In the accounting field, time management and precise tracking of tasks are imperative for accurate billing and financial analysis. The diverse range of tasks that accountants handle on a daily basis, including emails, phone calls and data processing — among others — necessitates an effective timekeeping solution. The gap between the increasing demand from clients and the available pool of accounting professionals further accentuates the need for efficient time management tools. Laurel enters this space with a focus on transforming timekeeping from a manual task into a source of actionable insights.
Laurel initially aimed to alleviate the timekeeping challenges in the legal sector. However, as the platform evolved, it found relevance among midsize and enterprise accounting firms, leading to collaborative ventures with several major companies. These collaborations aim to explore the future of time, materials and client billing, catering to the evolving needs of the accounting domain.
With a product line centered around a timekeeping co-pilot powered by AI, Laurel strives to turn every minute of work into clear billing and insights. We talked with founder and CEO Ryan Alshak to discuss what Laurel has been up to and what it has in store.
How would you describe what your company does?
Alashak: Laurel's mission is to return (your) time.
What is in your product line, and what is your flagship product?
Alashak: Laurel is a money-making timekeeping co-pilot that uses real AI. Our thoughtfully designed timekeeping solution, with real AI, turns every minute worked into clear, actionable billing and insight. Our subsequent data allows you to make financially sound decisions with ease, predict trends, and navigate your firm's future with confidence.
What was the last big initiative or project your company completed?
Alashak: We originally built our platform to service the legal industry and found midsize and enterprise accounting firms to be great partners. We are currently working with EY Tax, Aprio and Berkowitz, who have all been forward-thinking collaborators on the future of time and materials and client billing.
What is the most exciting new thing you're working on?
Alashak: It turns out that collecting all of the work a person does can be daunting; our users routinely work on hundreds of tasks each day (i.e., emails, phone calls, working in Excel etc.). We are building Smart Work Groups to streamline activity data into intuitive, easy-to-bill work groups, saving you time.
What differentiates your company from others similar to it? What makes you different?
Alashak: Our true barometer of success is not simply the swap of one product for another. It is our unwavering commitment to fostering real, tangible change in the working world — to return time.
We aspire to be the mirror reflecting not only how time is spent but the deeper value and potential that exists within those increments of time, transforming workplaces and lives. It is our goal to ensure that organizations and individuals can perceive their time as more than a resource, as an opportunity for outsized impact.
We are stepping into a realm where our technology doesn't just facilitate, but demands people to engage in work that is fulfilling, that resonates with their skills and passions, steering them away from mere mechanical outputs to a landscape of meaningful, purpose-driven outcomes.
What is the biggest tech challenge facing accountants today?
Alashak: In a world where clients' demands grow and the accountant pool shrinks, technology must fill the gap. The challenge is the tooling being used, while modern at its inception, is now archaic and unable to fully take advantage of the many technological advancements (cloud computing, mobile devices, artificial intelligence, etc.) that are widely available in consumer products.
The lack of modern tooling to support an accountant's duties and expectations leads to burnout, especially in purely administrative functions such as timekeeping, which is becoming increasingly important as clients choose flat fee arrangements and pricing projects is difficult.
If your company has been experimenting with generative AI, how have you incorporated it into your business?
Alashak: The truth is, AI is already ubiquitous in most computing systems; most people don't see the important work it does to make modern life better. For us, however, the timing of a working world in search of change, our mission remains unaltered but more pressing.
We are not merely leveraging AI; Laurel is poised to be at the forefront of using non-obvious, proprietary data sources to offer unprecedented value creation.
Laurel pioneers in a largely untouched space by prioritizing the real-time collection of valuable work data and attempting to use it to improve a complex and digital work landscape. Without the latest advancements, such explorations would be impractical.
If you could telepathically transmit one (non-marketing or sales) sentence into the head of every accountant in the world, what would that sentence be?
Your worth is based on outcomes, not time.
Having started as a company focused on the legal sector, we see lawyers as society's programmers, setting the rules and structures that govern behavior. We therefore see accountants as society's auditors, ensuring that all transactions and operations adhere to established protocols, creating a healthy and balanced economic ecosystem.
At Laurel, we find it maddening that some of our most trained minds — accountants who routinely have the better part of a decade of education, and too often thousands of dollars in debt — are harassed to explain every minute of their work. We believe that energy and time is better suited nearly anywhere else.
Laurel at a glance:
Website: laurel.ai
Contact:
Location(s): San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, London
Founded: 2018
Customers: 30+
Employees: 40
Fundraising: $55 million
