Are you worried that artificial intelligence (AI) might take over your job as an accountant? It's unlikely that AI will replace you anytime soon, but accountants who learn to leverage its capabilities might.
AI is gaining a foothold in many workplaces and organizations, especially in the finance and accounting industry. As this tool becomes more sophisticated and widespread, accountants who know how to utilize it will have a clear advantage over those who don't.
You may have already heard about
using ChatGPT for accounting. But there's another up-and-coming player in the field called Microsoft Copilot. Microsoft Copilot is another chat-based, AI-powered tool that assists you with everyday tasks, such as crunching numbers or writing draft reports.
In this blog post, I'll discuss how you can use this valuable tool to optimize your workflow as an accountant and automate tasks that zap your time and energy.
Want to gain a competitive edge while
fulfilling your annual CPE requirements? We've got your back! The Copilot Essentials For Accountants course teaches you how to incorporate Microsoft Copilot into work systems to unlock a greater level of productivity and efficiency.
But first, let's explore the different ways you can harness Copilot's features to transform how you work.
Years ago, it would have been hard to believe that this many people would interact and converse with machines in their daily lives. However, with the development of artificial intelligence, this seemingly futuristic concept is becoming a reality.
With AI-powered tools like Microsoft Copilot, it has become much easier to access, interpret, and process large amounts of data.
Microsoft Copilot, in particular, works by bringing together the following components:
• Large language models (LLM): An LLM is a deep-learning program or algorithm pre-trained on massive amounts of data. In other words, these systems have been provided enough examples to understand and interpret natural human language and other forms of complex data. This allows them to answer questions, write, and even generate code.
• Content in Microsoft Graph: Microsoft Graph is a platform that provides access to all the data stored in various Microsoft Cloud services.
• Apps used in office work: One of the highlight features of Microsoft Copilot is that it is embedded in programs you use daily, such as Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Teams, and Outlook.
By combining the three, Copilot can complete different tasks and work natively in Office apps. This is why it lives by its nickname, "Your Everyday AI Companion." You can chat with it as you would with a personal assistant and give it simple assignments, like writing a meeting report or preparing visualizations based on data sheets.
Let's further explore Copilot's features and how they may come in handy for accountants.
Are you drowning in a sea of numbers and data? Well, you're not alone.
This suggests that artificial intelligence can fill a massive gap in accounting. What's even more promising is that Microsoft Copilot can do much more than search for information and data.
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Microsoft Copilot can help reduce the manual work involved in
data analytics and financial reporting. For instance, Copilot can reconcile multiple data sets from different sources, such as Excel reports, invoices, contracts, and emails, to form a unified view for easier financial analysis. It also assists with categorizing and matching transactions to highlight any financial discrepancies.
Additionally, Copilot can help you refine and optimize financial reports. Simply prompt it to utilize Power Query or Get and Transform in Excel to polish and clean up your reports. Copilot can also perform various calculations and analyses. This includes calculating important KPIs and ratios for your industry and finding competitor ratios for benchmarking.
But that's not all. Copilot can assist in conducting budget vs. actual analyses, tracking expenses, and even performing compliance checks. It all comes down to experimenting with its different features to determine how you can position it as a valuable resource in your daily work!
Developing formulas in Excel might feel like learning a new language, especially when adding an extra zero or symbol can render an entire formula useless. The good news is that Copilot can save you a lot of wasted time and headaches by diagnosing errors and building complex formulas from the ground up.
To harness the power of Microsoft Copilot in Excel, simply give it instructions using simple language. It will then transform your prompt into formulas for your Excel sheets. Some examples of complex formulas that Copilot can help you write are the Match and Index and Sort and Filter functions.
Other advanced features include highlighting key data points and analyzing Excel sheets. You can also prompt it to add new columns for various purposes, like comparing the performance of different quarters or projecting revenue based on available data.
To top it off, Copilot has the ability to accelerate everyday tasks and unlock a new level of functionality in your Office apps. With your prompts, Copilot will generate VBA codes and even give instructions on executing and integrating them into your Excel sheets.
Another use case of Copilot is for building a business or finance presentation, which is especially handy when you're pressed for time. You can either get it to create a presentation from scratch with a simple prompt or build one based on existing themes and templates you already have.
Alternatively, you may ask it to create a PowerPoint presentation from a Word or PDF document. Microsoft Copilot will generate the slides, select a suitable theme, and even write speaker notes.
Data visualization is a powerful tool in an accountant's arsenal. It helps you digest and share financial information more effectively and detect patterns, relationships, and trends that might otherwise go unnoticed.
One of the best ways to use Microsoft Copilot in Excel is by having it analyze your data to produce pivot tables, bar charts, and graphs. Alternatively, you can ask Copilot to refine and enhance any charts or data visualizations you already have.
Accountants spend
one-third of their time writing. Fortunately, Copilot can serve as a writing assistant, so you'll never have to start with a blank slate again.
Microsoft Copilot may be useful in preparing drafts for reports, emails, presentations, and other written documents. What's even more impressive is that you can feed Copilot a specific file to provide better context and direction on what the output should be grounded on.
If you already have a document, Copilot can help you polish and refine your work using its "Rewrite" feature. In the event you don't like the initial output, you can even ask for a new set of responses.
Copilot can perform various tasks to boost your productivity as an accountant. But at the end of the day, it's just an assistant. While it is equipped with impressive features, it still doesn't possess decision-making and critical-thinking skills. This is where your real-life experience and expertise as a management accountant will come in handy.
The output you receive will also be heavily dependent on the quality of your prompts and how you communicate with Copilot.
Through the
Copilot Essentials For Accountants course, you'll gain access to step-by-step guides on implementing Copilot in your accounting roles and tasks. You'll also master writing effective prompts for Copilot to perform complex tasks, like running financial analyses or conducting ratio calculations.
The couple of hours you invest into this course will unlock a new set of highly sought-after skills, giving you a leg up against your competition. What are you waiting for? Enroll in our at-your-own-pace masterclasses today and start upskilling with AI from the comfort of your own home while earning CPE credits.
Nathan Liao, CMA
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Nathan Liao, a Certified Management Accountant, educator, and influential business figure in the accounting industry, has dedicated over a decade to supporting more than 82,000 accounting and finance professionals in their pursuit of the CMA certification. As the visionary founder of CMA Exam Academy and CPE Flow, Nathan is committed to delivering premier online training solutions for the next generation of accounting and finance professionals.
