Accounting Today reports on how, as AI takes over routine tasks, firm leaders expect partners to shift from productivity-driven work toward relationship-building and advisory roles — and how compensation and business models must evolve beyond billable hours to match.

Founder Uncovered profiles Accrual CEO Cosmin Nicolaescu, the former Brex CTO who still writes code daily, on why he targeted the largest accounting firms first, how Accrual processed 15,000 returns last season with 99.7% of worksheet fields AI-generated, and his selective approach to building a cap table.
Armanino will deploy Accrual's AI-native platform across its tax and business management practices, beginning with individual tax returns and expanding into audit, advisory, and firm operations.
Accrual, backed by General Catalyst, launched with $75 million in funding to bring AI-native automation to accounting firms, starting with complex tax preparation and review workflows.
Accrual supports every federal and state tax form, as well as unstructured data like emails, spreadsheets, and handwritten notes — relying on AI models rather than OCR-based extraction to interpret and apply information across the tax process.