AI now does the first pass, the part juniors used to learn on. In this episode of Unaccounted For, Wayne Findlay and Marvin Galang talk about what the junior job becomes, and how firms should rebuild the first three years of an accounting career around it.

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Episode overview

Same job title. Different job. AI now drafts the bank recs and the first pass of the file, and the junior checks it and explains it. The question isn't whether AI takes junior jobs. It's what the junior job becomes, and who builds the training that grunt work used to give for free.

In this episode, Wayne Findlay (CEO, The Back Room) and Marvin Galang (COO, The Back Room) cover:

• What juniors do now: from making the work to checking it, earlier than ever. And if firms cut grad intake, where do their seniors come from in five years?
• The skills that matter more: judgment, client work, technical basics and curiosity, with advisory now starting in year two, not year five. Judgment is the hardest to teach, because it comes from reps and AI is taking the reps.
• The grunt-work career path: grunt work was the training. Remove it, and the training has to be rebuilt on purpose. Plus what universities are doing to get accounting students ready for AI.
• Rewriting the first three years: review AI output with a senior in year one, own a small client relationship in year two, supervise the first pass in year three. The first step: cross the AI tasks off the grad job description and see what's left.
• What graduates and firms should ask: the interview questions that matter now on both sides of the table, including "when didn't you trust AI?"

One thing to do this week: pick one junior. Move one task off their plate that AI drafts well, like bank recs, and move one task on, like a client call or walking a senior through review notes. Repeat monthly.

Transcript:

[00:00] It's just not enough accountants number of accounting trainees is going down rapidly I counted it he mentioned AI like almost 60 times unfortunately they're not there a lot of the grads that the Big Four are hiring aren't accountants in a way we're forcing a fresh grad to be like a second year experienced professional everybody wants experience they're not challenged that the firms that have been sued they trusted what AI produced and they submitted it

[00:34] And they did not review with where it might have been

[00:40] Making our professionals more context engineer the better the context the better the result if you get that account plus in the system you get a super account we put them in a company and we restrict their creativity the future accountant look like is it the future or is it the now

[01:02] You're listening to unaccounted for well what is unaccounted for it's the podcast about everything the Ledger doesn't capture gonna cover AI people and what's really going on inside accounting firms I'm Marvin Galang and I'm Wayne Findlay from the back room no slides no CDs and nobody well maybe maybe we're pretending no we're not no pretending they've got it all figured out we're back we're back ha ha ha ha they've changed us around their seating

[01:37] I know but I got a better view so I'm looking out here now and maybe we can do a cut to what I'm looking at but that's the future out there isn't it oh yeah again wishing that we are out there yeah maybe we do an episode that we're at 7 1 7 no on the golf course oh we could do that and next podcast will be on the golf course

[01:58] And after the shoot then we we hit yeah yeah but that's the future out there in the Philippines I'm looking out at at what's gonna be the new train station coming into Clark and further out here we're looking at towards what's gonna be New Clark and they're talking about this big chip factory yep Pac Silica Pac Silica which could be um massive for the Philippines but then what we wanna talk about really

[02:28] Is the future of accounting and what is the future accountant look like it's it's is it the future or is it the now I think it you're right it probably is the now and we're seeing that but the trouble is I suppose if we step back what are the what are the universities need to do to produce the accountant of the future um is it their role let's start with that

[02:56] I definitely I honestly believe um they have a big role to play hmm okay so we have um I can't remember if it was July or August I was invited to speak in a in an association event and the speaker I was gonna talk about AI yeah and the speaker before me uh was talking about education very specific to this the role of education and standards that they should set uh

[03:30] I believe in accordance or compliance with ASEAN so we're in the Philippines so we're talking about Asia ASEAN so it was ASEAN and he pointed out standards of of um of ASEAN as compared to European Union as compared to the United States when it comes to education and accounting and where we are at as a country and obviously we were falling behind on a lot of yeah a lot of areas but the biggest takeaway there

[04:03] And I counted it he mentioned AI like almost 60 times in a one hour you know in a one hour presentation one hour and a half presentation and he was talking about hey you know they should embed tech technology and AI blah blah blah and AI and I'm like um do we really do that are we doing that now or are we capable of doing that and I like

[04:30] I'm looking at my own university where I graduated yeah unfortunately they're not there yeah um they have a they still have a four year course in accounting uh other courses related to finance very few if not no zero on AI adoption or even short courses or a um electives yes that embed AI or even use software that in teaching that has AI capabilities so I I don't know

[05:06] Um but definitely

[05:08] The uh they they're they have to play a big role what about overseas what are you seeing like I've you know first hand seen what's in New Zealand Australia I assume was is pretty close to what's happening in New Zealand where they're starting to use AI as part of the curriculum like it's it's it's starting to get embedded but in the accounting I think I don't know if it's changed that much

[05:33] But what about on the US have you seen anything that's going on there that's really um we've um we did the research so maybe we can share some of these um university of Texas yeah teaching students to audit with AI I think that's you know that it's a big step and a lot of uh the universities that came out I think it's not surprising but uh most of them are in the

[06:04] Most of them are in the most of it's in the US yeah you know Australia is starting to do it there's the same type of thing I think it was Swinburne yeah you know they're doing AI for accounting and finance as a degree haven't seen anything that much about New Zealand New Zealand there's more partnerships I've seen in the in yeah industry partnerships yeah between the university and the private sector

[06:30] Right yeah a lot of the grads that the Big 4 are hiring aren't accounting grads they're more it upgrades yeah so so the accountant of the future you know the Big Four are telling us are more it focused right systems people that's that's where the need is so the trouble for us as as the grades that we get we have to retrain don't we we have to we're

[07:00] You know we're in the Philippines um just wanted to share cause last week I sat down with a professor in philosophy yeah in one of the top accounting schools in the Philippines and uh I won't mention the name it's color green yeah but uh for Filipinos who are going to listen but it's color green and uh professor in philosophy and I think they're one of the first if not you know um

[07:30] The only university that offers a baccalaureate course that has AI so but this is philosophy with HR philosophy HR plus AI right it's a three and a/2 year course I believe cause that school is a trimester so it was very interesting and you know it was a couple hour conversation talking about you know AI and the future and yeah with a philosophy professor okay but most of what I've seen in the market

[08:04] You're right as far as industry partnerships so they you know um another school accounting uh partners with accounting software right and then they embed the teaching accounting software the use of the accounting software in their accounting information systems subject right but it's still just a subject it might be a 3 unit which is a three hour per week type of thing yeah uh but most of what we've seen is around around there yeah

[08:36] Yeah so there is there is a bit of movement or that's needed I think at that lower level to get to bring out the accountants yep and and I suppose what do you do like what is the accountant of the future or the now what does it look like what skills do they need yeah it's different to what it was 10 years ago I mean if you look at okay

[09:00] So even in our own experience as far as hey we we speak with a potential client and then we talk about you know these are our resources and and they have a different need yeah they used to be able to be tolerant and say hey um yeah give me some fresh grads and we will work with them but globally

[09:27] You know probably a fair Assumption that uh most firms are pro has preference on experienced professionals than a fresh grad at least what we're seeing now right yeah everybody wants experience and I'd challenge that because I think the accountant of the future I think you can build them easier than train a more senior person well at least there's a cost benefit there yeah but you could get a grad

[10:00] Run them through our three month program and then put them out and probably you should get them drafting within six months correct drafting financials yeah and with the use of AI and the tools that are available now you're gonna get good quality you can get good checks

[10:20] I think the same thing happens I've seen it so often where you hire seniors or intermediates and then you have to retrain them and get them used to the way that you're doing get rid of some bad habits so I think yeah I think it's a I think you just as well to hire grads than it is to hire seniors um

[10:43] Let me see let me see um yes and no hmm in a way um again if we go back and why are they you know why are they

[10:56] Preferring experience versus hey I don't you know grads that don't have experience um we'll go back to education because again you know the the students that we produce may not have you know that uh they're looking at that bridge you know to hey I want this person to be able to work with AI if if if you know the firm has a policy on AI but we go back to hey

[11:24] What is that ex um skills that I'm looking for to bridge to uh to bridge that gap in a way we're forcing a fresh grad to be like a second year experienced professional yeah and that and the skills that this uh professional should have developed in that couple years we're expecting from from a fresh grad and what are those skills if I uh trust and verify we went we

[11:53] We've been talking about that in other episodes but you know that verification skill is hard unfortunately to expect from a fresh grad but I'm challenging you there uh huh because now we have AI and you have the tools we know we've developed one with GERI Review yep so if you have that check later then you've got that trust and verification stage so it's a learning to get to that yep

[12:27] So the you know that obviously they'll they may take longer to do the job but you still have that check at the end to get that right so it's a matter of learning what you've got wrong correct but the check is to check check by AI as well or check by the human check by AI check by you do need a human verification afterwards that I would always do correct

[12:48] Exactly and that and that's a that's an that's a skill that is developed over time and that's that's the only that's my point is that um and there are researches that came out where the challenge now or the problem now with you know with the models being where they're at at this point so much improved yeah um it's trust and trust we trust what AI produced and then people are submitting

[13:14] I mean you know we're not gonna mention the firms that have been sued yeah and the fees returned or paid liabilities paid because they trusted what AI produced and they submitted it and they did not review you know that these are fictitious uh examples already that we submitted and I think that that's really all I'm I'm referring to so that skills is and and that's what we're trying to also um

[13:42] Enhance or train in our master classes right it's like um yeah we understand your fresh grad some of the routinary tasks you may not be able to experience anymore yeah but we are training them to have these different skills like being creative being able to articulate better being able to appreciate workflow uh and document workflow better which is typically done by a senior because they have a broader overview of the process

[14:18] Yeah which uh we can't expect from a from a fresh grad or sometimes while we say hey they should have Learned that from universities but again unfortunately yeah not all well talking about AI and I know a lot of accounting firms will wanna talk about this and go over it so if you wanna go and learn more go to the show notes or tap on the link and the link domain

[14:46] It's called unaccounted for podcast.com alright let let's go back to this podcast episode back to it the trouble is so with some of the senior account let's call them seniors yeah but they're not actually seniors in the sense that we would call them seniors in New Zealand or Australia where you could put them in front of a client and sit down and and properly review those finances or go over the finances with clients

[15:15] Mm hmm we're talking people that can draft finances to a high level perhaps um but those people could go a step further and help the review um I think they would be good to supervise more juniors so I'm thinking that the mix that you have in your accounting firm if you're a little bit larger maybe more heavily weighted a junior intermediate than it is senior so you're not as much top heavy

[15:44] Yeah is what a lot of accounting firms are today um so you could have more client facing team onshore yep and there's a lot of tools out there now that that you can equip them with to help with that process and doing all this business advisory right and then my solution for offshore is you know is is maybe a where it may have been too 2 junior to one senior

[16:12] It might be 4 junior to one senior with the tools that you've got so that mix could change yep certainly has and I think that's a good point where whereas before I think transfer of knowledge from offshore to local to the Philippines because of uh you know technology and again lack of experience but because of AI yeah but it's so easy now to train easy yes than than what it used to be

[16:39] Yep and you know that with what you've developed with your masterclass you know which is training accountants and AI right um but so that learning path is a lot faster the the tools are there to equip the juniors to get them up to speed quicker and do a more efficient and better job mm hmm um and the seniors are there more as a supervisory the 80 20 rule Yep

[17:09] The 20% of those accounting jobs that are really technical hard they can deal with and pass that knowledge on to the juniors and bring them through so I think it is which is good because there's a shortage of accountants right right there's just not enough accountants not enough in these countries in Australia New Zealand the US Canada UK there the number of accounting trainees is is going down rapidly yeah

[17:37] Same here yeah same here

[17:41] So looking at the tools I was thinking you know you and I have been busy building our bots and what not but yeah what what tools would you equip your trainee or your accountants with today if you had them starting from scratch um definitely get them into um you know to Claude and whatever the firm supports in our company we support Claude yeah um in the firms that we work with uh

[18:13] Mix uh but we're seeing mostly Claude at this point because of the I think Claude yeah we we have GERI and ask GERI behind that is Claude isn't it yeah that helps yeah um but but it's got guard rails isn't it has to have guard rails but um you know we did while we're saying Claude um I'm referring more of Claude code hmm uh and having them work with Claude code um

[18:38] You know immediately in our AI uh master class which we have revised seven or eight times yeah we used to equip you know professionals with the use of workflow modeling tools like n 8 n yeah um we sort of remove that already so right now we are equipping them with hey this is Claude but mostly um making our professionals more of context engineers yeah because as the models improve

[19:10] The more the better the context the better the result that's that's our equation um so initially they have access to cloud cloud code we have to teach them proper context by hey how do you know how do we document our project yep or our work which is through cloud MD cloud that MD file or progress that MD whatever that MD file but it has to be documented uh

[19:39] We teach them to put the proper context which is uh again this is now kind of forcing them to have a wider view of a project yeah you know similar to how we teach uh are professionals before where hey here's the client documented study the client's industry the client's profile maybe even the owners yep it's nothing different but now it's like hey how do I now put this in context and give this to AI

[20:10] So I can work with AI much better so it's it's prompting as well knowing how to prompt yep and the other thing is because now we've got the assistant that they can use let's say for us it's a GERI you know for you may be able to have some other assistant that you use if you're you know outside you know I use just in a rock but rock

[20:34] But but so having that assistant there and knowing how to use that assistant and knowing how to use it securely is important as well yep very important um especially uh company supported applications so we we just have to be um tsk targeted and strategic yeah we cannot just hopefully we have a strategy around it and not just let you know our professionals use whatever personal stuffs that they have yeah

[21:06] But yes uh those assistance um and then teaching them how to create skills yeah document skills creating skills so a lot of it is around you know around the proper use of of AI to make their their work more efficient obviously you still have those accounting software that we train them and yup and all the other tools that's connected to our AI or to the AI that they're using

[21:32] Well uh those are the types of uh of tools we equip them right away and if you do it right you know if you get that accountant plus an assistant you get a super accountant really yeah you get exponential you don't just get two people you get better than that yeah so that's see I just want to point this out when um while when we started the idea of the hackathon hmm

[22:00] We thought uh it you know security were we were worried we were worried about hey um are they able to grasp or produce something yeah but you know what's surprising is that we did not expect the level of creativity yeah um and the level of understanding that they have their hands on AI so all of a sudden they're like maybe I can do this and maybe I can do that

[22:30] And I'm like uh so there's now there's uh you know there's no shortage of ideas that came out just because of uh you know because now they they know capabilities their their minds are spinning they're thinking how could we improve this or do more with this so yeah and that's a big skill creativity is a big skill that yeah sometimes grad well most of the time young professionals 21

[23:00] 22 years old they come out of college they're full of creativity yeah they want to they want to learn that's a but yeah we put them in a company and we restrict their creativity yeah because you're supposed to do this and only this and only this but yeah hey that's not hopefully and thankfully that's not what we do here well that's uh yeah because we work with accounting firms and

[23:26] And so really from the accounting firms that have probably got these accountants that have got this creative edge to them with that training yep you you have to give them the tools don't you yeah you have to and so that that the sort of tools we're talking about it is could be Claude could be open AI if you're down there yeah um you know or grok yeah we will again uh

[23:55] Iterate fast yeah meaning if new models come out as long as you have proper guardrails we don't use uh you know real client data right away use synthetic data for testing um you know keep that in a in your file and every model that comes out we use it for testing and testing like yeah you know like we're seeing it now with the tools you know like what we develop with GERI Review and GERI Outsourcing

[24:22] Yeah you know the prepping and draft all that is there now it's becoming easier and easier to be more efficient and productive so yeah the the firms out there they need to let their team loose on that so they can develop themselves further I think yeah so that that would be my suggestion yeah

[24:47] It's interesting world it's an exciting world it is exciting and it's changing rapidly I think next episode I really wanna talk about Airia and how we've built these um uh a company brain or Wayne's uh second brain yeah my second brain my first brain the only brain

[25:10] Alright so maybe we could talk about that next sure yeah well looking forward to that yeah okay alright time flies uh t off t off yeah

[25:22] Alright thank you thank you thanks everyone and if you wanna talk about AI in your firm it's all in the unaccounted for podcast.com again unaccounted for podcast.com and the links is down there in the show notes oh well that's it then so I'm Wayne I'm Marvin and that's been what the lecture doesn't capture

About Unaccounted For

Unaccounted For is a podcast from The Back Room Offshoring about AI and the future of accounting firms. Each episode, CEO and Founder Wayne Findlay and COO Marvin Galang talk through what is changing, what is hype, and what firms can start using now.

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Wayne Findlay on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/waynenz

Marvin Galang on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/galangmr

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