These reports highlight a stark contrast in how auditors and accounting teams are addressing inefficiencies.
Auditors’ busy season challenges:
- Nearly 50% cite reconciliations as their top challenge, with over 70% dedicating 5–20 hours weekly to this task.
- Manual data extraction from unstructured PDFs consumes more than 5 hours per week for 59% of auditors.
- Bottlenecks persist in audit review processes, with nearly 40% reporting review delays of two weeks or longer.
- While 79% leverage technology to automate at least some part of their audit workflow, only 33% have used AI.
Finance and accounting leaders’ priorities:
- 59% of finance executives are exploring AI adoption, with a focus on automating insights for reporting and improving decision-making; an additional 17% have already launched pilot programs or begun scaling AI across their organizations.
- 60% believe AI will reduce manual workload and allow humans to focus on more strategic work.
- 25% plan to hire specialized AI expertise for AI implementation in the next year.
- 21% believe it’s too soon to track metrics around AI’s value, however, 66% are watching productivity, time efficiency, or cost reduction.
“These findings reveal a profession at a crossroads,” said Isaac Heller, Trullion CEO. “Auditors and accounting teams are bogged down by manual tasks that could be eliminated with modern technology, and these leaders are increasingly leveraging AI to drive efficiency and strategy. This isn’t to say that auditors aren’t ready to innovate, it just reveals how both sides are feeling the pain of labor shortages and complicated compliance changes. This is what Trullion has been hearing for years and is trying to bridge this gap.”
