Top 7 Use Cases of AI in Accounting

The accounting industry, traditionally, has been burdened by a preponderance of manual processes, repetitive tasks, and the scope for human error. However, with Artificial Intelligence (AI), these problems are a thing of the past.

With its remarkable capacity to drive speed, accuracy, and real-time insights, the technology enables accounting businesses to quickly adapt to changes and handle increasing volumes of financial data.

From monitoring transactions for irregularities and processing documents within seconds to enabling legal compliance and driving cash flow optimizations, AI’s applications are manifold, making it a powerful ally for accountants looking to become long-term partners for their clients.

Research shows that the adoption of AI in accounting is growing at a CAGR of 30%. Moreover, 58% of big accounting firms have already streamlined their operations with custom AI solutions, and 70% plan to make further investments in the near future.

Clearly, the accounting industry is betting heavily on AI and is actually ready for it—and you’d do well to do the same. In this blog post, we’ll talk about some of the major practical applications of AI that you can start benefiting from right away.

7 Most Practical Use Cases of AI in Accounting

1. Streamlined invoice processing and automated data entry

With AI, data entry and invoice processing becomes a breeze. Thanks to technology like Optical Character Recognition (OCR), your AI can scan invoices and quickly extract key data like invoice numbers, dates, vendor names, amounts due, and so on.

It also cross-checks the data against predefined rules (like tax calculations or purchase order numbers) and flags any inconsistencies immediately.

What’s more, AI can do this for invoices in any format—be it an email-embedded invoice, a PDF file, or a scan of a physical document. This flexibility is particularly beneficial for businesses dealing with diverse vendors and formats.

Now, let’s consider a mid-sized retail business that handles 500 invoices every month.

Earlier, it had to keep a full-time employee to process these invoices and enter the data into the system. But thanks to AI development services, it automated 90% of its invoice processing, saving the team around 40 hours a month that could now be spent on more strategic activities.

This may be just a hypothetical example, but you can achieve similar efficiency, minus the manual effort, if you only give into the power of Generative AI.

Fun Fact: We built a GenAI tool for a client that could chat and collaborate across documents in multiple languages

2. Efficient expense management

AI-powered expense management brings unprecedented efficiency, accuracy, and compliance.

For instance, thanks to Natural Language Processing (NLP), AI can quickly categorize expenses based on predefined parameters, cross-check the claims against company parameters (such as allowable limits for each employee bracket), and immediately process the invoice.

This also allows it to spot and flag fraudulent expense claims, such as an employee submitting the same hotel bill twice. 

This visibility and accuracy are invaluable for your accounting team. It drastically reduces the manual effort of expense tracking and back-and-forth verifications while ensuring that expenses are always cleared in accordance with company policy.

In addition, it gives you actionable insights into your client company’s spending trends by identifying patterns in the types of expenses submitted. This allows you to help them spot opportunities to improve efficiency and make better financial decisions overall.

Read: AI Revolution in Fintech

3. Robust financial statement analysis and forecasting

AI streamlines financial statement analysis by quickly pulling insights on trends, anomalies, and opportunities from large datasets.

By detecting fluctuations early, such as unusual expenditure spikes, AI helps you proactively assist the client with reducing costs or addressing potential fraud.

In addition, AI development services can leverage historical data to conduct predictive analysis on revenue, sales patterns, cash flow, and other variables. This enables more strategic resource allocation and better scenario planning, such as expanding to a new market.

Ultimately, it positions you as a critical strategic partner driving maximum client satisfaction. Some custom AI solutions you can consider investing in include Adaptive Insights or IBM Planning Analytics, which integrate seamlessly with your accounting software. 

4. Smart fraud detection and prevention

AI is ideally designed to detect and prevent fraud by quickly analyzing transaction data to identify anomalies and issuing real-time alerts.

For instance, if an employee account suddenly processes multiple transactions outside regular working hours, AI can automatically block the transactions and call for further investigation. This is key to avoiding significant losses and maintaining the financial integrity of your client.

As an accountant, using AI for fraud detection positions you as a valuable ally to your clients’ finances. Typically, AI in fraud detection is based on Machine Learning (ML) models, which improve over time by continuously studying past fraud data.

This allows them to detect increasingly sophisticated threats, helping your client’s systems stay one step ahead at all times.

In addition, by continuously ensuring that financial records comply with regulatory requirements, AI helps strengthen the client’s reputation and avoid penalties for non-compliance. 

5. Automated accounts payable and receivable 

One of AI’s most valuable applications in accounting is automating accounts payable and receivable. It can automate approvals by matching invoices with purchase orders and contracts and flagging discrepancies for review.

Payment processing becomes seamless as AI can schedule payments, ensure timely disbursements, and comply with terms, avoiding late fees.

From real-time tracking updates to auto-notifications when an invoice status changes to timely payment processing, AI minimizes uncertainty in your client’s cash flow cycle and improves vendor relationships.

Several accounting platforms readily equip AI with these features. For example, Bill.com automates invoice processing and payment workflows, while FreshBooks uses AI to manage invoices, send reminders, and track receivables.

6. Simplified tax compliance 

Tax compliance is typically a complex process, but thanks to AI development services, it’s easier than ever to stay within the letter of the law.

Some of the applications for tax compliance include:

• AI can analyze vast legal datasets and extract relevant rules and guidelines to ensure your client stays compliant. It also determines which tax laws apply to which scenarios, eliminating the risk of misinterpretation. 
• AI can monitor real-time transactions and instantly flag anything likely to be a non-compliance issue. 
• AI quickly consolidates relevant data and applies the correct tax rates to ensure that all financial documents are accurate for reporting purposes. 
• AI can study multi-jurisdictional laws and correctly determine which tax laws apply to which circumstances, thus enabling your clients to stay compliant as they expand their global operations. 
• AI can automatically track and learn any changes to tax law and adjust your client’s processes to reflect these changes. 
• AI can study financial data and identify potential risks well in advance, allowing your client companies to rectify them before an audit occurs.

With business laws becoming increasingly complex as the nature of business evolves, custom AI solutions for compliance will give you a competitive edge with your clients as you guide them through their financial growth. 

Tools like Vertex and Avalara are ideal for automated compliance and reporting.

Learn: How to Select the Right Generative AI Development Company

7. Quick client query resolution with AI assistants 

AI chatbots have taken the customer service space by storm, and the accounting industry is no different. These tools are designed to handle any routine queries your client may have, such as when an invoice is due or when the next tax filing deadline is, without contacting you.

For more complex queries, the AI automatically reroutes the client to a human agent on your team while summarising the bot conversation so far. 

For instance, Intuit’s QuickBooks Assistant is an AI-powered chatbot that can answer questions about invoices and tax preparation and simple queries about financial patterns. 

By incorporating AI assistants into your accounting team’s workflow, you can be there for your clients 24/7, strengthening your relationship with them. This frees your human team to provide even more personalized guidance on critical matters. 

Take the First Step Toward Smarter Accounting

Thanks to AI, modern accounting is far more than just maintaining ledgers or drafting tax returns. With granular insights into where and how money is going, AI-powered accounting firms can guide their clients toward unprecedented financial success.

AI is still in its early days, so you’d be wise to adopt it and start reaping the benefits as soon as possible to gain a competitive edge. Explore the different applications out there, invest in the ones that make the most sense for your business, and keep monitoring and evolving as necessary.

Intuz, a leading AI development company, offers powerful, intuitive AI solutions to streamline your accounting processes, cut costs, and enhance decision-making.

With your data as the foundation, we fine-tune generative models to achieve exceptional accuracy, performance, and relevance for your unique domain.

But that’s just the start.

Preparing data for Generative AI can feel overwhelming—that’s where we come in. We handle the heavy lifting by organizing, cleaning, and structuring your data so it’s perfectly primed for training. When you partner with us, you’re not just getting technical expertise—you’re gaining a trusted team that’s invested in your success.

Don’t believe us?

We practically wrote a quick guide on building your own LLM from scratch—we have the know-how.

Don’t wait too long and think.

Just book a free consultation with our expert AI team today.

In a no-strings-attached, one-hour session, we’ll focus solely on your business needs—no unnecessary promotions, no fluff. We’ll walk you through the specific ways AI can transform your accounting processes and provide a high-level roadmap created just for your team.

We’ll show you how we can help you work smarter, not harder.