Tech Tune Up
Jasen Stine: Welcome to Account
Trends everybody. I'm Jason
Stein, with Intuit Accountants.
My co-host, David Bergstein, and
I are excited to be with you
every couple of weeks to share
the latest news, interesting
perspectives and hottest trends
in the tax accounting world.
We'll have special guests on the
show to help break these trends
down and give you food for
thought as you find new ways to
deliver for your clients And,
most importantly, we plan on
having some fun while doing it.
Welcome, All right. Welcome back
to another episode of Account
Trends everybody. Jason Stein,
your host with my partner in
crime, Mr David Bergstein. How
are you today, sir?
David Bergstein: I'm doing great
today More pickleball each and
every day as the warm weather
gets warmer here in Florida, i
keep getting a little bit better
at dinking responsibly with
people. What does that mean? It
means I stand outside what's
called the kitchen and I drop
shot right over the net instead
of slamming. We talk about the
future of accounting. The future
of pickleball is less odd shots
and more dinking. All right,
remember to dink.
Jasen Stine: Your lesson in
pickleball folks. From David
Bergstein, cpa. So, david, we
were talking last time with
Roman about the microwave
technology. Tell me more about
your Wi-Fi microwave. I hadn't
heard of one of those yet.
David Bergstein: Well, i picked
up some new appliances recently.
It was not only the microwave,
which I still haven't figured
out how to turn the Wi-Fi on.
just to hold it down and it will
automatically connect to my
network. I haven't seen that,
but I guess it's almost time for
me to read the instructions,
which I don't do. The other
appliance I got and you
mentioned that with Roman before
is the refrigerator. That too
is connected to the Wi-Fi, but
if I want to see what's in the
refrigerator, all I can do is
knock twice on the door and the
light goes on, and I can see
what's inside the refrigerator
without opening the door.
Jasen Stine: That's crazy.
That's crazy. Well, I want a
perfect lead into our topic.
today. We've invited Roman back
to chat with us.
David Bergstein: A second time.
Roman Kepczyk: Second.
Jasen Stine: Roman. Okay, same
great person, different topic
We're going to actually dive
more into, because last time we
talked about security and how
technology plays a role, or how
security plays a role in
technology, but it kind of
teased me a little bit. I want
to talk more about technology,
because Roman's an expert in
this space too. So, roman,
welcome back to the show. We're
glad you could spend some more
time with us.
Roman Kepczyk: Well, thank you
Jason and David. I'm glad I made
it past one in a row.
Jasen Stine: So, roman, let's
just dive right in. What are the
biggest trends that you're
seeing in technology?
Roman Kepczyk: Well, i think I
mentioned to David a while back
that I went to the. I go to the
Consumer Electronics Show every
year and I cover that for the
magazines And probably one of
the biggest trends is AI being
built into everything. Now,
artificial intelligence,
augmented intelligence, you know
, depending on your basically
your definition can be a pretty
wide range, but we see it being
built in everything from
toothbrushes to lawnmowers, to
baby strollers, to cars, even to
bath toilets. Today There's
artificial intelligence being
built into everything to kind of
help you, more so as a virtual
assistant, as opposed to
actually becoming like the
iRobot thing that we all think
about with general AI.
David Bergstein: I think what
you're saying is kind of
interesting that everything
relates to AI and I bet you the
model's going to change for car
dealers and everybody else,
where they're going to charge
you a monthly fee or an annual
fee to update this software that
controls whatever device you
have. What do you think about
that?
Roman Kepczyk: Oh, absolutely
Everything is like you know,
it's a service model out there,
and so it's the new thing we're
looking for, and so as security
becomes or these breaches become
more sophisticated, the
software developers who run
these products whether it's the
toothbrush or the car or your
refrigerator has to be updated
to protect against that as well
as to add new functionality to
the device out there. So we see
it to be the continued trend
that AI is going to be in
everything. So we're even seeing
it inside of the accounting
firms that we're seeing tools to
help, like you know, into. it
has tools that make QuickBooks
easier to use, to help reconcile
accounts, to import data, to
create financial reports. you
know that things that we should
be aware of. So you're going to
see very specialized AI being
put into virtually every
application as well as every
hardware device.
David Bergstein: Let me hit you
with a hard question. I've been
constantly reading since
November about this thing called
ChatGBT, and today I just read
an article that Microsoft's
going to put AI and ChatGBT into
everything. What does that mean
?
Roman Kepczyk: Well, remember
the little paper clip that we
used to see, like 10 years ago
in Windows 7 or something like
that, or 15 years ago. What it
does is it provides you
recommendations and advice in
real time. So ChatGBT is a
software product. It's an
application that came out of a
company called OpenAI, and
Microsoft is a significant
investor in this OpenAI And what
it does is it's kind of like a
Google search on steroids, but
it uses what's called a natural
language interface. So, david,
as I'm talking to you or to
Jason, i ask a question, it will
come back and respond based on
the information that it has been
trained on. Okay, so, with
ChatGBT, the 3.5 version that
was released in November of 2022
, got a million subscribers the
very first week It was trained
prior to 2022. So the
information that was in there
basically is the history at that
point and the answers. Now it's
not always correct, because
people can post malicious
information, but what it does is
, if I ask you a question, it
responds back in a very
English-like, like you think
you're talking to a human And so
you think about the chat bots,
like when you're chatting with
someone for customer service. I
think this is where a lot of
companies are seeing use for it,
where, if there's common
situations inside the accounting
firm or common questions on
support, for instance, on how to
use QuickBooks, those things
this ChatGBT program can be
trained to respond to it like a
human, and they just released
the new version 4.0 in on March
15th of 2023. And basically that
version actually adds a video
to it, so if you show it
pictures, it can actually
recognize that as part of the
chat discussion.
Jasen Stine: That is crazy.
Appreciate it.
Roman Kepczyk: It's unbelievable
.
David Bergstein: Appreciate it.
I've been playing with it And,
like you said, it's a lot of
good things as a personal
assistant, but it still has
wrong answers, depending on how
you answer your question. But I
loved it, for I said write a
letter to my client on the
business conditions in Honduras,
and it did, and it did. And
then I said make it snappy,
change the tenure of the letter,
and it did. Then I said put it
in Spanish, and it did. So I
think it's kind of great. But
then I asked some questions
about people and it got it wrong
. Yeah, yeah.
Roman Kepczyk: Well, it actually
had me graduating from a
different college. You know. I
said you know write a biography
of Roman Kepchuk over the last
five years, and it wrote a
biography based on the
information of the internet, but
it got the wrong university. It
was out there. The key here is
is learning to use the tool gets
us comfortable with doing a
natural language interface with
something, and I think what'll
happen is is the next iterations
we'll be able to train it with
specific data that applies to us
, so customer service will be
able to actually listen today,
you know, to previous calls or
recorded calls and all that
learn what the right answer is
and actually provide those
solutions out there.
Jasen Stine: Yeah, and that
makes me think of because when
chatGPT came out, i think the
Bing came right on its heels,
right, and the Bing's been
around right As a search tool.
But the AI component got
released, i think probably from
competitive pressure, right. And
I remember stories where people
were, you know, giving it a
command and it would come back
and present wrong information
And then they would say, well,
no, that's not accurate, it's
actually this, and the bot would
argue back with them. And that
was because, well, how are we
going to train these things that
the bots arguing with us?
Roman Kepczyk: Yeah, and that's.
It needs moderators out there
to do that. And so, jason, as
you start out, the first
question Microsoft will be
integrating the things that they
know are correct responses to
things or correct
recommendations, and I think the
first place we'll see it in,
like the Office 365, will be,
for instance, in Word or Excel.
Like in Word, you'll say, like
just what David said, make this
sound a little bit snappier or
make it sound like it was
written by a person from England
, that kind of thing. So you
know it would spell color with
OUR or something like that, and
so it'll actually learn personas
. But it'll also help us correct
things. For instance, you know,
it's like Grammarly on steroids
, where that's saying you know
your speaking, your words are a
little bit. You know too, you
know too high level, you know it
looks like it's a college level
. So you can say with chat CBT,
write this at a fifth grade
level so everyone understands it
, and it'll take your words and
basically formulate them in such
a way that a fifth grader could
understand it.
Jasen Stine: Or maybe the other
way around. I can tell it. Hey,
explain to me, like I'm a moron,
how quantum physics works.
Right, yeah, and help us learn.
Roman Kepczyk: Yeah, and a lot
of people look at it as being
more of like a virtual assistant
kind of thing. When you talk
about this artificial. It'll
helps us do better at our work
And it'll happen in our
Microsoft office applications.
It'll happen in our accounting
applications. As we build these,
i'll say, as tech stacks that
connect all the data out there.
It'll help us analyze our
payroll spending, analyze our
receivables, those kinds of
things. You've just got to learn
to ask the question, to do that
and make sure that the data is
protected and secure. Inside of
that, you know, infrastructure.
Jasen Stine: Right, right. And
if you're not sure about that,
folks go back and listen to our
last episode with Roman, where
we talk more about preventing
bad actors on your network. So,
roman, i mean, this kind of
naturally lends itself to the
cloud question. Right, we've
been having it, you know,
pounded at us. Cloud is the
future, the cloud is the future.
Is this why?
Roman Kepczyk: Well, it's just
one of the many reasons. It's
actually one of. The results is
what I believe. If you look over
the last two decades the
horsepower in the cloud has
increased, the ability to build
infrastructure has become
cheaper, internet access is
better. It's created a global
environment where people can
come out and create applications
that is available to all of us
in the cloud. It allows for our
clients to connect remotely,
which works better than the
cloud because the data is real
time in both. The accountant and
the client can talk back and
forth in real time, versus what,
honestly, i used to do is put
it on a flash drive and send it
to my CPA. When we got advanced,
we'd actually connect into
their system, but they had to be
there and doing that. Well, the
cloud is the great democratizer
. It allows the best technology
at an enterprise level to be
available from a sole
practitioner to a small firm, to
anybody that's. A rural area
with an internet connection has
access to the same resources,
technology and capabilities that
the big players have that are
out there.
David Bergstein: I mean Dejeck.
Do you think there'll be a time
when there will be no apps
installed on anybody's tools,
whether it be a desktop or a PC
or a phone, that everything will
be homogenized in the cloud?
Roman Kepczyk: Yeah, i think
it'll be in the cloud. It'll be
in multiple clouds because, like
, for instance, the way we are
right now, we have our research
in one place, we have our
accounting product in another.
Microsoft runs our office
applications, but when we
connect through the device,
whether it looks like a laptop,
it'll look something like a
laptop or our smartphone, but
it'll prove the security that
it's Roman or it's Jason or
David connecting, and then it'll
streamline the access to all
these different locations where
the data is. But from your
viewpoint, it looks like
homogenously, it's all available
through the screen and the
keyboard. That's right there. I
think it's the only way,
longterm, that we can secure all
the data, the devices and those
kinds of things. And so the
cloud, like I said, it lets
everyone have access to all the
resources, and today we think it
needs to be enterprise class
resources, because it needs to
be fast enough to be able to
pull this data, interpret it,
use the AI tools in real time,
and you're not going to see that
on a five year old laptop.
Jasen Stine: Right Now, that's,
yeah, that's, i think, spot on.
And I tell people all the time,
like, the reason why you want to
be in the cloud is one, in many
ways it's more secure, and in
two, it's the place where we can
, where companies can and are
innovating most effectively And
that's within their own platform
that also cross collaboratively
, because you can connect things
together much more easily and
much more securely in a cloud
environment, and so-.
Roman Kepczyk: And you can
update them in real time, so
that when people connect to the
firm's data resources they're
getting the most current
application and the most
conversion. They're going to the
same place, as opposed to back.
In the olden days we used to
make copies and put them on our
laptop, go in the field and work
, come back And then, like David
would be working on a different
section and I would sing
something and then David would
sing and overwrite my stuff In
the cloud. Everyone's working
concurrently on the most real
time data that is there, so it's
just a better environment. And
again, the economics have made
it such that for anybody who's
managing their own network today
, they have to plan like five
years out with a BIOS server,
they have to plan for mergers,
for growth, they have to plan
for IT resources to update and
maintain all that, versus in the
cloud. You're paying for a
workstation that has internet
connectivity and enough RAM to
load it, and today we're
actually recommending every
computer you buy today have at
least an i7 processor and 16 gig
of RAM. The reason being is we
still need an operating system
there and an antivirus, and
Windows is just getting bigger
and bigger and bigger out there,
and so we just want to make
sure that, since these laptops
or desktops are lasting five to
seven years, that you have
adequate performance and
capability to make sure it
continues working through the
life of that device.
David Bergstein: Yeah, So does a
Chromebook fit in with that
scenario. You don't have to
worry about installing anything
on it.
Roman Kepczyk: It depends on the
application you're using. I
will tell you that, true,
windows applications work fine
on a Chromebook, but a lot of
our accounting applications are
legacy applications that have a
Windows-like interface, and so
those Chromebooks are using
emulators to project on the
screen, and so what we find is
older accounting applications or
legacy applications tend to
work squirrely on a Chromebook,
which means when the IT person's
there, it's gonna be fine, but
when they walk out the door, all
of a sudden I can't open my
windows or I can't expand it or
scroll over to another thing,
and so I think for the next
couple of years, we're still
recommending buying PCs rather
than that, just because there's
times when accountants don't
have an internet connection if
they're working in the field or
client site, or it's a poor
connection I mentioned. I use my
mobile hotspot when I am on the
road all the time instead of
public Wi-Fi, and sometimes it
is darn darn slow.
David Bergstein: What size
monitors should people be buying
these days?
Roman Kepczyk: You know, the
best advice I have on this is
you need to have monitor space
that is capable of seeing all
the things you need to do to
finish projects. So today, for
people, for instance, who are
tax people, we recommend dual
oversized monitors, probably
2.28. Now there are big 49-inch
monitors that are curved and
widescreen that cost like $600.
But we find for that $600, you
get actually two 28 or 30-inch
monitors that are flat panel and
the bezel is very small so
between them you can't see. But
for that same $600, you probably
get 40% more screen real estate
. And the advantage of that is
you can have, for instance, if
you're a tax person, last year's
tax return here, this year's
scan, source documents, this
year's input. you can have your
collaboration software open here
So you can work with the people
who are doing that. If you keep
a time sheet you can keep
practice management.
David Bergstein: No time sheets.
Roman Kepczyk: I wonder some
people you know there's some
people that are we cannot
convince to throw away their
time sheet. That's true,
unfortunately, Yeah but they
could have, for instance, the
fixed asset schedule open down
there, their research. You know
all those things at once And
Which have to realize is when
everything's there you're very
quick at working because when
you pull a number off the fixed
asset schedule, it's eighteen
thousand three hundred twenty
one. When you put it right here,
instead of hot keying back and
forth, your eyes will always
double-check and verify and it's
much more quick, quicker.
Honestly. If you think about
spending six hundred dollars for
dual monitors, the ROI that's
probably measured in minutes,
not hours, based on what the
cost of you know the
professionals time is today.
Jasen Stine: Yeah, that's
standard issue for us. That add
into it We we all have two
monitors plus plus the laptop,
and so, yeah, i did almost any
line of work right. That's gonna
be beneficial, i completely
agree with you. What about
printers? one of those gonna
finally be unnecessary.
Roman Kepczyk: Well, i think
well in the kitchen will start
to see food printers that do
pizza and chocolate. But the
reality is is no one should have
a printer in their office
anymore, unless it's for their
kids school projects, which
those are going digital too. We
had, i mean, over the last five
years, we were getting away from
printers and doing
multifunction devices that had
scanners built in or Faxes,
because if, for instance, you're
an agriculture for some reason
my ag, the bike firms that do a
lot of ad clients They still use
faxes, and then with the IRS,
you still have to use faxes,
which is. But we found that the
need for printing today is
almost, almost pretty much
obsolete out there, and So, and
even some of our smartphones
today They have the ability to
have like scanning software
built in. Yeah, so you can take
pictures with documents. You
know Microsoft I think it's
called ink has it where it'll
actually do a scan, not like,
not like just a little check
that we used to do for our
banking, but it actually takes
pictures of Contracts of 1099s,
double twos. It'll correct the
keystone, so that way you send
that to your accountant. You
know, like I'm missing a take K1
or something like that. It
actually corrects it so that
it's scannable out there. So I
think it's more important to
educate your people On how to
use these other digital tools
instead of a printer right and
the scan tools are free.
Jasen Stine: I feel like my
camera comes with it. I can, i
can push a button on my regular
camera on my phone and it says
scan document. And it does it.
It Corrects that keystone.
Roman Kepczyk: It's hard to
describe if nobody, if you're
you know what keystone is never
straight on it, so right your
angle where it doesn't. It's a.
What do you call it? I wrote a
dendron or something. Actually
that's a flower, it's a
parallelogram of some kind.
Something been a?
Jasen Stine: number years in
geometry. Off-center and the
depth is different because
you're holding the phone, you
know, like maybe at an angle or
something. So having that
Capability just gives you a
cleaner scan, which, to your
point, especially in our
profession, you're, if you're
not using scan and import
technology at this point, yep,
what? what's going on? right,
because it's not, it's not your
daddy's Cadillac, it's not what
it was, you know, 10, 15 years
ago. It's. It evolved
dramatically and it's a
significant time saver that a
lot of firms are using to
automate compliance work and
Collaborating with clients is
right there with it, right. So I
love the tie in there. And,
yeah, i agree, i don't, i
haven't. I haven't had a printer
in my office since the pandemic
and I remember during the
pantomap people would send me
something like, hey, can you
print and sign this and scan it
back in. I'm like, can you just
what this? and, doc, you sign?
Roman Kepczyk: Yeah, cuz I'm not
, i'm not printing anything here
exactly, sign it with your
finger and be done with it. If
not, it tells you about the
technology of the person you're
working with it. Yeah, right way
behind the curves, like maybe
we have to find a new bank or
something. If they can't,
seriously, doc, you sign it.
Jasen Stine: Well, i think
that's a good place to finish
off the show, roman. Really
awesome Conversation about
technology from from AI and
software and firmware all the
way to hardware. So so thanks
again for for bringing your your
rich Knowledge on this subject
to our listeners.
Roman Kepczyk: No, my pleasure.
I guess it's always good to see
you, jason, and you, david you
as well.
Jasen Stine: Pleasure to have
you here, looking forward to
next time. Roman everybody,
thanks for listening, until next
time. Thanks for listening. If
you enjoyed this episode, please
follow us on Apple podcasts or
Spotify. If you want to learn
more about any of the topics
discussed on the show, visit
Intuit accountants. Comm forward
slash podcast Account Trends is
produced and edited by Luke
Johnston. Copyright Intuit 2023.
