{"id":7066272,"date":"2026-09-25T04:05:55","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T04:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/som2nypost.com\/accounting\/how-ai-agents-are-changing-accounting-workflows\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T04:05:55","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T04:05:55","slug":"how-ai-agents-are-changing-accounting-workflows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/som2nypost.com\/?p=7066272","title":{"rendered":"How AI Agents are Changing Accounting Workflows"},"content":{"rendered":"


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As finance and accounting professionals continue to integrate AI into their daily workflows, the industry has largely focused on automation: using technology to process documents and transactions, identify patterns, and generate financial reports from available data.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

While automating routine tasks has been invaluable for professionals who used to spend a significant amount of time and resources manually processing financial data, AI in accounting has now introduced a new feature that is designed to further optimize an accountant’s daily workflow: AI agents. <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

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Read: <\/span>Maximizing the Use of AI in Your Accounting Software<\/span><\/u><\/a> <\/span><\/h3>\n

For accounting teams, that distinction matters.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

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An AI agent could monitor incoming financial information, determine what needs attention, complete permitted actions across connected systems and escalate exceptions to an accountant. Multiple specialized agents could eventually work together across parts of accounts payable, accounts receivable, reconciliations, reporting and other finance processes.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

But giving AI greater agency also introduces an important question: How much of an accounting workflow should an AI agent actually control? At D&V Philippines, the answer begins with a clear principle. The future of accounting should be human-led and AI-enabled, not AI-driven.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

While AI agents can expand what technology does within an accounting function, it should not remove human accountability, professional judgment, or appropriate governance from it.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

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What are AI Agents in Accounting<\/span> <\/span><\/h2>\n

AI agents are AI-enabled systems designed to pursue specified goals and perform actions on behalf of a user or another system.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

A conventional generative AI tool is largely reactive. You give it a prompt; it generates an output, and the interaction generally ends there unless you provide another instruction. An AI agent can operate differently.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Depending on its design and permissions, an agent can receive an objective, assess the available information, determine what needs to happen next, use approved tools to perform actions and continue working until it reaches a defined stopping point or encounters something requiring human intervention \u2013 this is Agentic AI. <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Suppose an accountant asks a traditional AI assistant to identify overdue invoices from a spreadsheet. The AI might analyze the information and produce a list.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

An AI agent could potentially go several steps further. It might access an approved source of accounts receivable data, identify overdue balances, categorize them according to established parameters, prepare appropriate follow-up actions and flag unusual accounts for a person to review, helping your team not only identify risks but solve them way before they become problems. <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

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AI Agents In Your Accounting Processes<\/span> <\/span><\/h2>\n

There are several possible applications\u00a0for <\/span>Agentic AI in accounting<\/span><\/u><\/a>. As an industry with various interconnected processes \u2013 which consist of both repetitive activities and data-driven analysis, having a tool that can perform tasks on an advanced level can be significantly advantageous. <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

The opportunity is not necessarily to create one AI agent responsible for “doing the accounting.” A more realistic model involves specialized agents supporting clearly defined portions of a workflow, for example:<\/span> <\/span>
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1. Accounts Payable Agents.<\/span> <\/span><\/h3>\n

An accounts payable agent could potentially monitor designated channels for incoming invoices and begin processing them without waiting for an employee to manually initiate every step.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Within defined permissions, an agent might:<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Rather than automating simple or predefined tasks, AI agents embedded in accounting software are now designed to work towards an objective. What does this mean? They can potentially interpret information, determine a sequence of actions, and immediately modify the next steps based on what they encounter.<\/span> <\/span>
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<\/span>The main difference in a nutshell is: <\/span>traditional automation (even with AI)<\/span><\/u><\/a> follows a workflow. An AI agent can potentially participate in managing the workflow.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n