Five Technology Resolutions For 2025
Out with 2024 and in with 2025! The New Year is here, and many – me included – use this time to plan for the future and reflect on the past. With the year-end upon us, now is a great time to think about what went well in 2024 and where we may have opportunities for improvement in the New Year. In that spirit, may I offer five technology resolutions for you to consider in 2025? Each of these should help you and your team work more efficiently and securely in the New Year and beyond.
Don’t Forget About The Personal Touch
With modern technology, it can be all too easy to become so reliant on the tools at our disposal that we forget about the human touch. For example, communicating almost exclusively through email, chats, and text messages can be a great way to lose touch with your team members and disrupt any esprit de corps that may exist in the organization. Further, although efficient, relying on technology platforms for communication does not always translate into effective communication because the tone of one’s voice and facial expressions are absent from email, chat, text, and similar communication methods. In short, continue to use the great technology platforms available today for communication, but don’t forget about the personal touch. Make it a point to engage in face-to-face communication on at least an occasional basis.
Embrace Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not the next big thing in technology today – it is THE big thing! And for good reason. Today’s leading AI platforms, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, CoPilot, and Claude, offer efficiency and productivity we could only dream of heretofore. And you can use this class of tools for many purposes. For instance, you can use today’s AI platforms to perform such tasks as:
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- Generate text, such as writing a memo to a client or staff member;
- Analyze data and assist with writing macros and formulas;
- Identify trends and anomalies in accounting data
- Assist with research, such as helping to interpret new accounting and auditing standards;
- Create footnotes for financial statements; and
- Review tax returns for completeness, accuracy, and anomalies that might reside in the return.
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And that’s just the start! Today is a great time to start if you haven’t begun your AI journey. However, we do offer two cautionary points. First, like humans, AI is not perfect, and it will make mistakes. Therefore, verify any results provided by an AI platform before incorporating them into your reports, spreadsheets, or other work products or activities. Second, be sure to respect the security and privacy issues associated with AI. For example, many AI platforms reserve the right to use the data you submit to further refine the Large Language Models (LLMs) used to generate responses. This means that if you upload a client’s tax return to an AI platform for analysis, you may expose that client’s data to the world! Therefore, among other security and privacy practices, be sure to redact any sensitive data before uploading data to an AI platform.
Address Your Security And Privacy Needs
Following the above, know that security and privacy needs continue to extend beyond just AI platforms. Have you and your team done a thorough job of securing the data that is on your desktops, laptops, phones, and, yes, even paper filing cabinets? Do you have sound security and privacy policies in place? Are you routinely reminding team members of the never-ending demand to ensure that data is available only to those who need it and only when they need it? Do you enforce multi-factor authentication at every turn? Are your backup strategies effective, and have you tested them within the past six months?
No one wants to think that they will become the victim of a data breach, a ransomware attack, or a phishing or spear-phishing incident. Yet, millions of businesses will suffer a security or privacy incident in 2025! To this point, resolve to ensure that your team has done everything practical and feasible to reduce security and privacy risks to a practical level, based on cost versus benefit analysis.
Leverage Automation Tools
Automation tools are available everywhere, yet many organizations do not enable them, and many individuals fail to take advantage of them. For example, we can enable automated workflows to ensure appropriate approvals are secured on transactions. Likewise, we can enable automated processing of routine transactions, such as accounts payable bills. Further, we can use scan-and-populate tools to scan paper documents, extract the text from those documents, and upload that text to a database – all with minimal human intervention. Further, we can automate downloading data from one system and uploading it into another, thereby avoiding expensive manual re-keying processes. These represent but a fraction of the automation options available today. Consider taking advantage of tools such as Power Automate and Power Query to begin leveraging the power of automation tools.
Train Your Team
So far, we’ve discussed four specific resolutions for you and your organization to consider for 2025. Now, let us add perhaps the most important one – training. None of the technologies discussed above will prove meaningful to your team unless they know how to use them as intended. Therefore, ensure that you train your team and how to use these technologies to their fullest. Failing to do so will all but ensure that you do not realize the expected ROI on the technology deployment.
Summary
As we transition into 2025, it is clear that technology will continue to evolve and exert an even greater influence over virtually all businesses. Consider adopting the technology-focused New Year’s resolutions discussed above to ensure your technology delivers on promises made. Remember to embrace AI, address security and privacy needs, leverage automation tools, and train your team to use the tools. And perhaps above all the others, remember that as good as technology is and as good as it will become, the personal touch still matters, particularly in communications; therefore, don’t forget it, particularly when communicating with your team.
All the best for a peaceful and prosperous 2025 and beyond!
At K2 Enterprises, our commitment lies in providing unwavering support and expert instruction to CPAs. Explore the wealth of resources on our website, where you’ll find valuable insights on selecting the most suitable accounting software, ensuring your firm is equipped with the right tools for the journey ahead. If you work in accounting or finance, K2 Enterprises provides continuing education programs to enhance your skills and credentials. Need help learning how to solve your business’s accounting technology needs and selecting the right software for accounting or CPA Firms? Visit us at k2e.com, where we make sophisticated technology understandable to anyone through our conferences, seminars, or on-demand courses.
