This is the part I don’t usually say out loud. I need to admit something that’s uncomfortable for someone in my position. I don’t have all the answers right now. In accounting firms and even solo virtual bookkeeping businesses, that can feel like a failure all by itself.
We’re expected to be the steady ones. The ones who already know and the ones clients and teams look to when things feel uncertain. We built our businesses (and our identity often) on accuracy, confidence, and being right more often than not.
So, when AI and automation started reshaping the accounting profession, I did what many accounting leaders quietly do.
Not because I didn’t see what was coming, but because I didn’t want to lead us into something I couldn’t fully control yet.
Accounting firms and bookkeeping businesses don’t change overnight. We evolve through policies, processes, approvals, and peer consensus. That’s normally our strength.
But this time, I felt the gap widening.
Clients were changing faster than our conversations and staff were experimenting quietly on their own. New firms were being built with technology at the center, not bolted on later. I could feel it and the subtle tension between protecting what we’d built and preparing for what was next.
That tension scared me more than the tools themselves. Because leadership isn’t just about avoiding mistakes, it’s about direction. I realized that by waiting to be certain, I was asking my firm to follow hesitation instead of vision.
That’s when the regret crept in. Not regret for moving too fast but regret for almost moving too slow.
Here’s the hard truth I had to sit with. If I don’t create space to learn out loud, my firm won’t either.
My caution was teaching my team something I never intended:
That realization hurt.
Accounting firms don’t need leaders who have AI completely figured out. They need leaders who are willing to go first, imperfectly. Leaders who say, "we’re going to learn this together."
I had to let go of the idea that leadership meant certainty and accept that right now, leadership looks like courage.
So, I changed how I showed up and I stopped pretending I was already fluent. I named what I didn’t know, I invited questions I couldn’t immediately answer, and I gave my team permission to experiment, even when the results weren’t clean or client-ready yet.
And something shifted. The fear softened, the conversations deepened and innovation stopped feeling like rebellion and started feeling like responsibility. AI became less about replacement and more about relief, buying back time, and letting our people do higher-value work instead of drowning in tasks.
I didn’t lose authority by being honest. I gained trust.
(This works for firms with teams as well.)
I don’t believe in dramatic overhauls. I believe in intentional steps, and these are the ones that mattered most for me:
One day, this moment will be something firms talk about in hindsight. I don’t want to be remembered as the leader who preserved comfort at the cost of relevance. I want to be remembered as the one who helped the firm evolve with integrity, courage, and humanity intact.
I can handle:
What I can’t handle is leading a firm that plays defense while the future runs offense. So, I choose motion, honesty and I choose to lead forward, even when the path isn’t fully lit.
That’s how I’m building my solo virtual bookkeeping business without regret in the future of accounting.