Playbooks · 7 min read
AI for Small Accounting Firms: Where to Start
AI for small accounting firms, written for the partner who is also the IT department. Where to start and what to skip.
If you run a 3 to 20 person accounting firm and you are also the IT department, the marketing department and the HR department, this is for you.
You do not need a CTO. You do not need a 6-month transformation programme. You need a sequence.
What small firms get wrong
- Buying enterprise-grade AI platforms designed for 200-person firms
- Trying to automate everything at once
- Believing the consultancy that says it needs a 3-month discovery
- Waiting until the firm is "big enough" before starting
The right sequence for a small firm
- Month 1: Install one agent. AP is the obvious choice. One person on your team owns it.
- Month 2: Run it in shadow mode, tune the edge cases, cut over.
- Month 3: Measure the hours saved per week. Take that capacity and either grow the book or shrink your week.
- Month 4 onward: Install agent #2 only after agent #1 is boring and reliable.
What it costs
A single AP agent install for a small firm typically pays back in the first 60 days. After that, every week is pure margin recovered. No new hires, no new software, no team retraining.
What it doesn't cost
- A new accounting system — agents sit on top of Xero or MYOB
- A change to your CRM or practice-management tool
- Hiring a tech person — the supervisor is someone already on your team
- Telling clients anything — to clients, nothing changes except faster turnaround
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About the author
Josh Jefferd
Josh is the founder of Install & Scale, an agency building AI agents for accounting, tax and bookkeeping firms across Australia and the US. He has installed AP, reconciliation and compliance agents for firms running Xero, MYOB, Drake, ProConnect, SharePoint and Outlook.