Adapting to Technological Evolutions with Seth Fineberg

Before we jump in, just a special thank you to the sponsor of this episode, the Net Gains newsletter. The Net Gains is the free go-to weekly newsletter for accounting professionals, offering fresh insights and industry news you can't afford to miss. From career tips to the latest innovations, the Net Gains delivers the knowledge you need to thrive in the accounting sector. Curated by industry experts, it's your one-stop shop for staying ahead of trends, discovering strategic opportunities, and keeping up with the conversations shaping our profession. Sign up today at thenetgains.co, that's T-H-E-N-E-T-G-A-I-N-S dot co. Don't miss out on the insights and updates that matter most, and subscribe now. Hello and welcome to the Big Four Transparency Podcast. I'm joined today by Seth Feinberg, founder of Accountants Forward. Welcome to the pod, Seth. Thanks for having me, Dom. Appreciate it. Yeah, my pleasure. Appreciate you being here. Yeah. Yeah. So we met kind of recently at Bridging the Gap. And you were someone I had kind of like heard rumblings of previously, so that's where I'm always like excited to meet people. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I get good feedback, but you never really know people going, oh, this guy, too. Yeah. No, it was all good stuff. It was, I think it was mostly through AIR, the Accountants Influencers Roundtable. People were talking about you and saying, oh, that's a guy you, yeah, that's a guy you need to know. So there you go. Now, now you're here. So I really appreciate it. Thanks again. Yeah. My pleasure. So before I branch up on you and like asking you about what's new in your world, you shared an article with me that I initially didn't understand the kind of link of, but so let's kind of start there. Basis just raised $34 million. I read through the article. Very interesting. My understanding is it's like a company building AI agents perform actions to actually like get stuff done rather than like just provide information and specifically in the accounting space. Sounds like you've been involved with them in some capacity. Yeah. They're one of my clients. Where I tend to get involved is, is a couple of levels. With these guys, I got introduced to them and I, you know, was like, well, listen, you know, what is going to be the most valuable? Because I've been in the accounting space for so long as a, as an editor. I feel like I know it intimately. I can make connections for you. They just, you know, they were just kind of getting going. They already had a bunch of firms that they were working with and data to install their platform and have their platform really, you know, do the work and learn you know, a lot of the tasks within a cast practice that tends to be their focus these days of not taking away from, you know, or like, Oh, you don't need, you know, staff. It's just kind of a re-imagining it's just saying, Hey, you know, just like with it departments with cloud, you know, cloud didn't necessarily replace or negate the it department. It just, you, you had a re-imagining, you know, these were the folks that used to come up and fix stuff when it got broken or they were just constantly minding the servers and minding the servers with all the software and all the programs and everything installed upon them. Now when those servers went away, it went into the cloud and you no longer had to install anything. They went from, you know, fixing stuff to, you know, you know, being more, um, you know, being on top of the latest technology, the latest platforms and, you know, security, I think became, you know, more of their thing. So within accounting, you know, uh, AI has this opportunity to kind of re-imagine what an accountant actually does or what, what kinds of tasks, um, you know, what are the higher value things that get done? Because the doers of these tasks are increasingly, um, given to technology, but they still need the human to teach it, to work with it and to ultimately, um, you know, share, uh, the value of, of, you know, what, uh, it does. So with Basis, um, you know, they didn't quite know the profession as a whole, like I do. And you know, so I've been kind of working behind the scenes with them for about a year or so just to kind of teach them about the conference landscape, teach them about the industry publications, introduce them to editors, introduce them to other influential people. And I continue to do that, um, because, you know, I believe that, uh, you know, look, I started doing what I'm doing to do just that. I want to use what I know and who I know to help see the profession rise. And so with a company like that coming into the space, um, I thought it'd be a good opportunity to, to, to help them out because I know they're going to help a lot of firms with a multitude of issues with, with, you know, staffing, who do I get to do these tasks? You don't need to. You already have TAT, you know, you can already just reassign, um, a lot of the folks who already have and, you know, get the staff you do have to work with these agents to, you know, help it learn your processes and just make things better, more efficient. And, you know, uh, as we've, we've heard in the past with AI and accounting, it's, you, you want to turn the doers into reviewers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think there's also like, there's a ton of stuff that's not necessarily happening right now in terms of like client engagements that we like as CPAs would probably be entirely qualified to do. There's just no time to do it. Right. So I feel like dealing with some of the more mundane tasks and things like that really frees you up to do some of the higher order things. And I experienced that very personally, like in my career as well, where after I left the big four, I was a controller at some super small, like very, very small startup. And I was just kind of like, Hey, you know, big four is, you know, clearly done, uh, for me as a lot of founds do. And you found, um, you know, another path. Yeah. That usually like, yeah. And like the, the, the gained experience there of like realizing how many like tasks there are and how bogged down you can get was that in that job as a controller, like I was doing everything I had to do, bookkeeping, I had to get involved in like IT projects and all that. And I wasn't doing anything super productive from like, uh, you know, shepherding the business forward. And then my next role was in FP&A at a tech company where I was doing none of the accounting, none of the bookkeeping. And it was strictly like, how are things going? Can we provide useful advice? Can we provide budgeting, like guardrails on marketing, spend all of that. And I was like, Oh my God, now that I'm freed up, like I can actually provide so much actual genuine operational value. And so that's where, like, to me, I'm less worried about some of these kinds of things automating out a lot of the kind of lower end tasks where, you know, I think there's all these kinds of higher order things that we can do. And then, like you mentioned previously with like the IT teams, like people are going to adjust, like there's, there's going to be a job, right? Where I was at the tech company, there's all these cloud engineers who are optimizing your storage for like Amazon web services and all that. And that became like a super lucrative kind of profession in itself. Um, whereas like that didn't exist before the cloud. And so, you know, these things have a way of sorting themselves out. Indeed, indeed. And you know, there it's, it's, uh, you know, both, uh, you know, an exciting and nervous time, um, but I overall, um, you know, really see, you know, the coming of AI into the profession, um, as, as a, as a welcome thing, like with most technology, it's, it offers opportunity and you need to figure out, um, where it fits with what you, with what you do, because it's there, um, as a tool, like anything else to, uh, to help you, you know, uh, improve what you do. Yeah. And it's kind of a natural response to, to like the current state of talent in the accounting industry, where I think with, with this pipeline shortage, there's some equilibrium that's going to be reached. And the way I hope it happens is that, right. Like it, it frees us up to do all these kinds of higher, maybe, um, higher kind of bill rate, higher value add activities. Hopefully it becomes kind of a more lucrative profession, more interesting, inherently profession, and that drives more people to come in. And then you reach that equilibrium of like the right amount of automation and the right amount of actual talent in here. Uh, what I hope doesn't happen is like a race to the bottom where all this automation, you know, becomes like a cost-cutting cycle and everyone's just like racing to the bottom in terms of fees and, and, you know, um, yeah. Yeah. I don't, I just don't see that happening on, on the, on the large, there's always going to be a bit of that here and there. But, you know, when you're ultimately pricing based on the value of your work, Um, you know, you figure out other ways you maybe might be someone who's, you know, uh, looking into more niche work. Um, but in the foreseeable future, you know, accounting really, you know, this is what we were talking about, you know, pre-recording here about the opportunity for accounting to ultimately, um, have that better story to tell rather than telling a better story, um, because that's not going to fix it. There's core things about being an accountant and being in, uh, being an accountant professional and running, uh, you know, your firms, um, that, uh, definitely need to, uh, evolve from how it's been over, you know, decades. And you see different examples of it. You're in there, but it hasn't, it's still very early days. You know, because there's a lot of questions of which direction are we going to go? And, um, yeah, I remember that with, uh, you know, with cloud, you know, sort of changing, you know, even software in general, just kind of changing how folks work, um, you know, cloud also helped a lot of firms, one of their biggest, uh, issues was paper spending on paper, sending out organizers, big, those big frigging binders every year. So you had mail costs, you had paper costs, you would storage costs. I remember talking to firms before the, like the big paperless movement or the less paper movement as it really was. Yeah. That they're just paying monthly for these massive storage spaces to keep documents for, you know, X amount of years. And then it, it just, you know, it's like, all right. And then it was somebody's task to, to, you know, keep tabs on all of that. And it's like, well, what are you doing? Like, Hey, how long, you know, do you need to keep documents for be are so much frigging paper when it can just get stored digitally. And so that took time and then a collective conscious to go, you're right. You should be doing this, but it's a huge task. You don't just start. So a lot of that was considered like summer work or, or, you know, like, you know, more downtime work, getting all those documents that you really decided that you do need and would like to still have, but that changed the dynamic of how people were, you know, it, it caused people like little behavioral things like, Hey, look, we're just not taking any paper. Folks were still come who are still physically coming into your firm, coming into your office. You met an admin who took your forms, scan them in, gave them back to you. That was a behavioral thing, but it, it definitely fundamentally started changing how folks work. But then, you know, obviously you had to be a lot more security minded, which is why I was saying earlier about the it departments, it departments became, you know, moved from these people who would, you know, be in place, whether it's internal or external, there's a lot of firms that maybe just hired externally. They had an it, you know, group come in whenever they need an upgrade to their systems or, Oh, we need to check out our servers or all the servers need to get shut down for a little bit. We're going to, it moved from having to, you know, fix stuff or repair stuff or maintain to, you know, Hey, we don't even have servers here anymore. All of that is, is offsite or it's in the cloud or it's, you know, it's not anything that we, that we have. So what's your role? Well, um, since all this stuff is going elsewhere, you need to just, you know, keep an eye on the exchange of data back and forth, that's what you hire them for and that's what they do. Yeah. That was a massive change. And then, you know, and then just being able to, of course, work with a client, like not have to physically get a, a rolling suitcase or a bunch of stuff to carry the documents and carry the scanner and, you know, these client visits. When I first started coming to covering the profession, it wasn't all that long ago, it was about three decades ago, 2000 when I first jumped in and we can get to my background if you want. But, uh, the, the exciting part really was seeing that evolution of accounting professionals who worked in this way to a way that's like, we're actually in the same file together, or I see what you did in your QuickBooks, let me, you know, clean that up or whatever, whatever, you know, it was real time rather than waiting to exchange files or, or having to physically be on site and driving miles and miles and miles and staying in hotels and whatever, just to be, oh, I've got to, I've got to be with a client. Like you just turned into the like fricking Willie Loman. I I'm not, I've been dating myself with Willie Loman. You're a traveling salesman, like type person. They're like, no, you're, you're an accountant. Like you need to be, you're an accountant professional. And so that I think started, um, folks down this path of like, wow, we can actually do more and what's the value of what I do if it's not in these tasks. Yeah. And AI again is now re revisiting that discussion. And I love that. It's part of the discussion of really changing, you know, the use of technology and, and really just, um, you know, really showcasing, you know, the value of what you can do, uh, as an account professional is, is what's it's what's at stake here. Yeah. I definitely hope that kind of people more maybe of my generation and younger can, can kind of get comfort in like these previous cycles where, yeah, it was sort of like, oh my God, is this the end of time? Is everything going to change fundamentally? And it's like, no, like it just evolved. And like, it probably did evolve kind of for the better where it's like, okay, you can actually, you know, you can leverage the unique value that you're able to provide more and spend less time just doing stuff that has to get done. Right. So hopefully that's kind of where we land on all of that. Um, but there's definitely been, yeah, it seems like a lot of development, a lot of interest kind of in the accounting space, um, over the last number of years, or maybe I've just gotten my head out of the sand now that I'm, you know, in a role where I'm involved in kind of some media in this space as well. Um, one evolution that I'm kind of curious about for someone who's been at this for a lot longer than me also is the kind of evolution of vendors, recognizing accountants as like a very viable sales channel into businesses. Like it seems like, to me anyways, it seems like almost all at once, a lot of these, you know, businesses, maybe Mercury, a lot of like expense management, software providers, credit card providers, things like that realize like, oh, wow, accountants are really good. In that and the like. Yeah. Mercury is a bank, you know, and there's other banks, there's all small business banks that also realize their role in the ecosystem. And I do like that. So the C I will, you know, my caveat is seeing the accounting, uh, accountants as this, some, what about a channel? Not new, but folks who are starting to see them that way is, and you mentioned some folks in like the FinTech space, um, HR, payroll, things like that. Um, you know, the expanding of payroll companies into involving more of their services. You realize accounting professionals are right in there. So whether you need to, and this, you know, also plays into the, a lot of the work that I do knowing this fact, knowing that there's all kinds of companies that could potentially see the value of accountants to sell to or through, um, for their clients is, um, is, is still very much in play. And where I see the challenge is in how they go about it. That's kind of where I jump in. It's the, how you go about it. How do you go about talking to accountants, getting them on your side, getting that true partnership that needs to happen again, whether you're selling to them or through them, they're part of the puzzle for you. If you value your relationship, if you value any relationship with accountants, you will not necessarily treat them as like a means to an end, um, they're your partner and they take that trust very seriously because once it's broken, man, good luck to you getting that back. I've seen it time and time and time again. And a lot of one clear way that I see app, if you will, to establishing that trust is through content. Give them something of value, something that they need show that you're not just trying to sell to them, actually show that you're on their side. You get what some of their struggles are. You get what some of their issues are or their client issues are. And, and you give them something, maybe it's downloadable white paper, maybe, maybe a series of podcasts that kind of talk through an issue or you have other experts on whatever it is you're warming. And guess what? They're going to ask for that demo on their own. Not because you had a link in your webinar or something like that to do it, or you followed up like a couple of days after they attended one. It's because they're genuinely interested in what you, in what you have. But, you know, they have to balance that out between their own pressures of like, we need volume. We need a certain amount of folks. We got clothes in a certain amount of time and content marketing is a longer play. And it's something that can yield shorter term results, but also needs to be built on. And once you get that trust, again, you have to work to maintain it. Accountants will trust you relatively quickly if you have something they need or if they feel like they can help. But, you know, you got to work to maintain it because it can be broken just as easily. And so I'm trying to work to, you know, to make those connections, help build out content plans for companies who do have an interest in building relationships with the accounting space. And I advocate for it, you know, full stop. With some of my speaking and. Yeah, I've found it very much like deep relationships based. I haven't necessarily been in a ton of other like selling roles per se. I mean, when I was 18, I had a job selling credit cards, but that's different. Like where I'm at now. Not really. I just, I think I've had every single job imaginable. I think I've had probably 30 plus. But yeah, no, I, you know, as someone who's trying to kind of work with accounting firms, I've really realized that a lot of the times where I have actually successfully, you know, onboarded a firm, it's after. You know, yeah. Giving a lot and then meeting with them at, you know, some conference or interacting for a very, very long time. It really does seem like a very much kind of relationships based thing, whereas like, not like a DTC type of sale motion where, you know, someone sees an ad and they click it and they buy it right away. It's really, yeah. There's a lot of trust to be established. There's a lot of relationship building and like, you know, building that understanding of like, Hey, like I, I want what's best for you. And I think that I have built that, like, help me understand if that's the case. And hopefully we can kind of help each other out on this. So no, I think what you provide companies when you work with them, getting them ingrained in kind of the right area, the right ecosystem. I just want to set them up for, for success and, you know, where I've seen a lot of failure and, and, you know, and things fall apart when you don't dedicate budget or time to, to doing the sort of regular, you know, content forward, um, things. And it's just, like I said, it's just how you, how you establish that, that regular communication. And I, and I know several companies that do it, um, exceptionally well, um, because it's a priority for them and they know that the product will ultimately sell itself. Continue to make improvements on it. Continue to get feedback. Um, you definitely need that accountant connection. If you have anything that's again, that's going to be for their clients or anything that the accountant is going to touch or recommend in any way they have to have an understanding, like with the banks coming in, you know, um, you know, mercury and the like, um, you know, they're part of that ecosystem. It makes sense that you understand, like when someone has small business, you know, lending needs, um, that the accountant also have an understanding of where they fit into it, even if it's just to have a conversation. Um, you know, I know that there's, you know, for CPAs in particular, there's, you know, there's, there's kind of rules of like what, you know, you can do vis-a-vis, you know, with, with any, any particular bank, but just having that knowledge set, there's nothing that, that says you can't, um, have an understanding of how, you know, lending works at a, at a number of levels. Um, another area I think set to blow up that it hasn't typically been, you know, core accounting or even, even advanced accounting, um, is wealth management. Wealth management, I think is, is an area where you just kind of look, you just kind of look at the tea leaves here and you just look, it's like, well, what, what does an accountant do and how can they increase the value of what they do beyond just being a doer of tasks? Yeah. Um, you know, opportunities and all advisory really is if we really want to get down to the big a in the room, all it is, is just saying, create opportunities to have, um, conversations with purpose, with intent, with your clients and charge for those and charge for the work that's ultimately that they're going to agree to do with you. Wealth management is something that if you were in a businesses or an individual's, um, finances in any way, whether, whether you're a tax professional, bookkeeper, somewhere in the middle, you know, both doing both doing some tasks and some books. Great. You understand how you can set up someone or help someone set up someone's financial future. And maybe you don't, you don't, you don't have to be a licensed financial professional. You need relationships of your own, maybe in the financial planning or, or rather wealth management space. Right. Because just like with, I mentioned payroll earlier, there's plenty of payroll and HR companies that do this full time. They understand state by state compliance and they, they can do all of the work. Make sure checks get caught. All, everything in between set up for benefits, um, help review, you know, healthcare plan, all of those things. Um, you can go to like a paychecks and ADP adjust works and gusto on pay on down the line. The accountant is the reviewer where they're the keeper of those relationships. They just kind of follow things along. They'll kind of make sure everything is, is in, is in order. You have a role in that, but you're not actually doing the payroll. Are you, so you're not actually doing wealth management. You are just the, you're the advisor. You're the keeper of that relationship. And so the return on that relationship, um, needs to be, you know, at the forefront, the relationship with your clients and, you know, they'll realize that, you know, what they're paying you for are things that maybe, maybe they never thought that they would be paying you for, um, things that are going to surprise into light, you know, like taking care of their financial future. Maybe you do, maybe you do work with a financial planning firm or wealth management on the outside because they have those relationships, but it can still funnel through you just like it does with payroll, HR, uh, and, and any number of, of, of other things that, um, are outside of the traditional, uh, well, pretty soon that, you know, that, that word is just going to be, you know, it's just going to be like, well, remember when, when accountants just did this, I want to see that. I want to see that day. Yeah. Yeah. And I've, I've been really interested in, yeah, the kind of add on of wealth advisory, whatever that might look like. Um, I've spoken to some firm owners who they actually provide the wealth advisory type services themselves through kind of a separate entity. And, and, you know, again, they're able to. Bigger firms, they've made acquisitions to the, to that effect as well. Well, by and large, you know, the profession is full of these, you know, mostly predominantly sub 20 staff. Yeah. So I'll be even 12 staff, uh, outfits and, you know, they're not, uh, excluded in any way, um, from, uh, you know, exploring these avenues. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then there's other models too. Right. So I had Rory on not too long ago too. He talks about like, yeah, having like the tack on type referral system where it flows through you. And I've got a four and I've got a, a four word, uh, in, uh, oh, in the book and in his book, or I wrote the, just kind of like preface to it, you know? And, you know, just, it was kind of more like how the time is right for, you know, CPAs in particular to, you know, really start, you know, considering what's possible in this realm. And then his new book, you know, the holistic God wealth management, um, you know, it gives it end to end, there's tons of authors, uh, and including Rory himself, of course, um, that give their perspectives on what they can do. Some of, some of the, uh, some of the authors are, are the providers themselves, others are other, other accountants in the space and people will kind of have a stake, uh, such myself and seeing the profession move forward, just why I named, uh, my, my business, uh, as I did, cause I do want to see accountants move forward, uh, in the best way and, you know, there's no one, you know, forward might seem like one direction, but you know, you can move forward in a lot of ways. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. So when we're talking about books that kind of prompted me to, uh, want to bring up something else I was thinking about is that, um, the importance of writing in the accounting profession. So you are yourself, I would say an exceptional writer. I was reading a lot of what you've put out ahead of this. And you communicate just in a way that's like concise, but you set the scene well. And it's just, it's just very enjoyable to read. Like it just feels very familiar while still being kind of professional and stuff. Um, I'm curious to know, like, I mean, you obviously had a lifetime in kind of the editing publishing world, but, um, I'm, I'm curious to know if there are kind of like some key resources. You can say it. It's fine. No, no, no. Um, a lifetime of undetermined length. Um, but, uh, I'm curious to, to know if there are any kind of like resources that you would point to and like what you think the value is of like a CPA who can become a very, very good writer themselves. I mean, look, um, I know some folks, you know, are, are taking the easy way out. Um, and looking at AI to be like, oh, I'll just put some ideas in there and it'll. It'll write for me. And that's, you know, that's a choice. Um, but if you really want to, you know, it's like, that's, that's like the cliff note version, you know, back when I was going to school, we had these things called cliff notes and cliff notes where, you know, this is like, all right, well, I really, I know I'm asked to read this book, but man, I just don't want to, and I know that I'm going to have tests on this. I got to write a paper on it. Let me just get the cliff notes and it'll, it'll just kind of summarize it for me, which means somebody actually read the book and is deciphering it for you. I think much like reading, you know, exercise is a certain part of your brain. Uh, writing does too. And, and you come into grips with your, your thoughts and forming them into, you know, written form. I think there's something to that. Again, I might be biased because, you know, I came up, um, you know, 30 plus years ago into journalism. I didn't know what I wanted to do. Um, when I was going through school, but you know, I had a couple of moments that said, you should be a writer, you should be a journalist. And it was just something I became very passionate about. And I heard, uh, I, I held, uh, some pretty crap jobs. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Um, but you learn from, from all those experience, what makes a good piece of writing. And I've always been in, in business journalism. I don't know. It wasn't a, an active choice. I think it was where I started and I just continued, you know, hacking through those woods. And I've kind of written about, you know, a variety of things from metals and mining to venture capital and private equity marketing, uh, technology, of course. Uh, and then, you know, and then, uh, I guess accounting, um, was just another, you know, job that, that, that I had, but I just found that I wanted to stay with it because I, I gained an understanding of this profession and like any trade journalist or editor, you get a deeper understanding of a profession by writing about it and, and going to events and talking to sources and cultivating those sources and going to dinners, lunches, coffees, and just talking to people, listening to the folks who were doing the work and then the folks who've been around it for a while and absorbing all of that and being able to condense your ideas and findings into, you know, into written form. Um, I learned about the true role of the accounting professional is really keeping not only our economy flowing, the basic tenants of our economy isn't what happens on wall street or behind, you know, or, or in Washington. It's, it's the businesses that are someone's dreams and hopes for their own future, and I'm sure you've heard this before, but behind every, any successful business is an account and that really hit me and it took some time. And so I stayed with it because I knew I had a role as a journalist and now as more of a, you know, uh, you know, kind of a quasi, I guess, marketing consultant with deep knowledge of the accounting space and I guess advocate for accounting and for accountants using that knowledge and, you know, so writing again, you know, getting back to your point, sorry, I told you I was going to go off, uh, good coming back to it. So if you have something to share, um, your expertise, your knowledge, because you, you are a professional, um, who learns much as I did from you all learning from your clients, learning from colleagues, you have thoughts and passions to, to get out there. Um, I would say, you know, just start clacking away, you know, you know, maybe have AI or someone, you know, as, as an editor for it, but the act, the physical act of writing, getting your thoughts on, you know, paper or, you know, whatever it is on, you know, Google docs, word, whatever it is. Um, there's, there's really something to that, that, that is, um, even if you delete it and throw it out, whatever, you know, there's, there's something to that. So, you know, people want to hear from you and learn from you and, you know, it's great to get out to conferences and get out to all the social, you know, things that you can do, um, throughout the year, but the writing part too, I think keeps a connection. So, and I agree a lot with the explanation. Yeah, no, I like, I like it though. And I agree a lot about what you said about like how it's, it's important for your own kind of thought process, your own thinking. So like most recently I, I, you know, I had to do a solo pod, I had, I had COVID. And so I ran, ran dry on guests and all that. So, and I was trying to kind of come up with my sort of position and opinion on the overall like private equity and accounting space. And I had never been able to fully kind of articulate like my full thought process on it, how I actually like really felt about kind of the pros and the cons and all of that until I had kind of written it out to organize my ideas. And I find that there's like a very clear distinction where I've had a lot of discussions about this kind of topic. And I find a very clear distinction of, of the quality of those discussions that happened prior and prior to COVID. prior and after having written all of that down to kind of come up with my like overall thought about it and that was just internally and, and yeah, sure. I'm kind of, you know, purposing that for material, but even if I hadn't, I think that this is, again, this is a discussion that happens a lot and any conference you go at any, you know, wherever, and I think that I come across far better in those conversations now that I have gone through the process of writing it. And I think it's, it's a weird thing where people in the accounting space it's a weird thing where people in the accounting profession, they're like, no, like, you know, Excel is my canvas. Ha ha ha. Like, I don't need to be a good communicator, but it's, I think that it does actually really have a very important place. And, um, yeah, it was just something that struck me that you were a very good writer in the space and I was like, I think more people need to write. Um, yeah, it's just, it's like any muscle that you flex, any skill, you have to continue to do it. And I always hope to, uh, improve, you know, I do, you know, I do have, um, you know, AI agents, you know, helping me out too, but just, you know, little guides like Grammarly or, or Fulba, um, are, I think are really good at, you know, it's still you, you're still, you know, doing your, your writing, but it'll point out things that you might miss sentence structure, paragraph structure, different words you can potentially use, um, that, you know, I remember when I first started writing, I always had, um, I had a dictionary, physical dictionary on my desk and I had, um, my, uh, AP, uh, guy, and that was something that even back in college that, you know, professors writing professors were like, you're going to write for the media is what you need. And, you know, for some, you know, who maybe were kind of in, uh, you know, marketing is maybe, you know, Chicago manual style or the AMA other style books, but basically you had your AP, um, and you had your, you know, your dictionary or source, you're on your way. That was another big, that was another thing. So I had those, I'm sorry. I had those three books always, uh, on, uh, on my desk. Uh, and now you don't really need that, you know, with, with these AI agents, I think you can just with confidence, you don't have to necessarily look too many things up. Um, it'll help you. Um, if you're just not confident with how to say something to say it, write it out, how it is in your head. And then, you know, maybe one of these agents can kind of help you. But, um, that's about as far as I personally go. Um, you know, but I know plenty of people were like, Oh, I had AI write this for me, you know, and they go about it the other way and they may, well, maybe you'll go in and kind of massage it and give it your own tone a little bit. But it's hard to do. Um, when, you know, something's just kind of, you know, put together your thoughts. Mm. Yeah, no, I, I, uh, I think that's a good process. It's a good like involvement of like maybe have it in the loop, but make sure it's not the thing, writing it. Cause then you miss out on a lot of probably the mental exercise of, of coming up with the writing yourself. Right. So, um, yeah, well, um, yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for joining me, uh, Seth, I really appreciate you taking the time. Any final thoughts or questions? I mean, this is stuff that I can, I know I can talk about all day long. Uh, in cases I do, uh, people, you know, call me up, schedule a meeting with me. You know, I, I'm only as good as the knowledge that I have. I've been saying that my whole career. Yeah. And that's kind of the mantra I think of the journalist is that particularly in trades is that, you know, you're, you're only as good as the knowledge that you have. And I think when it, when applied to accountants is that, man, sky's the limit because you are immensely knowledgeable about the businesses that you serve. Um, even some of the, you know, the increasingly the technology you use to do it, um, and, and just everything in between. And this ultimately is what I think people, you know, could and should be paying you for. Sure. If you're heavily into tax, I get it. Your work hasn't gotten any easier and you should a flat out just be paid more to do that. You're even your basic work. I get that. But for continued value, not that, not that what you're doing is invaluable by, you know, or from it. But, um, there, there's definitely just lots of opportunities. So I just wrote a whole article on this, that discussion of, you know, really, why is it that accountants have, you know, at least over the last decade or so really increasingly I've been asked to be more. Yeah. What does that mean? More like what, you know, what is, what is that? But I think if you kind of search, you know, you can see within yourself, like, am I happy being in the role that I am, am I satisfied with how I go about my day, my week, uh, my year? If any of those answers is no, then that's what you need to be thinking about going about how you do things. Um, and you know, what sort of the end, you know, the end, uh, you know, result is how can you be happier? Maybe it's your time, maybe it's pay, maybe it's technology, maybe it's technology, maybe it's just the, the kind of work that you're doing. Yeah. You know, all of these things, there's just spells to me opportunity. Um, you know, and it doesn't have to be, you know, these, these big massive changes, but. You know, it, it all gets, just gets down to, you know, are you doing what you want to do? You don't work in a factory. You're not, you know, required to punch a card and, you know, turn out a certain amount of, of, of things in a day or, or you're not running a store where, you know, like you're, you're only as good as, you know, the week that you, you had, like, oh, we sold X amount of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of free will in how you do things, what you do. How you do things is so in your control as an accountant that you just need to take it in your own way. And that's, yeah, that's kind of my, my, my final thoughts here. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. Thank you. And I, you know, I'm glad we got out this final thoughts because I think that's a, that's a great sentiment for people who, you know, some people are a little bit down and out about the way they feel about the profession and their role in it and all that. And it's like, yeah, like there's, there's things you can try. There's ways that this can be good. And I, I, you know, I do think it's a great profession. Like I'm a CPA, I have no regrets about it. I'm, I'm, you know, I'm not really practicing as a CPA right now per se, but where I'm at, the doors would not have been opened had I not gone through that level of educational training and, and just, you know, job training, um, to, to do that and to maintain, you know, that license. Um, it's, you know, it's the, it's, you know, it's extra. You didn't have to, you can still be considered an accountant without those three letters. Um, but, um, but you did and, and, you know, now it's, it's, you know, time to really maybe re-imagine that, that the value of that or re-communicate it in, in some way. So it doesn't get lost. Yeah. Awesome. Well, yeah. Thanks. Thanks a ton, Seth. Thanks again for joining. I'm always, uh, always happy to get the opportunity to catch up with you. Um, so yeah, thanks for coming on.