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Podcasts

QuickBooks Online Tags Retiring May 15: How to Migrate Your Data Now

Earmark Team · April 24, 2025 ·

QuickBooks Online users who rely on the Tags feature are facing a critical deadline. After May 15th, 2025, you’ll no longer be able to add new tags to transactions. This underused but flexible feature is being replaced by a modified Custom Fields alternative that comes with both benefits and limitations.

In a recent episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast,  hosts Alicia Katz Pollock and Dan DeLong discussed this major transition and explained what you need to know and do before the deadline.

Why Tags Are Going Away (And Why Some Users Will Miss Them)

According to Alicia and Dan, about three-quarters of QuickBooks users never used Tags at all. As Dan explains, “When they roll out a new feature, if it doesn’t get used, it could stand to be discontinued. When I worked there, typically we wouldn’t find out who used it until we stopped it… and then people would call in droves, like, ‘What are you doing? I was using that!’

But for those who discovered Tags’ flexibility, this retirement is a significant loss. Alicia shares several creative ways professionals used Tags:

  • Marking transactions that needed review: “I would use a tag that said ‘for review.’ And then I could pull up all the transactions that needed review, and boom, they were all right there.”
  • Weather tracking at a gas station: “They used tags to say what the weather was… Is it sunny? Is it raining? Because their business is lower on rainy days, and that helped them filter out weather anomalies.”
  • Animal categorization at a veterinary practice: “They would tag transactions with cats, dogs, birds, rodents and reptiles and then they could see who they were providing their services for.”

Tags were particularly valuable for users on lower-tier QuickBooks plans who didn’t have access to Classes or Locations features. “If you didn’t need any of the other features in Plus,” Alicia explains, “Tags allowed you to get flexible about it.”

The Migration Timeline: Act Now

The retirement process follows this timeline:

  • March 17, 2025: Custom Fields was expanded across all QuickBooks Online subscription levels
  • May 15, 2025: CRITICAL DEADLINE – After this date, Tags become read-only
  • May 16, 2025 – May 14, 2028: During this period, you can view historical Tags and run reports but can’t add new tags
  • May 15, 2028: Complete removal of Tags functionality and all historical data

How to Migrate Your Tags to Custom Fields

If you’re using Tags, here’s what you need to do before May 15th:

Step 1: Make sure all your transactions are properly tagged. Go to the gear icon, select Tags, and click “see all untagged transactions” to catch any missed items.

Step 2: Click the “migrate tags to custom fields” button in the Tags section.

Step 3: During migration, you’ll need to:

  • Choose which tags to include (uncheck any you don’t want to migrate)
  • Name your new Custom Field (it defaults to “Tags”)
  • Specify that the field applies to transactions (recommended)
  • Select which transaction types should display the field
  • Decide whether the field should print on customer-facing forms

Step 4: Complete the migration. Your Tags will convert to a dropdown Custom Field with up to 100 options. If you have grouped tags, they’ll appear as “Group Name: Tag Name” in the dropdown list.

Dan notes an important distinction: “The historical transactions still have the tags on them. The new transactions won’t have the tag field – they will have the custom field available to choose.”

Critical Step: Preserve Your Historical Data

This migration doesn’t transfer your historical tag data to the new Custom Field – it only creates the structure for future transactions. Your 2025 reports will be split between the two systems.

“Run your reports on all of your tags so that you have that history permanently,” Alicia emphasizes. “When you’re looking at the Tags list, every single tag group or ungroup tag has a ‘run report’ link to the right of it.”

Save these reports as PDFs with multiple date ranges. “This is the very last time you are ever going to see a P&L related to this data,” Alicia warns.

What’s Better and What’s Worse in the New System

Improvements:

  • Universal Availability: Custom Fields are now available across all subscription tiers.
  • Increased Fields: Simple Start and Essentials now have one custom field, Plus gets four, and Advanced continues with twelve.
  • Dropdown Functionality: The new custom field is a dropdown, which “helps eliminate data entry errors,” as Dan points out.
  • Form Flexibility: Unlike standard custom fields, this new one works on both sales forms AND expense forms.
  • Printing Options: You can choose whether to display the field on customer-facing documents.

Limitations:

  • No P&L Reporting: “The big heartache is that you cannot do a profit and loss report by custom field,” Alicia explains. This is a major functional loss for many users.
  • Banking Feed Limitations: “You cannot apply this new custom field from the banking feed,” notes Alicia. You’ll need to edit transactions after they’re created.
  • No Multiple Values: Unlike Tags, you can only select one value per Custom Field on a transaction.
  • No Bulk Assignment: Currently, there’s no way to apply Custom Fields to multiple transactions at once, though Intuit has said this feature is coming.

Recommendations for Moving Forward

If the Custom Fields approach doesn’t meet your needs, consider these options:

Consider Upgrading: “If you’re angry because your tags are gone, you probably need to be using the right tool for the job anyway,” suggests Alicia. “Classes are way more reportable… It might be worth upgrading to Plus.”

Use Multiple Custom Fields: If you’re on Plus or Advanced, you have access to more custom fields and can create separate fields for different tracking needs.

Spreadsheet Sync: Advanced users can leverage Spreadsheet Sync to manage custom field data, including retroactively applying values to past transactions.

Stay Alert for Improvements: Intuit has already announced that bulk assignment and adding Custom Fields to deposits are on their roadmap.

The Reality Check

As Dan puts it, “If you don’t use something, it is in jeopardy of going away,” bringing new meaning to “use it or lose it” in the software world.

For many users, Tags weren’t even on their radar. But for those who built creative workflows around them, this transition requires immediate action to preserve historical data and adapt to the new system.

If you need help with the migration process or want to discuss this change, you can reach out to Alicia and Dan at unofficialquickbookspodcast@gmail.com.

Listen to the full episode for more details and insights about this important transition in QuickBooks Online.


Alicia Katz Pollock’s Royalwise OWLS (On-Demand Web-based Learning Solutions) is the industry’s premier portal for top-notch QuickBooks Online training with CPE for accounting firms, bookkeepers, and small business owners. Visit Royalwise OWLS, where learning QBO is a HOOT!

QuickBooks Updates: Tap to Pay, Third-Party Integrations, and Training Opportunities for Accounting Pros

Earmark Team · April 23, 2025 ·

In the latest episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast, hosts Alicia Katz Pollock and Matthew “Spot” Fulton break down the most important QuickBooks announcements from Intuit’s March “In the Know” webinar. 

Here’s what’s new, from streamlined payment processing to expanded integrations and professional development opportunities.

Upcoming Training Opportunities for ProAdvisors

Here are several important training opportunities that ProAdvisors should mark on their calendars:

Level Two Certification Virtual Conference (March 25-27) – This training offers 9.5 CPE credits and prepares you for the advanced certification that many firms now require. Alicia emphasized, “Level one is like what buttons do you push… Level two is really leveraging the resources, some of the more advanced features, being able to think creatively about how to use the features to solve problems.”

MailChimp Training – Two new trainings are available in the ProAdvisor certification portal: “Getting Started with MailChimp” and a “MailChimp Product Guide” for client conversations. These trainings help ProAdvisors understand how MailChimp (now owned by Intuit) can be used for targeted client communications.

Recertification Window (April 28 – June 30) – The hosts emphasized the importance of recertifying early. “If you certify much earlier, your chances are probably better than later to get that prize,” mentioned Matthew, referring to the weekly $250 gift card drawings for those who pass the test. Remember that ProAdvisor certification tests are open-book!

Construction Industry Training (May 8) – For those interested in the construction niche, Intuit is offering specialized training covering “the modern construction landscape, mapping the construction workflow, connecting field and office, and key technology solutions.”

Tap to Pay on iPhone Eliminates Hardware Requirements

One of the most exciting announcements is the new Tap to Pay feature for iPhone, available in both the QuickBooks Mobile and Go Payment apps. This eliminates the need for the $50-100 Bluetooth card readers that many users didn’t even know existed.

“This is huge,” Alicia explained. “Now all you have to do is pull up the GoPayment, pull up the sale, and all the person has to do is either tap their phone to your iPhone or tap their credit card to your iPhone, and it automatically pays.”

The financial benefits extend beyond hardware savings. Transactions processed through Tap to Pay cost just 2.5% compared to 3.4% for manually keyed entries. ProAdvisors can secure even lower rates for their clients through preferred pricing.

However, both hosts emphasized that the real value isn’t in the processing rates but in the automated reconciliation. “If your focus is on the rates versus the efficiency, then you’re actually paying attention to the wrong thing,” Alicia noted. “QuickBooks Payments has huge ROI because when you run the payment through it, it recognizes it, it pays the invoice, it puts it in undeposited funds, it batches the payments and it matches to your bank feed.”

This feature is currently available in the US, with Canada expected to follow later.

Third-Party Payment Integrations Expand

QuickBooks Payments is significantly expanding its third-party integrations, allowing more applications to use it as a payment processor. The growing list includes PandaDoc, ChargeOver, Notify, ServiceM8, Buildertrend, Lightspeed, Salesforce, BigCommerce, and many others.

“Basically, what happens is you go into the settings on these apps for the payment processor, and it’s going to now give you a choice,” Alicia explained. “So instead of just going to Stripe, you will now actually have choices… and QuickBooks will be on the list.”

A major advantage for bookkeepers is how QuickBooks Payments handles processing fees. Unlike other processors that deduct fees from each transaction, QuickBooks extracts fees as separate transactions. “When you see the money in the bank, you’re seeing the full payment on your invoices and they’re all batched at their totals, which makes it much easier for you to batch and reconcile,” Alicia noted.

Intuit is also exploring options to allow merchants to pass processing fees to customers—a feature many professionals have requested.

ProConnect Tax Planning Tools Enhanced

For accounting professionals who handle taxes, ProConnect Tax now offers enhanced integration with QuickBooks. The system allows you to toggle different tax strategies on and off to see how they affect clients’ estimated taxes and tax projections.

“They’re trying to create an environment where it’s more intertwined and you can start to be planning for quarterly estimate payments, better projections, that type of stuff,” Matthew explained.

Users can create multiple “what if” accounts to compare different tax scenarios, view federal and state tax implications, and even print estimated tax payment vouchers. The integration also incorporates Intuit Assist’s AI-powered insights to identify opportunities you might otherwise miss.

QuickBooks Live Expert Service Evolving

QuickBooks Live, Intuit’s $50 support service that allows clients to get simple questions answered, is being refined based on customer feedback. Initially seen as potential competition, many ProAdvisors now view it as a valuable addition to their service offerings.

“I actually now see it as a huge value-added service,” Alicia shared. “I have some of my high maintenance clients calling into it instead [of me].”

The service has important limitations that protect the ProAdvisor relationship: “They’re only answering the question that’s asked. They can’t contribute more information… they can only answer what has been requested of them.”

Intuit is now testing enhancements, including priority queue access and weekend support hours, which could prove valuable during crunch times.

Making the Most of These Updates in Your Practice

These March updates reflect Intuit’s commitment to creating tools that help accounting professionals deliver more value with less effort. For those looking to leverage these innovations effectively:

  1. Focus on efficiency over processing rates when evaluating payment solutions
  2. Consider introducing clients to QuickBooks Live for basic support questions
  3. Pursue Level Two certification to enhance your problem-solving capabilities
  4. Explore specialized training in high-demand niches like construction
  5. Complete recertification early to maximize learning and incentive opportunities

The real value accounting professionals provide goes far beyond basic bookkeeping. These QuickBooks enhancements free up time to focus on the advisory work that truly transforms client businesses.

For more detailed insights on these updates and implementation strategies for your practice, listen to the full episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast.


Alicia Katz Pollock’s Royalwise OWLS (On-Demand Web-based Learning Solutions) is the industry’s premier portal for top-notch QuickBooks Online training with CPE for accounting firms, bookkeepers, and small business owners. Visit Royalwise OWLS, where learning QBO is a HOOT!

Selling Your Accounting Firm: Misconceptions, Valuations, and Market Realities

Earmark Team · April 15, 2025 ·

The accounting profession is experiencing a wave of mergers and acquisitions right now, which is forcing firm owners to make tough decisions about their futures. 

In the latest episode of the “Who’s Really the BOSS” podcast, Doug Lewis, the Managing Director at Visionary Group, offered insider insights into accounting firm transactions, drawing from his extensive experience in the field.

Record-Breaking M&A Activity

In 2024, accounting firm transactions set new records, and it looks like 2025 might double those numbers. As Lewis explained:

“2024 was industry-wide across the accounting profession absolutely wild. The pure number volume of transactions that were happening…a lot of people don’t realize how many half-million to $5 million transactions take place almost weekly at this point.”

While big acquisitions by major firms and private equity groups grab headlines, most transactions involve smaller practices that often go unnoticed. This surge in activity is driven by two key factors:

  1. Demographic Reality: The average baby boomer is now in their late 60s, and this generation still owns most accounting practices. Many are discovering that their internal succession plans have either failed or didn’t exist in the first place.
  1. Growth Strategy Shift: Larger accounting firms have increasingly turned to acquisitions as their primary growth strategy. Once firms reach certain revenue levels, relying purely on organic growth simply isn’t enough.

“Once a firm reaches a certain revenue size, it’s extremely difficult to move the growth needle if you’re just focusing on organic growth,” Lewis noted. “The numbers can get staggering on how much new business you have to bring in.”

This creates what Lewis calls a “perfect storm” in the marketplace: Aging owners needing exit strategies are facing off against growth-hungry acquirers who see mergers and acquisitions as their best route to expansion.

Who’s Buying Accounting Firms?

The landscape of potential buyers for accounting firms has changed a lot in recent years. Lewis pointed out three main types of buyers:

  1. Independent Accounting Firms: These firms continue to acquire practices, often opting for equity swaps rather than cash transactions. In many cases, these deals are structured as “mergers,” where the selling partner rolls into the compensation program of the acquiring firm.
  1. Outside Investors: This group includes private equity firms, outsourcing companies, technology firms, and wealth managers who are increasingly getting involved in the accounting space.
  1. Hybrid Firms: These are firms that have already taken on partial or majority private equity investment and are becoming more active in making acquisitions, typically using different transaction structures.

Despite these categories, Lewis emphasizes, “I’ve been a part of hundreds of these things over the years, and I have yet to see two transactions that were ever structured in the exact same format.”

How Firm Valuations Are Changing

It seems like the marketplace is really shifting from revenue-based valuations to EBITDA-based approaches, which align more closely with how other industries operate.

“The overwhelming majority of acquirers are shifting from the multiple of gross revenue down to the multiple of EBITDA, which makes sense because that’s how the majority of other businesses trade,” Lewis explained.

Even with this change, gross revenue multiples still serve as a useful reference point. Lewis noted, “Usually the multiple of gross revenue is always going to hover around that one time mark. Some are significantly higher if it’s a niche profitable practice and some are significantly lower.”

A key consideration in this process is how EBITDA is calculated—especially when it comes to owner compensation. Lewis states, “When we look at EBITDA, the true profitability on a firm, we look at it before any single owner in that company takes home a dime. That’s the starting point.”

This can often lead to tension during negotiations since sellers typically view their compensation as separate from the firm’s profitability, whereas buyers see owner compensation as a cost that needs to be factored in.

Another concept that Lewis brings up is what he calls the “scrape”—essentially the return on investment that buyers require. As Marcus puts it: “If the scrape on a transaction’s 10%, 20%, you have to evaluate this business purchase up against anything else in the market, including just going and sitting that cash in an interest-bearing account.”

Building Value in Your Accounting Firm

If you’re looking to sell your firm or transition ownership, there are some proven strategies that can really boost its value. Lewis identified four key areas to focus on:

1. Develop Your Talent

One of the biggest draws for potential buyers is the talent within your firm. While having younger partners can be a real advantage, Lewis stressed that having strong management at all levels is crucial:

“Young partnership talent is phenomenal to have. But if you have strong managers, that next level director manager level people inside your firm, that’s going to significantly help valuation.”

2. Optimize Your Client Portfolio

Many accounting firms struggle with revenue concentration that goes beyond the classic 80/20 rule:

“It’s not uncommon for us to see more of like a 90/10, 95/5 rule inside accounting firms,” Lewis pointed out.

This means that only a handful of client relationships are driving most of the firm’s value. Lewis shared an eye-opening example: when he asked a seller about their top ten clients, they could only name about five or six and realized they didn’t really know what those clients were trying to accomplish.

Rachel highlighted her own experience: “We were spending a lot of time with very low revenue clients, like multiple touch points on these that spent the least amount with our firm. And it didn’t make any sense.”

3. Review Fee Structures

One of the most effective strategies for increasing your firm’s value is to conduct thorough pricing reviews:

“I’ve yet to really see a firm that has priced themselves out of any market, which is shocking,” Lewis noted.

Despite this insight, many firms hold on to outdated pricing structures that undervalue their services. Lewis recommends that firms “aggressively review your fee structures” and set minimum fee thresholds to get rid of unprofitable client relationships.

4. Highlight Advisory Opportunities

While it may not be realistic for everyone to build strong advisory practices—especially those nearing a transition—Lewis suggests a different route:

“If a firm is a little late in the game to really jump start an advisory department, what they should do is be able to clearly state and identify the advisory revenue opportunities that exist inside their base to a potential buyer.”

Clearly communicating these untapped potential opportunities to potential buyers can significantly boost your firm’s perceived value.

Common Misconceptions When Selling

For firms working on a sale or merger, Lewis says there are two big misconceptions that tend to derail transitions:

  1. Unrealistic valuation expectations often stem from anecdotal information about what other firms received. “When you hear, ‘oh, this firm got a multiple of this’ or ‘private equity wants this in a firm’—yeah, they do, but they want one in a firm that’s 20 times your size,” Lewis explained.
  1. Underestimating transition timelines is another common pitfall. “There are a lot of aging owners out there right now who think that when I’m ready to hang it up, I can just list the thing, sell it, and walk away,” Lewis noted. “Those types of transactions where there is not a relatively extended transition period post-deal—those are becoming less and less commonplace in the market.”

Every Firm Will Face Transition

Lewis’s view is simple: transition is inevitable for every accounting practice.

“Every single firm transacts now. There’s really only three transactions out there. Number one is you’re going to either sell or merge the thing. Number two is you’re going to pull off the internal succession. And number three is you’re going to close your doors.”

This reality completely changes how we should think about firm value. Building value isn’t just something you do when you’re getting ready to sell – these core business principles improve outcomes no matter which path you take.

As Rachel put it: “We need to be doing these things as well if we’re hoping one day that one of our current team members or a future team member is going to want to buy or continue the legacy of our current firms. We need to make them attractive to the people who are working in them as well.”

In today’s red-hot market for accounting firm deals, the winners will be those firms that consistently build value through disciplined business practices instead of waiting until they’re about to transition.

Want to hear more from Doug Lewis? Listen to the episode, and don’t forget to subscribe to “Who’s Really the BOSS” for more insights on building a valuable accounting firm.


Rachel and Marcus Dillon, CPA, own a Texas-based, remote client accounting and advisory services firm, Dillon Business Advisors, with a team of 15 professionals. Their latest organization, Collective by DBA, supports and guides accounting firm owners and leaders with firm resources, education, and operational strategy through community, groups, and one-on-one advisory.

From Burnout to Blueprint: How One CPA Built a $200K Practice Working Just 15 Hours a Week

Blake Oliver · April 15, 2025 ·

When Erica Goode, CPA, became a mother, she found herself juggling late-night work sessions and hectic commutes. It took a toll on her well-being. “I was going to prove to everybody that working moms can do it all,” she recalls, “and I did it all. But it felt awful.”

Fast-forward a few years, and Erica now runs an accounting practice making over $200,000 yearly—on less than 15 hours of work per week. How did she do it? Through intentional constraints, deep specialization, and refusing to let burnout define her career.

Erica’s story, which she shared on the Earmark Podcast, offers a roadmap for accounting professionals who want to build financially rewarding practices without sacrificing quality of life.

Escape from Corporate Burnout

Erica’s career began at KPMG, where she moved up the ranks to senior auditor. She was then recruited to Walgreens in Deerfield, Illinois, where a demanding promotion collided with early motherhood. 

Even with on-site childcare, the constant scramble to manage deadlines and family obligations was a struggle. “I was always dragging my kids behind me to make a meeting, to get back home to make dinner, only to hop back online until 10:00. It was just this grind I didn’t want,” she says.

Feeling trapped, Erica took a demotion to escape the grueling schedule. Ultimately, she decided to leave Walgreens entirely and planned to become a stay-at-home mom. She never imagined running an accounting firm. When her boss suggested it after she gave notice, she remembers thinking, “That is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.” 

An Accidental First Client

Erica never planned to start her firm. It started when she offered to help the owner of her daughter’s Taekwondo studio with QuickBooks. “I had never seen QuickBooks because I’d always worked with huge systems like SAP or Oracle,” she says. But Erica learned quickly, and soon, a steady stream of referrals turned her “accidental” freelance gig into a bona fide practice.

Growth was slow by design. Balancing parenting with minimal childcare hours, Erica allowed her client base to expand only as her children’s school schedules opened up. “I literally was only growing as fast as preschool grew,” she jokes. This deliberate approach allowed her to refine processes at each stage instead of piling on hours.

Designing a 15-Hour Workweek

Erica’s top priority was to avoid the relentless schedule that had led to burnout. She set a strict 15-hour limit, working Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., with a mandatory one-hour lunch away from the computer. “That adds up to 18 hours, but I don’t count the lunch break,” she explains. “So I’m really working 15 hours or less.”

While this schedule might seem impossible, Erica credits well-documented standard operating procedures and intentional use of technology for optimizing efficiency. She also hired a non-US-based contractor as a senior bookkeeper. Together, they ensure bookkeeping tasks stay on track without Erica needing to handle every detail. “I want to be the reviewer and the exception-finder,” she says. “That’s where the real client value lies.”

Tech Stack: QuickBooks Online and Fathom

A big part of Erica’s efficiency stems from QuickBooks Online paired with Fathom. QuickBooks automates the bulk of data entry, while Fathom handles real-time reporting and forecasting. “Once I close the books in QuickBooks, Fathom syncs automatically and spits out a customized monthly report for each client,” she says.

She personalizes these reports for each of her 10 clients, highlighting the KPIs and trends most relevant to consultants. But the real game-changer is the forecasting feature. During monthly meetings, she and the client jump into Fathom to update forecasts on hiring plans, upcoming expenses, and potential new revenue. “Business owners love seeing a clear picture of how decisions today will affect their cash flow in six months,” Erica says.

Specialization: Consultants and Agencies Only

At the core of her approach is strict specialization. Erica focuses exclusively on consultants and small B2B agencies—no construction companies, no retail inventory. This uniformity keeps her processes consistent, allowing her to offer clear service tiers and simple pricing. She maintains three tiers:

  1. Bookkeeping ($500–$600/month)
  2. Mini CFO ($1,400/month)
  3. Fractional CFO (up to $5,000/month)

“There’s a huge gap for solopreneurs or small consultancies that need more than just bookkeeping but aren’t ready to pay $3,000 a month for a CFO,” she says. The middle tier solves that issue. Because she only accepts businesses operating within a well-defined niche, the bulk of her bookkeeping and forecasting tasks can be systematized.

The Power of Monthly CFO Meetings

Although she provides “done-for-you” bookkeeping, Erica finds the most significant client value comes from monthly CFO calls. “We’ll spend maybe 20% of the time reviewing the monthly report. Then the rest is what’s on the client’s mind—like, ‘I’m hiring two people. Will I run out of cash by October?’” she explains. Together, they plug those assumptions into Fathom so clients can see real-time outcomes.

“They get clarity on big decisions, whether it’s paying themselves consistently, timing a new hire, or maximizing retirement contributions,” she notes. And it’s precisely this hands-on advisory that justifies her subscription model. Even when clients weigh downgrading services, they quickly realize the CFO session is what they value most.

Why She Doesn’t Do Tax Prep

One key departure from many CPA firms: Erica does not handle income tax filings. Instead, she collaborates with clients’ existing tax preparers or refers them to an outside specialist. “I come in as the translator,” she says, acting as the liaison between client and preparer. By avoiding tax busywork, she preserves her bandwidth for strategic discussions and the recurring monthly engagements that truly move the needle for her clients.

Growing Slowly—on Purpose

Today, Erica’s firm earns around $200,000 in annual revenue, with a net of about $180,000. It took around five or six years to reach this point, largely because she refused to exceed her self-imposed 15-hour weekly limit or expand beyond her one contractor. “I know the formula to scale bigger,” she says, “but I also know that I enjoy my life more without adding complexities.”

A telling story: She once tried removing herself from capacity constraints and realized she risked falling back into the same burnout patterns she had fled. “I’m quick to fire if the client isn’t a good fit, and I stick to my niche,” she emphasizes. “I’m not looking to become a million-dollar firm with multiple CPAs. That’s just not the lifestyle I want.”

Rethinking Practice Success

For Erica, success means earning a healthy income without sacrificing time with her kids or her passions—like hiking in the vast national forests of Idaho. She’s proof that a smaller, highly specialized practice can be profitable and deeply rewarding. “I used to be afraid to say out loud that I only work 15 hours,” she confesses. “But now I see it inspires other CPAs who don’t want the 40- to 60-hour grind.”

Her advice is simple: start small, niche down, price for value, and automate relentlessly. If you’re willing to challenge traditional accounting firm norms, you can build a practice that prioritizes both client results and your well-being.

Learn More & Earn Free CPE

Erica shares more insights and tips on her podcast, Consultants and Money, where she offers free advice on everything from planning cash reserves to consistently paying oneself. 

Check out her interview on the Earmark Podcast to hear the full story of how she structured her 15-hour week. 

You can also earn CPE for listening! Register for the free CPE course on the Earmark app.

How to Use AI to Analyze Data and Draft Financial Reports in Minutes

Blake Oliver · April 10, 2025 ·

Imagine being able to turn 4 hours of tedious financial analysis into just a few short minutes, all while uncovering valuable insights you never knew were possible. For those in accounting and finance who often find themselves overwhelmed by spreadsheets and manual reports, this isn’t just a pipe dream—it’s becoming a reality today.

On a recent episode of my Earmark Podcast, I had a great conversation with Nicolas Boucher, who focuses on how artificial intelligence can be used in accounting and finance. We discussed how AI is no longer just a topic of theories and ideas; instead, it’s becoming a valuable tool that is changing the way people in finance do their jobs every day.

The Growing Adoption of AI in Accounting

The accounting field is undergoing a big change with the use of AI. Nicolas notes that in the past, only about 20% of accountants used this technology, but now that number has grown to around 50%. This increasing adoption indicates that more accountants are starting to embrace AI in their work.

“Every three to six months there is a new phase of adoption,” Nicolas explained to me. “Two years ago, almost nobody was using it… then six months after, you had 20-30% of people starting to use it for emails, but then the technologists started using it for financial analysis.”

This adoption happens in waves, with each new phase bringing more sophisticated applications. While early adopters began with simple tasks like drafting emails, many are now creating custom AI agents and analyzing complex financial data.

Practical Examples of AI in Financial Analysis

Cohort Analysis for SaaS Businesses

Nicolas demonstrated how a SaaS business cohort analysis—typically used to track customer retention rates over time—can be transformed from a 3-4 hour task into a minutes-long process.

By uploading a simple dataset with dates, customer IDs, products, and invoice amounts to ChatGPT with a brief prompt to “do a cohort analysis visually,” he produced a sophisticated heatmap visualization showing retention rates across different customer cohorts.

“If you never did it [manually], you will probably need one day because you will have so much trial and error,” Nicolas noted, highlighting the dramatic time savings.

Salary Distribution Analysis Using Box Plots

Perhaps even more valuable than time savings is AI’s ability to suggest visualization techniques that many finance professionals may never have considered. Nicolas shared a powerful example of ChatGPT suggesting using box plots for salary distribution analysis—a visualization method he hadn’t applied despite 15 years in finance.

“The first time I saw the output of the analysis of salaries… I was like, wow. This is actually the best way to show a distribution of salary. After 15 years of finance, I never used that,” Nicolas recalled.

The box plot clearly displayed salary ranges across departments, showing minimum, maximum, and outlier values in a way that averages alone could never reveal. This discovery was so impactful that Nicolas thought, “This is going to change all our lives.”

Automated Financial Reporting

Nicolas also demonstrated a tool called Concourse.io that connects directly with QuickBooks Online and NetSuite to automatically generate comprehensive financial reports.

The tool automatically generates a complete report with executive summaries, revenue analysis, cost analysis, and customizable sections—all with both narrative commentary and visualizations.

Overcoming Implementation Challenges

While AI’s potential for finance is clear, many accounting professionals have hesitated to adopt these tools due to four key concerns:

  1. Data confidentiality: Uploading sensitive financial information to third-party AI platforms
  2. Auditability: Verifying AI calculations and tracing how results were generated
  3. Processing limitations: Most AI tools cannot handle large financial datasets
  4. Scalability: The inefficiency of repeatedly prompting AI for the same analysis

Solutions for Data Security and Auditability

Nicolas demonstrated an ingenious workaround that addresses these concerns. After using ChatGPT to generate a visualization, he asks it to provide the underlying Python code that created the chart. He then copies this code to Google Colab, a free browser-based tool from Google that allows users to run Python code.

“Now it solves the confidentiality of data because you are not in ChatGPT, you are inside your Google environment,” Nicolas explained. “And for auditability, here I can see the source… It’s not random. It’s not like a black box. You can see all of it.”

For professionals who aren’t comfortable with code, Nicolas showed how to implement AI-suggested techniques directly in Excel. For example, after discovering box plots, he asked ChatGPT to provide step-by-step instructions for creating these visualizations in Excel using the “Box and Whiskers” chart option.

Ensuring Proper Data Protection

When selecting AI tools, Nicolas emphasized the importance of proper data security:

“Make sure your team is using it without fear of data security. These tools use the best standards in terms of data security. If you sign a contract with them, you can read the data security protocol and make sure you opt out for data training, which is normally standard.”

For those using ChatGPT, he recommends the Teams account, which has data protection built in, rather than the Pro account, which requires explicit opt-out of data training.

The Evolving Role of Finance Professionals

As artificial intelligence changes how we handle financial analysis, the work of finance professionals is also changing. Instead of taking away jobs, these new tools help professionals focus on more important tasks that add greater value.

“Instead of spending a week with five people building a report, it’s just going to be 30 minutes of work. Then you can reinvest that time analyzing which vendors are good or bad, and working with procurement to make some savings,” Nicolas explained.

This shift addresses a long-standing aspiration in finance. “We talk a lot about business partnering and adding value. But when people are behind their Excel files, they cannot do a lot of this,” Nicolas pointed out. AI tools free finance professionals from the technical burden of report creation, allowing them to focus on strategic interpretation.

The evolution comes at an opportune time for the profession, which faces staffing challenges. “You have less people coming into accounting jobs. You have many people retiring. The turnover is really high,” Nicolas noted. 

Organizations that adopt AI tools not only improve efficiency but also enhance their appeal to potential employees by offering more meaningful work.

Getting Started with AI in Finance

When selecting AI tools, Nicolas advised focusing on integration with existing systems:

“If you are already embedded in Microsoft—you use Outlook, SharePoint, Power BI, Azure—it makes sense to go with Copilot,” he explained. Similarly, organizations using Google’s ecosystem should consider Gemini. For smaller organizations without specific ecosystem requirements, ChatGPT provides a flexible solution.

For those looking to develop AI skills, Nicolas recommends following experts on platforms like LinkedIn and YouTube. “It’s crazy to see how much people can learn and implement in just two hours of training,” he says.

He also created a community called the AI Finance Club, where finance professionals can stay current on AI developments. “Every week we provide the most important content in the form of guides, masterclasses, or video courses where experts teach the best ways to use AI for finance.”

From Spreadsheet Specialists to Strategic Advisors

This isn’t just about getting new tools; it’s about a complete shift in how financial experts provide value to their companies.

These technologies are not just about saving time; they actually improve the quality of analysis while keeping data safe and accurate. Incorporating AI doesn’t mean losing control or risking the quality of data.

The professionals who will do well in this new environment won’t necessarily be the ones who are great at coding or become technology experts. Instead, success will come to those who know how to use these tools wisely—making good decisions while letting AI take care of routine tasks in financial analysis.

This change opens up a real opportunity to fulfill the promise of being strategic partners in business, a goal finance professionals have talked about for years. When they are free from making basic reports, finance experts can focus on analyzing insights and providing the valuable guidance that truly drives business success.


Did you find this article helpful? Listen to my full conversation with Nicolas Boucher on the Earmark Podcast for more practical examples and step-by-step guidance on using AI for financial analysis. Plus, you can earn free CPE for listening to the episode or watching the video with the Earmark app.

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