Industry · Accounting firms · TPB & ATO aware

AI that earns its place in your accounting firm.
Drafting, variance, research, document intake — fixed-scope and audit-ready.

Australian accounting firms can save real time with AI — variance analysis, client communications drafting, document intake, technical research, working paper summarisation. The work is real; the time savings are measurable. We help you deploy AI specifically for accounting workflows, with the audit trail and TPB-ready governance built in from day one.

Where AI is already working in accounting firms

Specific use cases. Specific time savings. Specific governance.

Not "AI transformation". Specific tools applied to specific accounting workflows — with the audit trail every TPB-registered firm needs to keep anyway.

01

Client communications drafting — hours back per week per partner

AI drafts the response; partner reviews and sends. Tone consistent, time saved on standard correspondence. Built with logged prompts and retention rules so you can show the TPB the audit trail if they ever ask.

02

Variance analysis and working paper summarisation

Copilot in Excel handles the narrative drafting on top of your existing spreadsheet work. Engagement teams report 20–40% time savings on standard analytical procedures. Purview labels enforce data handling end-to-end.

03

Document intake and classification

AI scans inbound client documents (bank statements, invoices, payslips), classifies by client + matter, drops into the correct folder structure. Reduces admin burden on senior staff by hours per week; standardises filing for audit-quality engagements.

04

Technical research with citation discipline

Claude for ATO interpretation, ASIC ruling research, professional standards lookups. Built with a mandatory verification step — partner sees the AI's source citations and can verify before relying on them. The discipline Handa & Mallick warned legal firms about, applied here too.

Where it also needs governing

The same tools, used without discipline, create the conversations no partner wants.

Real findings from real Sprints across Australian accounting firms. The same AI tools doing productive work in the section above are also doing this — in firms where nobody's built the discipline yet.

01

Senior associates pasting client P&L data into ChatGPT

For variance analysis, narrative drafting, or "make this sound more professional". Client-identifiable financial data going to consumer LLMs with training-data flags enabled. No record, no consent, no AUP.

02

Juniors drafting client emails via consumer AI

Often pasting the entire client thread for context. Tax position context, sensitive personal information, and family-trust structures flowing to OpenAI servers. Hard to audit afterwards; impossible to defend if the TPB asks.

03

Practice management platforms quietly adding AI features

Xero, MYOB, Karbon, FYI Docs and others are adding AI summarisation and drafting features. Often opt-out rather than opt-in. Your data may already be feeding vendor models without partner-level sign-off.

04

Working papers summarised by Copilot in Excel without controls

Defensible if Purview controls are configured and you can produce an audit log. Indefensible if neither of those is true — which is the case in most firms we audit before we engage.

Why we build it this way · regulator awareness

The obligations every Build is designed against.

Not generic "AI ethics" frameworks. The named, specific obligations that already apply to your TPB registration and your client engagements — and that every accounting AI Build we ship is designed to satisfy from day one.

TPB · Code of Conduct
Code items 4, 9, and 12 — honesty and integrity, competence, and confidentiality — apply to AI use without modification. If an AI tool produces an error and the practitioner relied on it, the TPB will treat the failure as a competence breach. If client data is entered into a tool whose data-handling terms haven't been reviewed, that's a confidentiality breach. No grace period for "we didn't know it was AI".
TPB · Record-keeping
Practitioners must retain records sufficient to explain advice and substantiate positions. If AI was used in producing advice, the prompt, the model version, the response, and the human review must all be recorded. Most firms aren't doing this.
ATO · Data handling
ATO portal data and tax file numbers carry strict handling obligations. Entering client TFNs, tax positions, or ATO correspondence into consumer LLMs is a clear breach of the ATO's data security requirements — regardless of what the LLM vendor's terms say about confidentiality.
Privacy Act · ADM transparency (10 Dec 2026)
New Privacy Act obligations commence 10 December 2026 requiring transparency on automated decision-making that significantly affects individuals. This includes AI-influenced advice, lending recommendations, and credit-related work. Civil penalties apply.
Professional bodies · CA ANZ & CPA
Both have issued AI guidance for members. While not binding in the same way as TPB obligations, they're cited in PI insurance questionnaires and in TPB investigations. Documented AUP and AI inventory now expected at firm level.
Cross-border note

Working with offshore clients or offshore parents?

Many of the firms we work with handle Australian clients but have offshore parent companies, subsidiaries, or outsourced bookkeeping arms. Data residency under the Privacy Act applies when client information moves to AI systems hosted outside Australia. Most consumer LLMs are US-hosted; some have AU regions, some don't. The Bundle covers data-residency mapping for every AI tool in use — including the ones your overseas team uses on AU client data.

How we work with accounting firms

Two ways to engage. Same engineering discipline.

AI & Automation, sold standalone. Managed IT & Security if you want the full operating standard underneath it. Same team behind both, same engineering discipline you apply to your own clients.

01 · AI & AUTOMATION

AI & Automation

AI deployment scoped to TPB obligations — Copilot in Word and Excel, Claude integration for variance and research, audit-trail-clean tooling for working papers and client comms. Governance framework calibrated to ATO digital-service-provider expectations.

From $3,000 discovery · Full engagement priced on request
See AI & Automation
02 · MANAGED IT & SECURITY

Managed IT & Security

Full IT & security envelope for accounting firms — helpdesk, Microsoft 365 management, Essential Eight ML1 baseline, backup, Quarterly Business Reviews. The infrastructure your TPB obligations sit on top of.

From $1,850/mo (10 users × $185) · Plus onboarding (scope-dependent)
See Managed IT
Related case study

A real Australian SMB audit. Three of the findings apply directly to accounting firms.

We audited a 35-staff Australian wholesale business in May 2026. The brief was cost optimisation; we delivered that and surfaced seven high-severity findings. Three of those findings — shared admin credentials, no MFA on legacy accounts, and unmonitored M365 audit logs — are the same issues we find in most accounting firms.

Read the full case study →

The 2-week first step

Find out what AI is already happening
in your accounting firm. Then decide what's next.

Two weeks. From $4,950 + GST. Discovery of every AI tool in your practice, a draft TPB-aligned AUP, and a board-ready summary you can put in front of your partners. No MSP relationship required.

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