iscover AI-driven productivity freeing up time for accountants to add more value
TechnologyAI is emerging as a primary driver for time savings through increased productivity for accounting firms, allowing them to allocate extra time to client acquisition, work-life balance and advisory.
In its report, Growth and Marketing Maturity Benchmarking Report 2025, Intuit Quickbooks – in collaboration with Agile Market Intelligence – used insights from 460 Aussie accounting practices to explore attitudes on the use of AI for productivity and how the growth outlook of a firm influences benefits reaped from AI-driven time savings.
This report refers to three types of firms based on growth outlook: high-growth firms (aggressive expansion of client base), moderate-growth firms (moderate expansion) and conservative firms (further relationship development with existing clients).
Forty-two per cent of accounting practices perceived AI as a leading time-saving tech, higher than practice management software (40 per cent), the report found. In addition, the data revealed that 87 per cent of high-growth firms used AI to increase productivity and 82 per cent of these firms used it to reduce administrative workload.
Further the data found that AI emerges as leading driver of time savings across accounting practices. Its data revealed that 72 per cent of firms said that they are using AI for mostly for reducing administrative workload.
In addition, high-growth firms take a strategic approach to technology adoption, and beyond AI (46 per cent) these firms branded workflow automation as a key time-saving tool (37 per cent), placing greater value on data analytics (17 per cent versus 16 per cent overall), customer relationship management (22 per cent versus 13 per cent overall), and email marketing (17 per cent versus 11 per cent overall).
The data found that while reducing administrative workload is a core driver (82 per cent), high-growth firms used AI to boost productivity (87 per cent), improve client communication (58 per cent), and analyse large data sets (42 per cent), this demonstrates how efficiency gains are translated into scalable growth.
Agile Market Intelligence director Michael Johnson said that the way that high-growth firms set themselves apart is through the way that they view AI not just to cut admin time, but as a level for scale as well.
The findings revealed that 59 per cent of high-growth firms use their time savings to attract new clients, while 57 per cent used it to streamline processes and an additional 57 per cent used the time to improve internal processes. Also, more than one in two of moderate-growth firms prioritised delivering advisory or consulting services to existing clients in using the time that they saved while on the job. In addition, six in 10 conservative-growth firms (61 per cent) were likely to use their time savings to improve personal time and work-life balance.
“How time is used ultimately mirrors a firm’s growth ambition. High-growth firms reinvest time to scale, moderate-growth firms use it to deepen relationships, while conservative firms prioritise balance,” Johnson concluded.
Carlos Tse
Carlos Tse is a graduate journalist writing for Accountants Daily, HR Leader, Lawyers Weekly.
