Beyond the Numbers: How AI Is Transforming (But Not Replacing) Financial Work

When it comes to artificial intelligence, not everyone in the finance world is skeptical. In fact, for many professionals, AI has become an indispensable tool – one that can simplify complex tasks, save time, and make financial knowledge more accessible than ever before.

AI can be great in a lot of ways. It can help answer questions like, “What metrics should I be looking at?” or “What’s the industry average for this?” or “How do I calculate that?” For a business owner who doesn’t have someone to do their bookkeeping – and maybe never learned those formulas in school – AI makes that information readily accessible.

Smarter Tools, Faster Work

One of the most noticeable ways AI is reshaping business operations is through bookkeeping. Platforms like QuickBooks Online now integrate AI-driven tools that automate data entry, streamline workflows, and help minimize human error.

When you’re inputting a bill, you can scan it in and the AI will read the due date, invoice date, and even guess what expense category it belongs to. Other than that category guess, it’s correct about 99% of the time – it really cuts down on data entry.

That kind of automation saves hours of tedious work. But it’s not perfect – and that’s where human oversight still matters.

The problem is that it can be wrong. And unless you’re checking it for reasonableness, it’s not something you can fully rely on yet. Maybe one day it will be, but not now.

Knowing When to Trust the Tech

Like any tool, AI’s value depends on how it’s used – and by whom.

I think you can rely on AI if you’re smart enough to understand its limits. If you’re a doctor and you’re thinking through a diagnosis, AI might remind you of a disease you learned about years ago, but you still have to know how to interpret that. It’s the same thing in business. I know where I can rely on AI and where I can’t. But if someone doesn’t have any real business knowledge, they probably shouldn’t be using those AI features without oversight.

AI excels at the basics – reading numbers, identifying patterns, and flagging outliers. But when it comes to understanding why something happened or what to do about it, human judgment is still irreplaceable.

The Difference Between Data and Insight

AI is really good at the basics. For example, when it comes to inputting an invoice, it can read a date, it can read a number. But it’s not always great at guessing how you actually want that to appear in the financial statements.

Even when AI systems try to help interpret results, their analysis often lacks depth.

In certain versions of QuickBooks, if I run a profit and loss by month, it’ll flag changes for you. I might notice right away that wages are up 50% – that’s obvious to me – but a business owner might not catch that. So QuickBooks will put a little asterisk next to it, and if you hover over it, it’ll say, “Wages are up 50%.” That’s helpful, but it’s not analysis.

Spotting trends is only the first step. Understanding the story behind those numbers – why wages spiked, what caused it, and what to do next – is where human expertise still shines.

What AI Can’t Do

No matter how advanced the tools become, some aspects of financial management will always require human judgment and context.

There’s just so much more to what I do that goes beyond basic bookkeeping. We’re not just looking at the numbers – we’re looking at the stories those numbers tell about the financial health of your business. AI is never going to be able to do that.

It doesn’t have the context or the critical thinking that goes into those decisions.

AI is reshaping how businesses approach their finances. It’s fast, efficient, and increasingly accurate – but it’s not infallible. The real magic happens when human expertise meets machine efficiency.

AI might replace basic bookkeeping tasks someday – but not the level of judgment and strategy that comes after.