How Will AI Shape Financials in 2026?
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is quickly storming across all industries and the news throughout 2026. It is assisting with tasks from marketing to customer service, while other companies are looking at how to integrate AI into their day-to-day operations. This is also true for accounting and financial planning, even accounting software like QBO.
AI & Your Bookkeeping
As AI is increasingly integrated into software like QBO, we have seen an uptick in AI solutions for accounting and bookkeeping. As for data entry, we are still seeing many errors in this AI work. QuickBooks has been building and expanding the reach of its AI in its product for multiple years. Accuracy is not, and will likely never be, 100% for coding transactions.
You may ask why, because data entry can be quite monotonous; you are likely used to handling your own data entry. AI is looking at many different industries and companies, so creating a generalized rule that fits all business owners, industries, and scenarios is quite complex.
For example, in our industry, the AI built into QBO would see Home Depot charges and say, yes, this was job supplies. Even our receipt-reading software does a pretty good job, but it has not learned to distinguish the unique classification clients might be using.
While job supplies are not a wrong choice for a Home Depot receipt, more specific categories may be used in other scenarios. Home Depot could easily be a tool purchase, a tool loan to an employee, job supplies, or even office supplies. How can you teach AI to understand which scenario is the most accurate?
To take this even further, what if you are doing a department, class, or location breakdown in your books? AI cannot yet manage an install vs service, residential vs commercial, or even plumbing vs HVAC breakdown.
Even when we have tried to customize AI learning for the bank feed, the complexity is beyond their capabilities. The only way I have been able to get AI to categorize by department is because the client was already using separate credit cards for each department, so it was codable by the last 4 digits of each credit card.
For extremely simple bookkeeping, AI can handle the data entry. However, for meaningful financial data, AI has a way to go from the current 2026 version.
AI & Analyzing
While we’ve struggled with AI in bookkeeping and data entry, it is far more accurate with already-organized information. QuickBooks, for example, has developed a system that allows users to ask specific questions for explanations and provides clear answers. Other AI tools, like ChatGPT, can analyze uploaded PNLs and financial statements and identify differences.
In meetings at Waterford, we use a note-taker to automatically transcribe client conversations. Even with these strong analysis tools, we review the transcripts to ensure accuracy and avoid client confusion. We still encounter an error rate of about 10%, which is common for transcription.
AI & Taxes
We have many clients who use ChatGPT, and they often get half-truths. This is concerning when it comes to things like tax advice. There are many tax laws that apply to very specific scenarios, and sometimes AI can accidentally generalize them. A lot of this comes down to input as well; if you don’t ask a very specific, clear question, you may get an answer that doesn’t actually fit your scenario.
It’s best to cross-check any AI advice with a professional to ensure it applies to your specific situation or business.
AI & The Future
At the end of the day, there’s no denying that AI has come a long way. It can provide simple guidance and clarification on questions. It can help with shortcuts that are very specifically described, such as importing documentation or creating transcriptions. Even with these, we still double-check at the end of the day that the information is coming through and across as we intended.
If you want to understand your finances, business, books, or trajectory, that’s our specialty at Waterford Business Solutions: starting with a baseline understanding and building from there. We’re happy to help and explain everything.
Please feel free to reach out to us here at either info@waterfordbusiness.com or 864-351-0852.
