Beyond the Books

Welcome to issue #005 of New Age Accounting — an introduction to Beyond the Books. Let's talk about the people using AI.

My first year at EY, I thought I had it figured out.

Then I left.

Not because I had a plan. Not because something better was lined up. My gut said go, my brain said stay, and I went anyway. Everything I’d worked toward, the firm, the path, the thing you’re supposed to do, I walked away from it.

That moment didn’t feel brave at the time. It felt like a mistake I was making in slow motion.

I spent the next few years doing things that had nothing to do with accounting. Customer success. Technical implementations. Cross-functional projects, client calls, broken processes I had to fix with people I’d never met. It felt like a detour. It probably looked like one too.

I didn’t see what I was actually building until I was past it.

Today I’m a controller at a Series B fintech startup. My dream job. I wouldn’t be here without the detour. The communication skills, the project management instincts, the ability to work across teams, none of that came from accounting. It came from the years that didn’t look like a career.

That’s what Beyond the Books is about.

Everyone is talking about AI right now. The tools, the automation, the workflows. Brock covers that well in AI for Accountants and The Builder’s Playbook. But nobody is talking about the person who has to actually use it. The mindset that makes someone ready to pick up a new tool and do something with it. The habits and attitudes that separate the accountants who adapt from the ones who freeze.

AI is going to reward a specific kind of person. Not the most technical one. Not the one who knows the most. The one who is curious, adaptable, and willing to move before they feel ready. Those aren’t technical skills. They’re career skills. Life skills. And they’re learnable.

That’s the gap this fills.

There’s a version of you reading this right now that fits one of these:

You’re a year or two into a big firm and quietly wondering if this is it. You’re a manager who feels behind and doesn’t know where to start. You’re a new grad trying to figure out which direction to even run. You’re mid-career and watching the profession change faster than feels comfortable.

I’m not going to tell you the path is linear. For me it wasn’t. I’m not going to tell you traditional advice is wrong either, for a lot of people it works. But it isn’t the only way, and not enough people say that clearly.

Every issue I’ll give you one thing you can actually do. Not a mindset shift. Not a vague suggestion. Something real.

This week: Write down three skills you’ve built outside of pure accounting work. Jobs, side projects, life experience, anything counts. Then write one sentence next to each one explaining how it makes you better at what you do today. If you can’t connect them yet, keep the list anyway. You will.

The path doesn’t always make sense while you’re on it.

That’s okay. Stick around.