Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly essential for valuation and accounting firms looking to streamline operations and improve service offerings. Firm partners and owners can leverage AI across multiple areas to boost efficiency, accuracy, and client engagement. Here’s a closer look at six AI-driven strategies that are transforming how firms operate and serve clients.
1. Enhanced Data Analysis and Insights
AI-driven tools can analyze extensive financial data, market trends, and economic indicators more rapidly and accurately than traditional methods. This capability enables valuation professionals to uncover subtle patterns and correlations that might otherwise remain unnoticed, leading to more precise and comprehensive valuations. By automating data processing, AI reduces the risk of human error and allows professionals to focus on interpreting results and making informed decisions.
AI Tools for Valuation Firms
Several AI tools can assist valuation firms in leveraging enhanced data analysis:
- Comparables.ai: This platform provides AI-powered company data and market intelligence, facilitating faster identification of comparable companies and market analysis. It offers access to hard-to-source business and financial data on over 360 million companies globally, aiding in uncovering valuation multiples and industry insights.
- Julius AI: An AI data analyst that helps users analyze and visualize data by chatting with files, creating graphs, building forecasting models, and more. It enables users to ask questions about their data and receive expert-level insights in seconds, perform modeling and predictive forecasting, and generate polished analyses and summaries.
- Alteryx: A platform that helps firms streamline data analysis and automate workflows in advanced analytics, supporting predictive, statistical, and spatial analytics.
2. Enhance Workflow and Communication
Workflow management is a common challenge in professional services firms, where inefficiencies can lead to time lost on administrative tasks. AI tools help streamline workflows by automating routine processes like notifications, document management, and approvals, reducing bottlenecks and enhancing productivity across the firm. For instance, AI can automate reminders for tasks such as document reviews, client deadlines, or internal approvals, ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks.
Some specific tools that can assist with workflow automation include:
- Asana: While not purely AI-driven, Asana integrates AI-powered automation features that help firms create workflows, automate task assignments, and set reminders for deadlines, keeping projects on track.
- Trello with Butler automation: Trello’s Butler automation tool uses AI to automatically trigger actions such as moving tasks, sending notifications, and setting due dates, helping teams stay organized without the need for manual task management.
- Zapier: Zapier can integrate with various professional tools like CRM systems, email clients, and project management software to automate routine tasks and create workflows, streamlining multi-step processes. For example, firms can set up workflows to move emails with specific client keywords to a priority inbox or automatically save attachments from emails to a designated client folder.
Communication is another area where AI makes a significant impact. AI tools assist with drafting, editing, and managing emails, keeping inboxes organized and enabling professionals to focus on high-priority client communication. For partners and firm owners, this means less time spent on day-to-day email management and more time dedicated to strategic conversations. By automating basic communication tasks, firms improve client responsiveness and reduce the risk of missed messages or delayed replies.
We have surveyed members in the Valuation Practice community and spoken with experts in this area, below are the common tools used to maximize communication effectiveness.
- Grammarly: Grammarly’s AI-powered writing assistant helps professionals draft polished emails by suggesting edits for grammar, tone, and readability. This ensures that communications are clear and professional, reducing the risk of miscommunication.
- Microsoft Viva: Built into Microsoft Teams, Viva Insights uses AI to offer productivity suggestions, schedule reminders, and help employees manage communication load. It can suggest focus time, remind employees about unanswered emails, and flag high-priority messages.
- x.ai: x.ai provides an AI-powered scheduling assistant that automates meeting scheduling. By handling the back-and-forth of finding meeting times, x.ai improves response times, ensures no communication is missed, and lets professionals focus on their client interactions.
3. Grow Revenue with Automated Marketing
Marketing can be resource-intensive, but AI simplifies and accelerates many aspects of content creation and engagement. AI tools can generate ideas for blog posts, edit social media content, and even repurpose long-form content like webinars or podcasts into short, engaging clips for platforms like LinkedIn. For valuation and accounting firms, this means building a stronger online presence without dedicating extensive hours to marketing.
AI-driven marketing tools allow firms to engage with clients more effectively by automating repetitive tasks, like transforming long-form content into short, digestible pieces for social media. For example, a single webinar can yield dozens of short clips that highlight key insights, helping firms stay active on social media and attract new prospects. With AI managing the marketing process, firms can reach a wider audience and maintain client engagement while focusing on their core services.
Here are some AI-powered tools that can help firms streamline their marketing efforts:
- Canva: Canva’s AI features simplify content creation with pre-designed templates, automated design suggestions, and a library of graphics and stock images. Firms can quickly create visually appealing posts for social media, presentations, and blog graphics that align with brand consistency.
- Lumen5: Lumen5 converts written content into video format, making it easy to turn blog posts, articles, or research insights into short, engaging video clips for platforms like LinkedIn. This tool can be especially useful for creating visually compelling content with minimal effort.
- Jasper: Jasper is an AI content generation tool that can help firms brainstorm ideas, write blog posts, and create social media captions. Its natural language processing capabilities make it possible to quickly draft content that sounds professional and is tailored to specific audiences.
- Descript: Descript is a versatile tool for repurposing content, allowing users to edit and transcribe audio and video files. It’s useful for turning webinars or podcasts into short clips, summaries, or written content, enabling firms to make the most of their long-form media.
- Hootsuite with OwlyWriter: Hootsuite’s OwlyWriter AI assists with creating and scheduling social media posts, suggesting post ideas based on recent industry trends or existing content, and even transforming complex content into digestible social snippets.
As Edwina Fitzmaurice, Global Chief Customer Success Officer at EY states “AI is not solely about automation, but about enhancing human capabilities”, embracing AI in valuation and accounting firms offers substantial benefits – from streamlined workflows and enhanced fraud detection to optimized tax preparation and growth in marketing reach.
Integrating AI into firm operations doesn’t need to happen overnight. Gradual adoption allows team members to adapt and fully leverage the technology’s capabilities. By embracing these innovative AI strategies, firm partners and owners can position their practices for sustainable growth and increased competitiveness in a rapidly evolving industry.
