Sep 28, 2026 · 1 hr 4 min · 11 segments
AI isn’t just changing how finance and accounting teams work. It’s beginning to change what companies expect from the executives leading them. In this episode of Functional Executives, Jim Boswell…
Are they going away? At times, I'm a parrot of this information, so I'm constantly listening to what private equity firms are doing with accounting in particular.
And let's say two and a half, three years ago, everything I heard from them was offshoring and outsourcing.
I'll say operational accounting, shared services functions, things like ARAP, fixed assets, payroll.
When I spoke to them more recently, what they were telling me was that they put some of these offshore entities on maybe, let's say, year to year or month to month arrangements with a little more optionality or flexibility.
So it'll be interesting to see what comes from specifically the repeatable functions.
On things that are a little more complex, like accounting policy, What I hear there a little bit is, you know, obviously in the past, you know, if you were a public company or a prominent business and you needed an interpretation, you might go to the national office of the big four, you know, some national firm.
but then maybe going and utilizing the big four from an accounting policy or an advisory standpoint a little bit less because they have so much help already from the interpretation via AI.
The last thing I'm seeing is I'm hearing from some of the public accounting firms what they presume will be the future state could look a little more like instead of a triangle, a diamond.
where you have smaller partnership groups, maybe a little bit larger senior manager teams, and then smaller staff, because you don't need this army of people that are doing basic substantive testing on an audit.
So it'll be interesting to come back, let's say, six months from now and see how much of this is developed from what I've mentioned this morning.
And so that's aspirational when I'm talking with private equity leaders and finance leaders.
But right now, are they putting their money where their mouth is? Are they following through on those aspirational goals by the searches and the requests that they're bringing to you?
I'm thinking about trends like typically if you're investor-backed, there's such an emphasis on IRR and getting a return for your investors.
So it's like they're exploring every avenue they can to drive EBITDA and do things as lean, as quick as
Are they going away? At times, I'm a parrot of this information, so I'm constantly listening to what private equity firms are doing with accounting in particular.
And let's say two and a half, three years ago, everything I heard from them was offshoring and outsourcing.
I'll say operational accounting, shared services functions, things like ARAP, fixed assets, payroll.
When I spoke to them more recently, what they were telling me was that they put some of these offshore entities on maybe, let's say, year to year or month to month arrangements with a little more optionality or flexibility.
So it'll be interesting to see what comes from specifically the repeatable functions.
On things that are a little more complex, like accounting policy, What I hear there a little bit is, you know, obviously in the past, you know, if you were a public company or a prominent business and you needed an interpretation, you might go to the national office of the big four, you know, some national firm.
but then maybe going and utilizing the big four from an accounting policy or an advisory standpoint a little bit less because they have so much help already from the interpretation via AI.
The last thing I'm seeing is I'm hearing from some of the public accounting firms what they presume will be the future state could look a little more like instead of a triangle, a diamond.
where you have smaller partnership groups, maybe a little bit larger senior manager teams, and then smaller staff, because you don't need this army of people that are doing basic substantive testing on an audit.
So it'll be interesting to come back, let's say, six months from now and see how much of this is developed from what I've mentioned this morning.
And so that's aspirational when I'm talking with private equity leaders and finance leaders.
But right now, are they putting their money where their mouth is? Are they following through on those aspirational goals by the searches and the requests that they're bringing to you?
I'm thinking about trends like typically if you're investor-backed, there's such an emphasis on IRR and getting a return for your investors.
So it's like they're exploring every avenue they can to drive EBITDA and do things as lean, as quick as
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