The Accounting Disruptors

Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri, hosts of The Accounting Disruptors, unpack why most firms adopting AI right now are adding cost without changing anything about how the work actually gets done, using a real internal example: a Claude bill that jumps between $600 and $2,600 a month per individual. Paul and Matt also share how Wiss Labs solved a real operational problem inside its own investment portfolio management process, and what that experience revealed about what CFOs are actually paying for when they bring in AI tools: trust, not time savings. This episode covers CFO cost structure, accounting ecosystem history, ERP adoption, and why accounting as an industry remains significantly underpriced. The Accounting Disruptors is produced by Wiss, an AI-optimized CPA and advisory firm serving privately-held and venture-backed businesses.

Only 10% of businesses are using AI for real, agentic work, even though 85% of accounting teams call it a strategic priority. On this episode of The Accounting Disruptors, hosts Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri unpack the newest AI adoption data from RAMP and FloQast to explain why chat subscriptions don't equal transformation. They break down what companies are actually spending on AI per employee, why fully self-driving cars sitting unused in driveways are the best analogy for accounting's resistance to change, and why the "capacity paradox" (accountants too buried in manual work to learn the tools that would free them from it) is the real barrier to adoption. They also cover the trust gap around AI-generated financial data, why data cleanliness matters more than the model itself, and what CFOs and controllers should actually be asking before they roll out AI. The Accounting Disruptors is produced by Wiss, an AI-optimized CPA and advisory firm serving privately-held and venture-backed businesses.

Hundreds of billions in AI infrastructure spend from Google and Microsoft aren't landing where you'd expect on the balance sheet, and Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri open this episode of The Accounting Disruptors asking whether current accounting rules can even capture it. Using a deferred transfer fee case study from Manchester United as a jumping-off point, they dig into materiality, earnings management tactics like Q4 vacation blackout policies, and why openness is becoming Rillet's biggest competitive advantage after its latest funding round. From there, Paul and Matt tackle the accounting talent shortage head-on: 600,000 open positions, a 40% drop in first-time CPA exam sitters since 2016, and the uncomfortable truth about why accountants keep devaluing their own work. They close with a look at what the intelligence layer means for the future office of the CFO. The Accounting Disruptors is produced by Wiss, an AI-optimized CPA and advisory firm serving privately-held and venture-backed businesses.

Accounts receivable doesn't get the attention accounts payable does, but it's the function that actually gets a business paid. In this episode of This Week in Accounting AI, host Paul Peterson, CEO of Wiss, talks with Caitlin Luxana, co-founder of Fazeshift, about why AR aging buckets fail CFOs and controllers, how structured data, unstructured data, and tribal knowledge combine to create the real AR problem, and what it takes to deploy AI agents responsibly in cash application and collections. They cover DSO reduction, the swivel chair problem, and why credit card payments alone won't fix your order-to-cash process.  This Week in Accounting AI is produced by Wiss, an AI-optimized CPA and advisory firm serving privately-held and venture-backed businesses.

Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri, hosts of This Week in Accounting AI, break down two client calls that show exactly where AI is changing accounting, and where it isn't. One client wants his books closed weekly instead of monthly. Another discovered a six-figure tax exposure hiding inside a goodwill line nobody had questioned. Paul and Matt use both stories to explain why faster closes multiply the workload without the right systems in place, why your ERP can't see the data trapped in your team's spreadsheets, and why AI adoption forces accounting and tech departments to finally talk to each other.  This Week in Accounting AI is produced by Wiss, an AI-optimized CPA and advisory firm serving privately-held and venture-backed businesses.

AI is forcing organizations to rethink more than their technology. It's reshaping leadership, strategy, and the way people adapt to change. In this episode of This Week in Accounting AI, Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri discuss why AI adoption is as much a human challenge as it is a technical one. Drawing from conversations with CFOs and recent industry research, they explore why professionals often experience a sense of "grieving" as AI changes the nature of their work. They also talk about why the organizations that acknowledge those emotions will be better positioned to lead through transformation. The conversation examines why AI is making accountants and knowledge workers more productive rather than replacing them, what the latest market data says about AI's impact on software companies, and why businesses that delay adoption risk falling behind. Along the way, Paul and Matt unpack lessons on leadership from the world of sports, explaining why the best leaders double down on their strengths instead of making fear-driven decisions. This Week in Accounting AI is produced by Wiss, an AI-optimized CPA and advisory firm serving privately-held and venture-backed businesses.

AI adoption isn't just changing technology. It's changing how organizations lead.  In this episode of This Week in Accounting AI, Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri share lessons from an AI conference and discuss why the biggest challenges businesses face today are organizational, not technical. They explore why leading by example is more effective than mandating AI, the legal and governance risks many companies are overlooking, and why every organization needs an AI policy.  The conversation also dives into a compelling perspective on the emotional side of transformation: why professionals often need to "grieve" before embracing AI.  Along the way, Paul and Matt examine how AI is making knowledge workers more productive, why execution may matter more than patents, and what business leaders can learn from both software development and the World Cup.  This Week in Accounting AI is produced by Wiss, an AI-optimized CPA and advisory firm serving privately-held and venture-backed businesses.

Technology isn't the hardest part of AI adoption. Leadership is. In this episode of This Week in Accounting AI, Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri discuss why accounting firms and finance organizations are entering a new phase of transformation where culture, communication, and human connection matter more than ever. They explore what CFOs, controllers, CPAs, and firm leaders are experiencing as AI reshapes the workplace, why remote work has changed professional development, how organizations should rethink expectations, and why AI is creating opportunities for higher-value work instead of simply replacing jobs. Through real experiences inside Wiss, Paul and Matt explain why successful AI implementation depends on organizational alignment as much as technology. This Week in Accounting AI is produced by Wiss, an AI-optimized CPA and advisory firm serving privately-held and venture-backed businesses.

When hundreds of Stanford students walked out on Google's CEO at commencement, most people filed it under "campus drama." Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri see it differently. In this episode of This Week in Accounting AI, the Wiss hosts unpack what that walkout signals about generational fear, why AI company leaders keep doubling down on job-displacement narratives that serve shareholders more than workers, and why the most admired companies deploying AI right now are focused on making their products better, not just cutting headcount. They also get into the stark differences between legacy businesses, SaaS companies, and AI-native startups, a 100-year-old client building an entirely new product from proprietary data, CEOs using Claude for FP&A; (and what they're missing), and why changing your mind frequently right now is the smartest thing you can do. This Week in Accounting AI is produced by Wiss, an AI-optimized CPA and advisory firm serving privately-held and venture-backed businesses.

56% of CFOs say they've adopted AI. Only 7% say they're getting a return on it. This week, Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri open with that Gartner data, and make the case that most finance leaders aren't just underperforming on AI, they're measuring the wrong thing entirely. Speed to close is not the same as speed to the information that runs a business. From there, they get into the week's PE headlines: Anchin's acquisition by Baker Tilly and KKR's investment into Crowe. Paul breaks down what actually happens in these deals, the wealth transfer, the loss of accountant agency, and the disappearance of a career path the profession has relied on for decades. The episode ends where it started: with a question about what accounting actually is.Transactional, or relational? Paul's answer is clear. This Week in Accounting AI is produced by Wiss, an AI-optimized CPA and advisory firm serving privately-held and venture-backed businesses.

Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri just returned from four weeks on the road — BDO's firm conference in Vegas, an investor summit in San Francisco, Boston Tech Week, and NYC Tech Week — and the takeaway is stark: the gap between accounting firms embracing AI and those waiting it out is widening fast. In this episode of This Week in Accounting AI, they break down what they saw across all four stops, unpack the Rillet vs. Artifact debate (AI-native ERP vs. agnostic intelligence layer), and get into why most CFOs can't answer the most basic question about their own close process. They also cover agent stickiness, why most AI agents die after the first build, how to think about designing AI usage vs. just experimenting, and why Paul's NBA three-point-line analogy may be the clearest frame yet for what AI-native accounting actually means for competitive advantage. This Week in Accounting AI is produced by Wiss, an AI-optimized CPA and advisory firm serving privately-held and venture-backed businesses.

Netgain CEO Adam Riches joins Paul Peterson to expose why ERP systems deprioritized accounting decades ago — and why CFOs are still paying the price. They cover the history of accounting as a competitive advantage (from the Medici to Carnegie to the IBM mainframe era), how the spreadsheet became a 40-year Band-Aid, and what modern accounting infrastructure actually needs to look like. Adam breaks down Netgain's three-layer close framework (cash, simple accrual, GAAP), the case for rules over AI in bank reconciliation, Benford analysis for anomaly detection, and why AI risks repeating the same mistake as ERP if the profession isn't deliberate. A must-listen for CFOs, controllers, and finance leaders navigating the next wave of accounting technology. This Week in Accounting AI is produced by Wiss, an AI-optimized CPA and advisory firm serving privately-held and venture-backed businesses.

In episode 12, Paul and Matt get into the uncomfortable truth about accounting departments: too many of them are held hostage by a single person who has turned a process into a black box. From the controller who "bamboozles" leadership to the commissions guy who made Friday bagels a bigger priority than payroll, Paul and Matt unpack how power and control became baked into the profession, starting with the 150-hour rule, and why AI is about to flatten it. They also dig into service as a lost art, why accountants were never supposed to be schedule-preparers, and Paul's vision of accountants as storytellers and business leaders inside the companies they serve.

Fresh off the Wiss Labs Bourbon & Bookkeeping event, Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri unpack the three biggest questions a room full of CFOs, controllers, and founders brought to the table: How do AI agents handle audit trails? What about hallucinations? And the one everyone wants to ask — are accountants about to lose their jobs? Plus, why the new "intelligent layer" running over the ERP is making context the most valuable asset in accounting.

Fresh off the BDO Annual Conference and meetings in San Francisco, Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri get real about what's actually happening with AI adoption in accounting, and what's not. Drawing on candid feedback from Wiss staff who piloted AI tools through busy season, they dispel two big myths: that AI means fewer accountants, and that AI tools can be distributed like traditional software. In this episode: Why "max your tokens" mandates are killing AI adoption The hidden cost of implementation that VCs and founders keep missing Why mandated AI is the case most easily headed for failure How accounting is shifting from a back office to a front office function A direct message to startups and VCs: stop treating this like a SaaS rollout A candid, unrehearsed conversation about why the profession has been undervalued, and why the path forward requires real partnership between accountants, founders, and investors.

For 30 years, ERPs have been built for operations, and the general ledger got bolted on as an afterthought. Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri argue that's exactly why so many finance leaders say "the accounting blows", and why it was never an accountant problem in the first place. Fresh off Rillet Recon 2026, Matt shares what he saw in the room: a community that feels more like an apprenticeship than a conference, a live moment where 100 Claude licenses got handed out on the spot to attendees who'd never logged in, and an AI adoption gap in finance that's now an either-or, with very few in the middle. From there, Paul and Matt dig into the harder questions. Why are companies hiring FP&A teams to do work their accountants are already trained to do? When a growing company outgrows QuickBooks, what's the right way to evaluate an ERP, without starting with the tool? And what does it actually look like to put accounting back at the center of the system, instead of bolted on at the end? A candid conversation about what's broken in accounting systems, what Rillet is getting right, and what every finance leader should be asking before their next system decision.

Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri make the case that offshoring is a bandaid, not a fix, and that CFOs evaluating accounting partners need to stop asking "how cheap?" and start asking "how are you building intelligence on my business?" They unpack why context is the new competitive advantage in the AI era, why tribal knowledge is the real moat, and the specific questions every CFO should be asking before signing with a firm, from data security to deliverables to who actually owns the knowledge being built. Source: https://paulpetersonwiss.substack.com/p/title-why-does-accounting-have-to

Tax season is over. The real work is just beginning. In this episode, Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri pull back the curtain on what actually happens inside an accounting firm during busy season, and why, despite billions spent on software and a wave of AI optimism, this year was harder than the last. They get honest about the hidden costs of AI adoption, why offshoring is a band-aid not a fix, and why the most valuable thing an accountant holds isn't a tax return, it's context.Source: https://paulpetersonwiss.substack.com/p/title-why-does-accounting-have-to

After 25 years in the trenches together, Paul and Matt get candid about something most firm leaders won't say out loud: accounting has been a soul-crushing profession, and it didn't have to be. Sparked by a piece Paul wrote on the industry's broken culture, this episode unpacks why talented, hardworking accountants have spent careers feeling like they're failing, even when they're not. From the 340,000 accountants who left during COVID to the structural silos that still define most firms today, Paul and Matt trace the roots of the equilibrium problem, too much complexity, too little tooling, and a culture that rewards knowledge hoarding over collaboration. Then they turn to what's changing: why AI won't replace accountants but will finally give them the tools to match their ambition, why context and judgment will become the profession's highest-value currency, and why Wiss is betting big on a different kind of future. This one hits different. Source:  ttps://paulpetersonwiss.substack.com/p/title-why-does-accounting-have-to

In this solo episode, Wiss CEO Paul Peterson gets candid about a question he recently put in writing: why does accounting sometimes feel soulless? Paul draws on real responses from accounting professionals and sobering industry stats to make the case that the profession has a deeper problem than a talent shortage. 340,000 people left the field during COVID CPA exam sittings hit a 20-year low in 2022 50% of accountants under 30 say they regret their career choice Using the Tribal Leadership framework, Paul walks through the five stages of organizational culture and challenges accounting leaders to honestly assess where they stand, and why getting to Stage Four isn't just a culture play, it's a prerequisite for successful AI adoption. He also speaks directly to the people living through the transition right now: doing their jobs the old way while simultaneously piloting new AI tools. This one's a rallying cry for anyone who got into accounting because they wanted to make a difference and is still waiting for the profession to catch up. Sources: https://paulpetersonwiss.substack.com/p/title-why-does-accounting-have-tohttps://www.triballeadership.net/

Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri break down the costly mistake venture-backed founders keep making — hiring a CFO before the fundamentals are in place, then watching the org chart balloon from the top down. They unpack the traditional finance build, why it creates mismatched roles and bloated headcount, and why that model becomes even harder to unwind once a company is locked in. The conversation shifts to what a smarter alternative looks like: partnering with a co-sourcing firm that can scale up or down with the business, bring AI-powered workflows to the areas that matter most — AP, AR, revenue — and give your head of finance the tools and intelligence they need to operate as a true strategic partner, not a glorified bookkeeper.

This week, Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri break down two buzzworthy a16z articles asking the questions everyone in finance is thinking: will AI kill Excel? And what happens to your ERP? Spoiler...neither is going anywhere. Instead, Paul and Matt make the case for an AI layer that works around your existing systems, eliminating the Excel workarounds that have quietly become your source of truth. Matt shares how he uses Claude in Excel daily, why even the most die-hard spreadsheet maven doesn't need to memorize formulas anymore, and how Wiss used AI to finally get HubSpot and their revenue data speaking the same language.The takeaway? Don't wait for your system of record to catch up. Find the pain, get a small win, and build from there, because every week you wait, a competitor isn't.Ready to find your small win? Visit wiss.com to learn how Wiss is helping companies cut through the noise and put AI to work where it matters most. Sources: Will AI Kill Spreadsheets? — a16z Speedrun Why the World Still Runs on SAP — Andreessen Horowitz a16z: The Hardest Enterprise Software, and the Greatest Opportunity in AI

AI tools are advancing fast, but is your accounting team actually ready to use them? In this episode, Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri dig into one of the most overlooked obstacles to successful AI adoption: tribal knowledge. Those undocumented, person-dependent workflows that live in people's heads (and endless Excel files) can make or break an AI implementation. They discuss why switching to an AI-native accounting stack isn't enough on its own, how to identify and address the real pain points before bringing in new tools, and what the "see it, fix it" approach looks like in practice. They also share an honest take on how they're using Claude and other LLMs day-to-day, and why every accountant should be experimenting right now. Is your firm ready for what's next? Visit wiss.com to explore how Wiss is helping accounting teams cut through the complexity and build an AI strategy that actually works.

Everyone's asking how to implement AI. That's the wrong question. In Episode 1 of This Week in Accounting AI, Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri get into what's really behind the gap between AI adoption and AI results. Matt shares what he's hearing directly from CFOs — companies that have the tools in place but aren't moving the needle. The culprit? Not the software. It's what the software is sitting on top of. Broken workflows, fragmented data, legacy systems duct-taped together. AI doesn't fix bad architecture. It amplifies it. The unsexy truth: before you pick a vendor, you need to run an inventory. Ready to start asking the right questions? Visit wiss.com to see how Wiss is helping companies build the foundation AI actually needs to work. Links:Citrini ResearchThe AI Disruption: From Doomsday Destruction to Do-Nothing Bots!