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The Naked Accountant
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Artificial IntelligenceArtificial Intelligence

Everyone says AI will replace accountants. The economics says otherwise.

The idea that AI will replace accountants ignores some basic economics. The question we should be asking is: what happens to demand when the cost of accounting changes?

Alastair Barlow

Strategy & GrowthStrategy & Growth

Visionary or Integrator: the co-founder dynamic that built flinder, and what you can learn from it

Choosing a co-founder is one of the most important business decisions you’ll make. Here’s what I’ve learned about what makes a good team.

Alastair Barlow

Artificial IntelligenceArtificial Intelligence

GenAI in practice - How firms use AI, featuring Justine Marshall

Why wait for software vendors to ship the features we need? It took Justine Marshall just three weeks to design a client-facing app for her firm. GenAI made that possible.

Alastair Barlow

Artificial IntelligenceArtificial Intelligence

We could be serving agentic clients in five years. What does that mean for firms?

What value can firms and accountants offer when a client has more agents working for them than people? It sounds like a far-off reality, but it could happen sooner than we’d think.

Alastair Barlow

Strategy & GrowthStrategy & Growth

Why does your firm exist? Two frameworks that helped define purpose at flinder

‘Purpose’ can sound a little fluffy until you see the impact: higher retention, loyal clients, stronger continuity and resilience. Great firms are built on more than technical skill. Here’s my take on how to define your ‘why’.

Alastair Barlow

Strategy & GrowthStrategy & Growth

The importance of saying no, and when to say yes

Most firm owners and founders say ‘yes’ too often when they’re just starting out. I know I did at flinder. But over time, you learn it’s an incredibly expensive habit - and one you need to break.

Alastair Barlow

Artificial IntelligenceArtificial Intelligence

GenAI in practice - How firms use AI, featuring Rob Collings

AI can't do rules-based accounting work - but it can build automated workflows to boost efficiency and accuracy. Here’s how Rob Collings is creating and running an ‘AI-native finance team’ using GenAI.

Alastair Barlow

Artificial IntelligenceArtificial Intelligence

GenAI in practice - How firms use AI, featuring Dave Sellick

Dave Sellick’s building a client-facing data and insights app. Six months in, with no engineering background, he’s got his first clients trialling the MVP. Here’s how he’s done it.

Alastair Barlow

Artificial IntelligenceArtificial Intelligence

AI is probabilistic, but so are humans - and that’s a risk we’ve always been okay with

Measured risk isn’t reckless; in AI, it’s essential, and the firms who realise that are already striding ahead. They know that a little controlled risk will propel them forward and position them for future success.

Alastair Barlow

M&AM&A

From a £4m valuation to £3m in the bank: The hidden costs of selling a firm

A firm turning a £650,000 annual profit could be valued at £4 million. But how much of that valuation will you actually receive in your bank? Most owners only discover the hidden costs of selling a business once it’s too late to recover them.

Alastair Barlow

AdvisoryAdvisory

What successful consulting output looks like (using a real-world example)

Advisory output can feel daunting and open-ended. Here’s an example from flinder, simplifying it down from 120+ slides to three key principles.

Alastair Barlow

AdvisoryAdvisory

Your firm is pitching advisory work. But could you deliver it, really?

Storytelling, persuasion skills, workshop facilitation, and more - the gap between what advisory requires and what accountants are trained to do is bigger than most firm owners want to admit.

Alastair Barlow