Three recent developments point in the same direction for law and accounting firms: employees are using AI to fabricate expense receipts, local wage floors are changing, and tax planning is increasingly a year-round task. For firm leaders, the takeaway is not just that risk is rising. It is that manual review alone is no longer enough, and custom AI workflows can help teams respond faster and more consistently.
AI is making old fraud problems easier to scale
A new report found that four in ten U.S.-based employees have used AI to generate a fake receipt for a business expense. The report also found that some employees used company-funded AI tools to do it.
For firm owners, that is a reminder that AI can support operations, but it can also be used against internal controls. A practical response is not to ban every tool. It is to build workflows that flag unusual receipts, compare patterns across submissions, and route exceptions for review.
Custom workflows can help finance teams catch exceptions sooner
Expense review is a good fit for automation because the process is repetitive, rules-based, and easy to standardize. A custom AI workflow can help sort routine submissions, identify missing details, and surface higher-risk items for human approval.
That same approach can support client-facing accounting work as well. Firms can use agentic workflows to gather documents, organize supporting data, and prepare review packets so staff spend less time on manual triage and more time on judgment calls.
Payroll and tax work are becoming more operationally complex
Minimum wages are rising in more than 20 cities and states in July, with some jurisdictions changing pay requirements by region, industry, or employer size. For firms handling payroll or advising clients with employees in multiple locations, those updates need to be reflected quickly and accurately.
Tax planning is also moving earlier in the year for many households and businesses. One article in this news set points out that most taxpayers do not proactively plan ahead on taxes, and that having a CPA assist before year-end can help mitigate tax burden. That creates an opening for AI-assisted reminders, document collection, and planning checklists that keep the work moving before deadlines become urgent.
Governance matters as much as automation
Recent SEC allegations tied to stock and loan fraud and Boston's report of threats against assessors show how financial work can carry both legal and personal risk. For professional services firms, that reinforces the need for clear review standards, role-based access, and audit trails around any automated workflow.
The goal is to make the firm faster without making it sloppier. Custom AI should support well-defined processes, not replace accountability. The best systems help staff catch anomalies earlier, document decisions cleanly, and escalate sensitive issues to the right person.
- Use AI to flag exceptions in expense review, not to approve more quickly without controls.
- Treat payroll and tax updates as workflow problems, not just compliance updates.
- Build audit trails and human review into any agentic process that touches money or sensitive client data.
Sources watched
- SEC Accuses North Carolina Man of Fraud Involving Napster Music Shares. Yes, Napster (CPA Practice Advisor AI)
- Boston Mayor Says Assessors Have Received Death Threats Over Tax Bills (CPA Practice Advisor AI)
