'll bring Gusto Global, our employer of record service, to more countries so more firms and SMBs can easily hire, pay, and manage talent from around the world.

2024 will be an exciting year – we can't wait to show our accounting partners what's next, while helping them better support the SMBs we both serve.

Ignition

https://www.ignitionapp.com/

In 2024, we'll be enhancing the Ignition platform by:

Launching AI-enabled features that help firms become more efficient
Offering more business insights and intelligence to help accounting professionals price and package services and grow their revenue
Streamlining client billing to make it even easier to bill and get paid on time
Improving and launching new integrations to offer a more tightly integrated tech stack. We recently launched our ProConnect Tax integration, so firms can also expect further improvements here
Accounting and tax firms also have a huge opportunity to digitize their processes. We'll continue working with industry experts and partners to help firms navigate change by offering more educational webinars, resources, and practical toolkits or templates.

Insightsoftware

Insightsoftware.com

Insightsoftware is a hyper-growth company dedicated to consolidating organizational data to round out one of the broadest reporting, analytics, and performance management solution sets available. M&A is baked into the core of insightsoftware's business strategy, a strategy that will continue to evolve into 2024 based on external conditions and changing corporate objectives within the financial reporting market. Such M&A activity will be a focus in 2024, while innovation persists internally, ensuring insightsoftware solutions effectively serve the office of the CFO addressing financial planning and analysis, controllership, and data and analytics. This includes the integration of additional standalone products within the insightsoftware Platform, bringing together more of the company's applications in a single location. With BEPS 2.0 Pillar Two taking effect in early 2024, insightsoftware will also expand its capabilities to further support CFOs and their teams who need help keeping up with these tax regulations.

InterVal

inter-val.ai

In 2024 our R&D team of accountants, valuators and a data scientists will continue to focus on leveraging extensive, diverse and anonymized SMB datasets to seamlessly integrate cutting-edge Large Language Models (LLMs) like Llama and FastText, to employ sophisticated vector embeddings and train models with heightened precision and depth in predicting future state business outcomes and account categorization. Through state-of-the-art layout-aware document extraction and vector embedding models, unstructured financial data is transformed into actionable insights. This process unlocks valuable CAS insights, facilitating strategic decision-making for the frim and realizing the full potential of client data. Our approach ensures a balance between privacy and precision, creating a robust foundation for leveraging data-driven insights in an evolving business landscape.

Intuit

Intuit.com

One new area of focus for us in 2024 is reaching the growing population of solopreneur small business owners, highlighted in our new "Business Differently" campaign. The campaign showcases how our new QuickBooks Money offering, with 5% APY, brings Intuit's financial expertise to a wider audience of entrepreneurs. QuickBooks also created a new content hub, "Resources for Solopreneurs," to help solopreneurs navigate the unique needs of their businesses. The hub will be updated throughout the year with new and relevant information.

Giving this segment the tools that power their growth is a priority, as we know many want to eventually focus on their businesses full time. However, the bar is set high with 62% of side hustlers reporting they'd need to earn over $100,000/year to quit their day job. Throughout 2024, we will continue to support the growth of solopreneurs through our product innovations and services.

IRIS Software

https://www.irissoftware.com/

We recently announced the launch of IRIS firm management that will deliver a holistic collection of solutions, including Practice Management, Document Management, Workflow and Analytics, designed to drive firm efficiencies and deliver best-in-class functionality to Certified Public Accountant (CPA) firms. We will continue to invest in this offering over the next year in response to customer and market feedback with a focus on new features including Power BI, third party integrations, API's, reporting tools and practice engine parity. We will also continue to work towards consolidating our product offerings from several products that serve the same purpose to deliver one comprehensive purpose-built solution for clients with all of the best functionality and features across the IRIS portfolio today.

We will continue to integrate technology from across our portfolio including capabilities from IRIS Elements to progress our rate of innovation and help clients foster sustained growth at their firms.

Keeper

Keeper.app

Our big 2024 technology change is what we call "3 step filing". We're combining the technological capabilities of transformer models with a human-in-the-loop review process. The best parts of software meet the best parts of human services. Users love it -- rated 4.8 stars out of 5 -- and our accountants love it too because they can spend just 3 minutes on average per return filed.

Payem

https://www.payem.co/

In 2024, PayEm is enhancing its accounting technology with a focus on expanding the Budget Control functionality. This development aims to offer comprehensive budget enforcement capabilities within an organization. Our enhanced Budget Control module will integrate seamlessly into workflows, beginning with submitting customized employee request forms. Budget owners will then evaluate these requests using the module's real-time data visibility feature. This key enhancement provides decision-makers with up-to-date and thorough financial data, covering both on-platform and off-platform expenses.

A pivotal aspect of this upgrade is its seamless integration with existing ERP systems, offering a unified view of financial data and automated variance calculations. This feature gives budget owners precise insights into how each decision impacts their budget, leading to more informed financial management. The Budget Control module simplifies and streamlines the approval process, encouraging proactive and responsible financial decision-making that aligns with the organization's overall fiscal objectives.

Laurel

laurel.ai

In 2024, Laurel's AI-driven innovations will revolutionize time billing, offering unparalleled integration into accountants' workflows. Laurel Assistants will meticulously capture every billable action from both cloud and desktop platforms, ensuring comprehensive revenue capture from Zoom calls to Outlook emails. Time Composer's advanced AI will generate accurate, compliant timesheets that adapt to individual workflows, turning the end-of-day billing recall into a seamless, automated review process.

Our suite of Smart features, including Work History, Work Assign, Work Coding, and Narrative Writer Pro, will redefine time management. They'll track and organize activities into billable groups, auto-assign tasks to the right client and matter, and ensure precise billing codes, all while crafting personalized, compliant narratives. Laurel's Billing Navigator will provide a clear view of time spent, empowering accountants to work with their clients to make informed billing decisions.

LeaseCrunch

https://www.leasecrunch.com/

While our plans are not yet ready for sharing publicly, we are diligently working behind the scenes to develop innovative solutions that will continue to bring significant value to CPA firms and their clients in 2024.

Ledgible

https://ledgible.io/

At Ledgible, our focus will be on addressing the IRS's digital asset reporting requirements for digital assets and building out systems to help institutions and enterprises handle their compliance reporting process. In addition, we'll be delivering significant improvements to our transaction tables in the platform to provide accountants and professionals greater flexibility and transparency in the handling of digital asset transactions.

Liscio

https://www.liscio.me/

Liscio is personalizing the client experience for firms of all sizes. Liscio's newest features tailor every client touch point -- from client onboarding, to monthly close checklists, to personalized tax organizers.

Key 2024 releases include automating tax delivery with client tax return walkthroughs, adding video messaging, and providing client sentiment analysis to understand which accounts need additional attention.

Mango

https://mangopractice.com/

Integrating AI and learning how to best utilize this for accountants. AI isn't going anywhere. Those that are worried about AI replacing jobs aren't seeing the full picture. We must look at AI as a tool for simplifying and streamlining. The accounting industry needs reliable AI software that helps them do their jobs with more accuracy, efficiency, and insight. We've always focused on making the life of an accountant easier and that's next evolution of technology for us. We're not rushing to be the first, we're just determined to get it right for our customers.

MindBridge AI

https://www.mindbridge.ai/

The process of transaction review, often laborious and manual, is significantly streamlined by MindBridge AITM. It not only rapidly verifies known risks and anomalies but also aids in identifying new and emerging patterns. MindBridge AI's swift and precise pattern and anomaly detection instills confidence, enabling teams to shift their focus to more high-value tasks. We recently released four new transactions risk products for financial anomaly detection: vendor invoices, payroll, revenue, and charge card subledger data. These products integrate seamlessly with our flagship general ledger product, allowing MindBridge to expand beyond internal and external audit, and into focused Controller and CFO operations.

Additionally, in 2024, MindBridge will broaden its capabilities with the implementation of AiCFRTM (AI-powered Internal Controls over Financial Reporting) across its customer base. MindBridge enables financial professionals to perform automated detective controls, coupled with robust AI-powered risk assessments, offering unmatched confidence in the accuracy of financial reporting.

Numeric

https://www.numeric.io/

In 2024, we're focused on:

Doubling down on AI: This year we launched the first iteration of AI-driven close management, with a technical accounting bot and AI-driven flux analysis and policy drafts. In 2024, we're incorporating AI across the platform to help accountants close accurately with more confidence.
Managing the close —> Doing the close: We first tackled helping teams manage their close (task management, dependencies, etc.), in 2024 we're helping accountants do the work of their close in Numeric. We're providing one command center during the close, centralizing execution that was before in disparate tabs.
The easiest & fastest close: Our customers are most excited about the ease and speed of their close. For 2024, easier onboarding, faster, deeper ERP integrations, and intuitive design will cement our product as the easiest way to close.

OneStream

https://www.onestream.com/

The most promising area of innovation we are investing in is applied AI/ML. Building on the customer success we've delivered with our Sensible ML solution for demand planning and forecasting, we look forward to introducing Generative AI and LLM capabilities in 2024.

Some of the key use cases we are targeting here include providing "co-pilot-like" platform and application support, and managed intelligence capabilities, allowing users to pose questions via a ChatGPT-style interface against curated and high-quality customer information – such as historic financial results. The key is to ensure the information they receive has the same level of trust, auditability and controls that they would already expect from OneStream. These initial use cases will provide a nice productivity boost to users, but we are just scratching the surface with GenAI and there's lots of potential here.

Quadient

https://www.quadient.com/

With the rise in demand for full-spectrum customer analytics, Quadient is uniquely placed to deliver a data-driven consolidated back office spanning accounts payable, accounts receivable, customer communication management and document delivery. In 2024, Quadient will invest further in data aggregation and shared microservices across our software portfolio, via the Quadient Hub. These services will cover data capture, RPA, payments and e-invoicing, helping our clients increase forecasting accuracy when mapping customer behavior and cash flow.

The rise in adoption of new AI models will continue to reach new heights in 2024, so our partnership with Microsoft Azure will allow us to further invest in our generative AI capabilities, such as summarizing data, facilitating natural language searches, automating dispute resolution and generating context-aware emails for clients, all in a secure environment.

RCReports

https://rcreports.com/

A new, enhanced version of RCReports will be released in 2024, powered by the same proprietary wage database and IRS criteria, court cases, and methodologies that thousands of accountants have relied on for over a decade for accurate and defensible reasonable compensation calculations.

The new release will bring a more modern, intuitive design that makes it easier:

For your clients to complete the interview process
For you to get the data you need quickly
For you to see what clients need a reasonable compensation report
For your team to get training on reasonable compensation & RCReports

The new release will also include improved organization tools as well as an upgraded Entity Planning tool.

We also look forward to releasing specialized reports for non-profits in 2024 - another frequent request we receive. The addition of these reports will greatly simplify the process for compensation analysis for non-profits.

Rightworks

https://www.rightworks.com/

AI is still an enigma for many in the accounting profession. While AI offers many opportunities to help a profession plagued by labor shortages, augment their teams and drive efficiencies across the entire firm, without purpose-built accounting-focused AI tools, adoption and realizing the benefits of AI will be slow.

In 2024, Rightworks will introduce Spark to the profession at a broader scale. Created in the Rightworks Lab, Spark enables users to tap into AI and expand the firm's expertise by creating a more accessible prompting experience and a virtual team of AI assistants. Additionally, the AI is powered by content from some of the smartest minds in the profession with decades of experience in helping firms optimize, thrive, and strengthen their teams. Previously only available to a small number of users, Spark will ignite fast adoption and deliver on the promise of AI to the profession.

Sage

Sage.com

The accounting industry is locked into cycles that only provide after the fact visibility and assurance, limiting confident, real-time decisions. At Sage we are syncing up with our customers even more, creating solutions that target automation of specific needs. It's our ambition to bring about a world where all data is real-time and reliable, and generative AI is the last piece in the puzzle.

The Sage Digital Assistant will be a great asset to quickly search and uncover answers for accountants. The AI is intuitive to your initial prompts and will appear where it's most well received - within a document, spreadsheet or messaging.
Sage Earth is a great resource infused with AI capabilities for small and medium-sized businesses that are reporting their carbon emissions and sustainability efforts.
AP Automation and the Sage Network platform will integrate to make payments simpler and more efficient.

ShareFile

https://www.sharefile.com/

ShareFile's accounting customers will see various product value investments in 2024, including advanced abilities to:

Tailor their account to their firm's unique needs by installing ready-to-use solutions for individual and corporate tax prep, audit, and client advisory, providing everything for teams to quickly onboard and service clients.
Streamline processes with direct integrations to key accounting software such as QuickBooks, Freshbooks, and Salesforce.
Improve client response rates with reminders and notifications tailored to the clients' communication preferences and provide a leading digital experience with a refreshed client portal on desktop and mobile.
Provide effortless security with proactive analytics and automated responses protecting client data and their firm without changing workflows.

Additionally, ShareFile will invest in adding AI to streamline workflows and remove friction from the lives of accountants. ShareFile will also expand industry partnerships and existing email, desktop, and mobile applications to meet users where they work.

Stampli

https://www.stampli.com/

I wouldn't be surprised if half of the answers to this question focus on introducing AI into accounting technology. Stampli's difference is that we're far beyond the introduction stage — the AI in our accounts payable automation software predates the current AI gold rush by almost a decade. This AI foundation lets us integrate the latest developments much faster than other software platforms. In 2024, we'll be focusing our R&D on the higher-level problems in AP that have historically remained stubbornly manual. I'm not one to sell ahead of the product, but suffice it to say, we see a lot of new opportunities for extending the efficiency of AP and finance teams even further.

TaxBit

https://taxbit.com/

We're thrilled to be working with and supporting new customers on an international scale. This has necessitated the expansion of our system capabilities to encompass foreign currency reporting and accommodate the intricacies of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) accounting treatment. We're excited to be launching these capabilities with select partners, marking a significant step in broadening our international presence and focus. This represents a tremendous opportunity to extend the reach of our best-in-class product, traditionally leveraged by our US customer base, to a global audience and client base.

TaxBuzz

https://www.taxbuzz.com/

In 2024, TaxBuzz is primed to unveil a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence suite, merging the best of AI with the insights of human intelligence, tailored to revolutionize tax and accounting professionals' daily practices. Our proprietary knowledge base, including tax planning guides, blogs, and workflows, has trained our AI to surpass generic chatbots in both accuracy and capability.

Unlike traditional AI chat tools, often months or years behind, we train our platform daily. Users can trust that they are getting accurate responses that account for the latest tax code updates.

As our community members add to our massive knowledge database each day, TaxBuzz AI will usher in a new technological era for the entire tax and accounting industry.

Our tools will answer complex tax research queries, analyze tax returns to develop personalized tax planning strategies, answer client email questions, write blog articles, create client intake forms, and much more."

TaxDome

Taxdome.com

We plan to introduce tools to track employee effectiveness, project ROI and more, providing managers with the oversight and visibility they need to make effective business decisions. By enabling firms to better choose their projects (and price them effectively), we aim to increase key firm metrics such as revenue per employee and margin. Similarly, we will introduce sales management tools to assist with lead capture and conversion. On the integrations side, there will be a series of integrations, including Xero and a new payments system. Within the existing functionality, more 'native' integrations within TaxDome will be added, including the ability to update CRM data from organizer inputs. We're introducing AI-powered reporting in Q4 2023 and will add more AI functionality in 2024.

Overall, TaxDome's vision continues to revolve around innovation, accommodating the present but also anticipating future requirements.

Thomson Reuters

https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/en

At Thomson Reuters, in 2024 we are excited to help our customers get faster and better answers to tax research questions, powered by an all-new AI assistant in Checkpoint Edge. We are exploring the potential of AI in Cloud Audit Suite to support with anomaly detection. We will also be bringing auto categorization to SurePrep's TaxCaddy, which will save our customers valuable time in tax preparation.

Overall, we are focused on integrating AI in its many forms into our solutions through a build, buy and partnership strategy – accelerating our ability to provide the best products across our portfolio. Through an open ecosystem of integrated solutions, companies, and partners, we will simplify processes and improve efficiency by connecting the tools that our customers rely on.

Generative AI provides an opportunity to redefine professional work, and we will be utilizing AI to augment the work of humans where it adds the most value for our customers.

Tipalti

https://tipalti.com/

AI is going to be a main focus in 2024. For us, it means looking at how AI and similar tools can help us further automate manual and time-consuming processes to increase efficiency as we implement new accounting guidance. Speaking more broadly, I think everyone wants to try to understand and utilize AI as a tool that can move the needle and change how people work. We want to utilize AI in a way that helps accounting teams execute their jobs better.

Another focus of ours is looking to more tightly integrate our various accounting systems into our ERP.

Truewind

https://www.truewind.ai

Our accounting technology plans for 2024 revolve around defining new UX paradigms for human-AI interaction.

We believe all the code from the past 20 years needs to be rewritten to capitalize on the full potential of AI. But technology itself does not bring business value. It needs to be productized in a way that is intuitive to the user and solves a mission critical problem.

What these products will look like is yet to be seen. In the world of finance and accounting, some problems are best solved by AI workflows and others by AI agents. For example, we think the accounting operations of bill pay is a workflow problem while receivables is an agent problem. We believe the end-to-end product will be a combination of AI workflows and AI agents.

Trullion

https://trullion.com/

Throughout 2024, Trullion plans to continue to roll out a suite of AI powered audit modules, including: financial statement validation, test of details, a financial document extractor, and a generative AI knowledge layer. Trullion is using AI to connect silos and create a seamless workflow between auditors and clients. Trullion's technology enables audit teams to work with an end-to-end workflow as opposed to scattered silos. In 2024, Trullion also plans to integrate their AI-powered accounting software with existing tools like Suralink, Quickbooks, Netsuite & more.

UpLink

https://www.uplinkapp.io/

We built a solution that compiles audit workpapers with AI as documents stream in, so the next step is to take a given firm or group's audit methodology and generate requests lists off of that with our models. Managers can then review the generated request list and approve it before the client is prompted to use the system via email. This process usually takes 40+ hours each engagement when done manually and it can be substantially reduced with AI.

Vertex

https://www.vertexinc.com/

In 2024, there will be a continued emphasis on Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) and a heightened focus on Generative AI (GenAI), specifically with its ability to aid tax teams in being more efficient, accurate and productive in their daily work. At Vertex, we want to empower users with control over their AI usage. They can decide how much, how little and when to utilize our Vertex Co-pilots which will be embedded into our solutions.

Access to these AI assistants will deliver insights, recommendations, research and approvals to better support their business objectives and goals. We are bringing Responsible AI to the surface to adapt to new and changing tax regulations and rates to better avoid compliance risks.

Vic.ai

Empowering AI to autonomously make decisions. Advancements in Vic.ai's autonomous software have significantly reduced the need for human oversight to ensure accuracy. In 2024, we're taking this to the next level by delivering AI that learns and reasons independently, with agency to make decisions across Accounts Payable, including PO matching and payments.
Chat-first corporate spend management. In 2024, Vic.ai is delivering an entirely new approach to enterprise software starting with spend management. It's chat-first, human-driven, and the first instance within finance and accounting where the technology will adapt to humans, not the other way around.
Greater spend controls. Finance organizations tend to have an opaque understanding of spend across the business. Managing vendor spend, employee spend, and ensuring cash efficiency is paramount. Vic.ai is launching a new solution in 2024 that will deliver unrivaled spend insights so finance leaders can make more precise and informed decisions.

Visual Lease

https://visuallease.com/

We're prioritizing new features and products in a few themes, all aligned to helping organizations leverage their real estate and equipment portfolios for better financial and operational outcomes. Product updates fall into a few categories:

Additional investments in real estate and equipment portfolio management and sustainability management;
Controls and Automation to support month-end close and reconciliation, audit preparation, and assurance;
Intelligent integrations to streamline data collection, enrich platform insights, and automate connections with key systems in the finance team's tech stack; and
Sustainability Management, Assurance and Integrations

We'll also be expanding our technology partnerships to enable customers to send real-estate and equipment related emissions calculations, water, waste and biodiversity entries to support ESG reporting in accordance with global reporting frameworks and regulations. Finally, we'll be expanding our advisory and strategy partnerships in sustainability management with real estate focused partners starting with Cresa and Newmark, and consulting partners starting with FORVIS, Grant Thornton, Baker Tilly, RSM, and Embark with Us.

Wolters Kluwer

https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/solutions/tax-accounting-us

Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting has robust plans to continue to introduce new technology to the professional market in 2024, centered around optimizing workflows, building out efficiencies, and generating quality automation that will enhance the professional's experience and bolster client service.

In 2024, we will be launching our new solution CCH Axcess Beneficial Ownership to help the estimated 33 million businesses who must file a Beneficial Ownership Information report to be in compliance with the Corporate Transparency Act.

As it relates to audit, building off of CCH Axcess Engagement Essentials, we are launching CCH Axcess Engagement Pro for firms of all sizes, which will be a real game changer for tax professionals as it delivers a fully integrated experience with all the industry titles for Knowledge Coach. There will also be advancements in CCH Axcess Validate to integrate more seamlessly with banks for reliable, fast and affordable bank confirmations!

Xero

Xero.com

At Xero, we're focused on building out some really core products to our US customers in 2024. We recently launched auto sales tax, powered by Avalara, which simplifies and automates sales tax calculations, reporting and filing. We will add new features, including adding filing deadlines, expanding past invoicing to other documentation and adding other revenue sources. Additionally, we plan to bolster the functionality and ecommerce integrations in Xero Inventory Plus, our inventory solution of which we launched an early version. Finally, bank reconciliation relies heavily on getting accurate banking data into Xero. We have been making significant investments in bank feeds to not just improve the number but quality of feeds, and the overall product experience. In the last year alone, we've upgraded more than 150 bank feeds to direct feeds in Xero, including US Bank, TD Bank and a range of other local and regional banks across the US.

Zoho

Zoho.com

Next year, we will continue to invest in AI, pushing the envelope to deliver a comprehensive solution for accountants and business owners with value-adding capabilities. We will provide automation features in backward-looking metrics, along with real-time alerts for trends and anomalies in their finances, offering businesses data-driven insights to make informed decisions. As accountants experience an increasing demand for forward-looking insights, we will provide them with more cross-functional analytics and forecasting capabilities. Furthermore, we will enhance our solutions to provide accountants with deep insights into optimizing business spend and managing employee payroll more effectively.

Chris Gaetano

Technology Editor, Accounting Today

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