If You Hate Numbers, That’s Exactly Why You Need Them

Welcome to Accountants LawPod, where accounting professionals and law firms converge, hosted by Linda Artesani, Sarah Prevost, and Stephen Libhart.

Hello everybody. Hi Sarah.

Hi, how are you?

I'm good. How are you today?

Doing well. I'm excited to like kick off this podcast today and chat with you about the topic, but also some, some fun headlines that we heard about.

Well, let's kick it off here. So today we're going to talk about if you hate numbers, that's exactly why you need them. So if you, now, if you just heard that, don't you run away. You stick with us because we're not here to scare you. We're here to make you feel better.

I love it.

So, you know, a lot of people hate numbers. I mean, you know, I hate going to the dentist, but the dentist likes the job they have. I mean, you know, we all have our things. So I'm sorry if my dentist is listening to this because I love her, but, but, you know, a lot of attorneys avoid their financial reports. They avoid looking at the numbers. They avoid billing on time, all the things that are related to numbers, and they get themselves in trouble, or they just get in this funk or sad time about their business when they create these messes. And, you know, there's safety in numbers. It's just keeping track of everything that you do.

When you say it like that, I'll follow you along. I'm kidding.

Okay, well, we're done. Anybody have anything for me?

But I think, um, it's so nice to just do the work sometimes. You hear some firm owners say that. I just want to get back to practicing. Like, I'm fine doing Totally understandable. Um, I believe that when you find nuances in your practice where you're sort of like, well, let me figure out how to make that better, that opens the door to helping the numbers substantiate where you're going to possibly drive this business.

Sure, sure.

But it's not like— I feel bad when people are like, okay, I'm a business owner and I'm supposed to have all this figured out.

I'm supposed to know everything, and because I don't, I'm going to hide behind this curtain and Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

And you—

and that's not fun.

It's not fun, but it's also not— that's not part of entrepreneurship, really.

Right? Right.

You're supposed to have a bit of curiosity. Right? And ask the questions, and not everything is important to you right in the moment. So you have to evolve with it. But I, I do think, with the new tools out there, AI, it's going to be harder for you to make sure All when you're asking it questions, is it actually relevant to your business?

Wait, wait, wait. You mean AI doesn't just fix it for me?

No, it's a people pleaser.

But I thought if I put something in there, it was like written in stone when I got an answer.

No, you have to know what numbers you're looking at, right? I mean, how many times have you looked at if you fed it Just non-detail, like the details of the numbers in some. It wants to make you happy, but no, you know you don't have a firm name in there. You could make up a firm name. You kind of regurgitate something, right? You throw it in there and say, "Hey, find the anomaly in this," and then there you have it.

It's like, okay, and here's the here's my answer. And if you want more, I'd be happy to do this for you and that for you. And you're like, well, no, I don't want to go down a rabbit hole.

You know, I'm not saying it's not good. I'm saying it doesn't have the ability. So if you don't really understand your numbers and you take what it provides you just right on the cuff, it doesn't have the ability.

Correct.

Sure. It's not going to be like, oh, I made this mistake. I, you know, I was working in a rather large spreadsheet. And I pointed out to it, I said, well, I find this number, this number, and this number not being aligned, and I don't understand how you've matched these up. And it came back and said, you're absolutely right. It like totally skewed the numbers. It had, you know, 2 rows and, and 2 different columns and stuff that had no business going together and balancing back to itself. So all I'm saying is there are— you can produce some really good stuff. I talked with my friend who's a CPA, and she does a lot of CFO work, and she was able to build some pretty cool spreadsheets. But she's also like, I constantly have to make sure it's like a student or, you know, an employee, you just have to make sure that everything balances, the formulas are right, and things actually tie out.

I like the AI for that. I use it for spreadsheets a lot as well. I just, I'll throw them in there and say, look at this, tell me what you see. And it usually finds something. And then I double check it for its answers.

Yeah.

You know, but it does help.

But you, if you're going to lead with that data, how, how honest is that data to what you're doing?

Right.

And how do you know how to prompt and ask the right questions?

Correct. Prompting is, is key.

Yeah. And also, when you're looking at financial metrics and you're trying to— one thing is, you know, a client is saying, hey, I want to be able to go back and look at Based on practice area or based on type of work, I want to be able to figure out, you know, how much revenue am I making based on billable hours, what's in WIP, and so forth. Well, the data previously doesn't retain all of that. You didn't put it in correctly. So how is it that you want the output to give you?

Well, AI, just like we've heard through all our years of doing this, is it's the same as human beings— garbage in, garbage out.

Yeah.

If that's how you do it.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, if that's how you use it.

Yeah. But also, if you want to partner up with an accounting professional that can help you use it for those insights and be that driver, don't you think that would make it a better spot for you, Steve? Like, you would be able to say, okay, let me hear what you're looking for. I understand you fed this. Let me take your data that you've already agreed to, to have AI look at and see how I can prompt it and have it come out with things.

Right.

And the metrics from your institutional knowledge of having done this for so long, what would you see that you would want it to mark up and validate and be able to present that versus the wrong one?

Right.

And if you're, if you're working with different AI platforms, ask the same question and The various platforms and see what the answers are. That's always fun. But I like it for— in this scenario, let's use the spreadsheet example— getting the data that the client wants or the way they want to see it. I like it because it also makes me stop and think about things that I hadn't thought about.

So true.

You know, things to consider. It's like, oh, wait a minute, I didn't think about that. Let me see what this other AI agent says about that. And you kind of can play off of them and come up with a pretty good presentation. I used AI for my last presentation at the Bar Association. I let it go in and do everything, and it took all my prior presentations that I put in there, or that I had presented, and I put them in there and let it come up with the entire slide deck and everything, and it was awesome, you know, and it did it in 15 minutes instead of me doing it in 15 hours, you know.

Yeah, it's so Okay, you and Linda love to discuss the, the KPIs, right? The metrics.

Sure.

So in this way of making sure, as you said, the garbage data versus the accurate data, you would probably, I would imagine, want to set up a simplified way of, of some key metrics. But then I presume Let's see, for example, you would probably slice and dice the data to have it review versus a law firm owner just dropping it in and saying, here, connect yourself to my QuickBooks or, you know, whatever it is you're going to do. And then tell me.

I've got one client that loves KPIs. It was what attracted him to me to become his bookkeeping accounting person.

Okay.

The firm is growing exponentially. They're really looking at labor costs right now. They're looking at partner compensation. And rather than waiting— this is why I just love these guys for this— rather than waiting until the year, end of the year, and we have to scramble to figure out partner compensation, Yeah. we're doing it throughout the year. And we've got a spreadsheet designed. He designed a basic one for me. This is a great example of what we're talking about. Just did this last week.

Okay.

He designed a basic what he wants out of the system. And so I've been mulling it over and I will generically ask AI. It won't even know who he is or anything like that. I've got it generically in my mind what I want to do, but I'm going to test it in my AI platforms to pull the data, you know, and I'll erase all the names and make it very neutral and all of that on the, on the numbers I put in. But I want to see what it comes up with. And if it helps me, because there's a lot of pieces that go into what he wants, and I'm excited to give him this product. I'm excited to go back to him and say, here you go. And now throughout the year, we will be able to look at partner compensation and kind of project what's coming at year end. And that's a great way to use the AI.

So I would say To your earlier point, it's— it gives you opportunity to evaluate things that you normally wouldn't have seen. So it probably—

Correct.

And there's in general, like on the naked eye, when we look at financial statements, we probably immediately— I will say this, when I go and I look at stuff, I can paint a bit of the story already. I can see where the issues are. It's stuff that's intrinsic to how an accounting ledger would work or how a person in a firm would work that is misunderstood, I feel like. And that you— the numbers will tell something, but that finding that actual pain point in that advisory-level service, that's not an easy thing to find, I would imagine. I can't imagine. You would have to investigate, get the story, produce the information, Lay out the report. And then once you're looking at black and white numbers, you could say, okay, the reason why this number— let's see, I will— let's use a tangible thing. Like, the reason why your labor costs have gone up exponentially, but your revenue isn't reflected in there, or you haven't collected enough, is because you have clients that are on 60-day— by the time you bill, it's 60 days out by the time you recoup.

Or They're on the type of billing where they don't have to pay until the end of the work, and it might be a real estate transaction that has to close.

True, true. Yep.

Um, divorce case. I mean, there's a lot of— there's a lot of tangibles in there. To me, it's like looking under the hood of the car when it breaks down. You're trying to find the piece that's broken. You think it's this little thing over here, but it's that one over there.

Yeah.

And when you figure that out and you make that work, the other thing works and, you know, you start pulling it together and you're back on the road again.

And managing. So you are really good at tracking your time and your hours and your expenses, right? But let's say the associate that you brought on has some, some issues. Maybe there's some un— I don't know, things that you're unaware of. I've seen it happen before where an expense was incurred and it wasn't presented because maybe the staff person paid for it in advance, asked to get reimbursed, and the case is closed.

Right.

You have to bill it. That's a loss. Uh, there's so many little nuances that can go in, and that narrative and that dialogue isn't something that somebody just knows and then says, hey, produce me these numbers, and they're like levers and you just turn them on and turn them off and drive the bus. That's not right. There's so much behind that.

I wish it was that way.

Yeah.

But that's where we get to have fun on this side of the fence is to find all those little hidden nuggets out there in the field and bring them, you know, bring them in, harvest them and bring them in.

Another good example is your employment offerings. So obviously, you know, you pay a bill, a health insurance bill, you're recouping whatever portion of it comes back, right? And the other side. Well, it annually adjusts, but no one goes in and adjusts.

Oh yeah, that's always painful.

This, that, and the other. Uh, maybe it's the owner of the firm that's supposed to do it. Well, it's not the first thing you want to be doing, right? You, you want to do what you earn more at, which is not the admin work. Um, and so that doesn't happen, or people are on there longer. They, they've left you and they're still on the health insurance and you're still paying for it because that bill never went down. These like little stories, these little things that really get into the personal administrative work of accounting because you have to tie out the numbers, or, you know, payroll was run and then got reversed but the 401 didn't happen correctly. All of these little nuances affects your cash flow in some capacity.

It does.

It's money that's out, it's gone, and you get it back in other forms potentially, but But there's also compliance issues when you have to report these things, when an insurance company will allow you to get credit back. They don't just give it to you back because they have to do all of their work on their side. So it's— there's a lot behind it.

Well, here's another example. I've come across firms where they resent the expense of the firm administrator because they're not revenue producing and they actually resent it. And so that's a great time to sit down and say, okay, this person actually is saving you money here because of whatever it is, and they actually are making money for you. Because if you had to go and chase down this insurance example on a Sunday afternoon at 2 o'clock when you'd rather be golfing or whatever, you know, yeah, that's what they're going to do for you. And You were really going to be billing time if you're dedicating your time to the firm that same time at $300, $500, whatever, you know, $100 per hour you're charging.

Yeah.

They're really making money for you. You just don't realize it.

Exactly. So one thing I will say, now that we've discussed this and we've opened the door to AI, there are some headlines that have come out this week that I think we should touch on.

Let's see what you got.

It's not part of the segment, but I think it's important to bring up. One of the headlines is, um, which our assistant here is so lovely, she, she made us aware of, practicing law without a license, ChatGPT sued for legal fees. Why does that not surprise me?

So who sued ChatGPT? I can't wait to see that story.

Oh my gosh, let's go see if I can actually—

Are you gonna, are you gonna dive in?

Well, I don't know if it'll share because, you know, it's one of those things where— yeah, yeah, it cuts off. So we might have to dig up the story and, and pay to play. But this was featured in, um, law.com as well as Reuters. It calls OpenAI hit with lawsuit claiming ChatGPT acted as an unlicensed lawyer, which we've, we've heard and seen a lot of this data. Now that, that first one I— or that second one I just gave you was Updated on March 5th, 2026, and it was filed in Chicago. Uh, life insurance company alleged on Wednesday in a lawsuit filed in the federal court in Chicago that OpenAI wrongfully provided legal assistance to a woman who sought to reopen a lawsuit that was already settled and dismissed.

Oh.

And how easy is it for people to go and ask for the terminology, but we don't have the legal expertise. And it's the same thing as we just discussed about numbers.

That's right.

It's the exact same parallel. You're asking a tool to provide you— which it wants to make you happy— the information in the way that you want to see it, but it doesn't have all these little nuances that we gave it.

And similar to this case, So, well, you know, how many years have we heard Dr. Google? And now we have Dr. AI. You know, my right hand hurts. Well, you need to take your— have a knee replacement, you know.

Yeah.

I'm not bashing AI here. It's just how you use it and how you verify it. And, you know, it's not, you know, for all of those naysayers out there that are saying I'm going to lose my job, doom and gloom. Well, how are you using AI? How, how is it getting the information? I gave this example in one of our recordings last week. I saw an article in Japan where they have a restaurant that they gave the AI agent permission to be the manager of the restaurant. It's doing the hiring, the firing, the buying the supplies, doing all the things, and it's losing money hand over fist.

Yeah.

Because they just gave it to the AI agent. Now, AI is getting smarter. As it goes along, but it can get too smart. And then what about all of the facilities that have to be built to handle all the computers and the water that has to be used to, you know, keep them cool and all that stuff? Folks, don't be afraid of it ending our world if we use it right.

Yeah, yeah. Which we've, we've had a judge on before to talk about the protocols and etiquette in her courtroom. And I think it'll be important for us going forward in our podcast to really highlight these headlines as we go.

I agree.

Help people keep them informed of what's being said because it's hard to sift through all of this. But this is—

I will be sending— I'll be sending these 2 that you talked about today to her to say, and I'm going to ask her, did you read these? We may want to have her on again down the line here because as AI develops and keeps growing and moving, She's on the forefront of a lot of that.

So yeah, and there's so much news out there and it's so hard to digest it all. But I think we could hold space in our podcast on upcoming, you know, headlines or headlines that have previously— like, these look like March headlines, but we're just now ourselves, we didn't see them. You know, thankfully, Tierra was able to, but I think it's something we could commit to going forward.

So, well, and circling back to the numbers that we started out with, you know, again, AI can help you, but it can't give you that human touch. It can't give you the solid results that you need. That's what we're for. That's what your accounting professionals behind the scenes are for. We're the human AI touch, if you will. So I like it for that.

Right.

It's just another tool to use. Another tool in the toolbox, but it doesn't fix all the things.

Yeah, exactly. And it's not a replacement. I wouldn't want it to be my CFO. I'm not interested in that. That's crazy.

Have you ever used a hammer to drive a screw into a wall and expect great results? You know, you use a screwdriver for a reason.

You're going to crack the whole thing. Oh, God.

Just had to put the guy touch in there.

Yeah.

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Awesome.

We love you, Tiara.

Thank you.