Accounting
Sage Copilot AI aims to pair power and simplicity for small and medium businesses
Small and mid-size business platform Sage is already well experienced with AI, having woven it throughout their products for years, but its new generative AI Sage Copilot solution has been touted as a dramatic step forward in the company’s long term vision of simplifying accounting to make it more accessible to all.
Aaron Harris, Sage’s chief technology officer, said that the company has long had classic AI deep learning models that perform functions users have relied on for years. These tasks often require the use of many different models working in concert, with Harris noting that invoice processing alone requires the use of 27 different models: 15 to 20 are required to read the data alone, and more are needed to perform the calculations.
Sage Copilot coordinates between these models and acts as an interpreter between them and the human users who are requesting they perform a task. Effectively a “mouth” attached to a larger whole, the LLM works by translating the user request, usually inputted through a conversational interface, into machine language. This then goes to the various AI models on Sage’s servers, which then get to work on whatever the user asked them for, eventually sending instructions back to the LLM. The LLM reads back the machine language and implements the command or, in the case of an informational query, translates it back to human language. Harris stressed that it is not the LLM itself that does this work, referencing their well-known difficulties with math, but the other AI models that the LLM interacts with.
“We don’t trust them to do math. There’s much better ways to do math… We’re not using the AI to do the math on the results, we’re using AI to write the [
He added that, rather than being a feature of any one particular solution, Sage Copilot can be used across its products through the use of specialized “agents.” The company creates AI “agents” purpose built to do one thing really well, such as interacting with certain types of data, executing specific queries, or engaging with specific software products. Sage Copilot has access to multiple agents, each built to communicate with a different product, whether Sage Intaact, Sage HR or something else.
“The intention is that Copilot can work across the portfolio of Sage products,” he said.
Having Copilot act as a coordinator for all the other models also means its automation capacities go far past what it had previously accomplished. Harris raised the example of processing an invoice. This act alone requires multiple steps, but many of them have already been automated in Sage, taking out much of the work. Copilot goes a step further by allowing wholesale workflow automation through coordinating among several models that each enable a different automated process. “We can now really accelerate our ability to automate with large language models, and we can use AI to do more of the orchestration. So, giving it the ability to not just process the invoice but to move it on to the approval stage, to understand after it’s approved [it needs to] move it through the payment process,” he said.
He added that, in the future, “that invoice will have been created for you, automatically.” His team had recently conducted a hackathon where it was found Copilot can automatically generate invoices based on events happening around the user, like if it knew they were going on a job using geofencing, and act proactively.
Harris said that certain companies today will attach their solution to a ChatGPT account and call that generative AI functionality. In contrast, developing Copilot was a meticulous process that required a lot of trial and error even before its UK release earlier this year. During this time, the development team encountered many challenges that needed to be overcome, such as teaching the model that there can be more than one kind of cash balance.
“I got in and I asked Copilot ‘what is my cash balance?’ And Copilot said it’s at zero. And I dug around and what I learned was that Copilot inferred from my question ‘what’s my petty cash?’ It didn’t actually understand that what I was asking for was the balance of cash across my bank account,” he said. “Fast forward a month. We’ve done a lot of work to train the model the way we wanted to when you ask that question. … [Now] it’ll give you a table with your bank accounts and your balances in total. If that is what you’re asking, this is the answer.”
Getting these kinds of interactions right was vital to ensuring Copilot was easy to use and reliable in its outputs without having to possess a lot of arcane technical knowledge. Interacting with Copilot in plain language allows people to access accounting information and perform business tasks on their own, a major component of the wider goal of making accounting more accessible to a wider base of people.
“Generative AI and copilots, and their natural conversational interface, enables us to bring accounting outside the finance team to the rest of the business. One of the biggest blocks is getting [accountants] to approve things or to answer questions, finance teams are spending time supporting me instead of getting the books closed. With Copilot having a conversational interface, it now becomes much more natural and easy for me to approve a purchase order or to ask a question like ‘how am I trending on my travel expenses?'” Harris said.
While Sage wants to make accounting more accessible to the layperson, he added that professionals can be excited too. The big promise, he said, is that it will free them from things they don’t want to do. He compared it to having an army of interns at one’s disposal who can take care of the numerous mundane demands that pop up throughout the day. The result, according to Harris, will be “faster and smarter decisions.”
“Unpacking that, what we’re really saying is [this can be] how you, across the whole of the business, understand the patterns of activity in that business in real time to discover when there is a change in performance—when there’s something that can indicate an opportunity or risk—that the more strategic specialists can address in real time… We’re enabling more decisions to be made confidently,” he said.
Harris said the name “Copilot” represents what he felt was a good bet that the term copilot would become generic, versus being permanently associated with Microsoft’s product. He said that the term has, over time, emerged as standard in a similar manner as “band-aid,” “Xerox” and “Google.”
The large language model was released in the UK in February and is set for release in the US at the end of this year.
Part of a larger strategy
Copilot is one component of the company’s larger product strategy to promote continuous accounting, real time assurance and continuous insights. But this, itself, is part of Sage’s overall strategy, particularly for the North American market; Mark Hickman, the managing director of North America, said Copilot is “critical to our success.”
“As we move forward, [we want] to really be that leader, we want to be ahead of the competition when it comes to AI and how we bring that to market, into that ecosystem of 2 million customers globally and hundreds and hundreds of thousands in North America,” said Hickman.
To this end, Sage has been busy making new alliances and deepening current ones with companies like Microsoft, Amazon and PwC. They have collaborated on technology solutions with the aim of eventually driving integration into products like Office and other platforms, as well as on distribution and implementation of said solutions. With Microsoft and Amazon in particular, Hickman said they have whole partnerships where they go to market together and close new customers. Given these companies’ focus on large enterprises, Sage’s focus on small and medium businesses has acted as a bridge to this larger community.
“What we’ve discovered here is that [Microsoft and Amazon], they don’t really play in the small to medium businesses with the cloud. So 90% of their new customers are net new customers so they’re actually getting into new customers because they’re working with us and closing new deals to get into these accounts and … using their amazing, world class platforms and their brands to work together,” he said.
This is especially germane as the UK-based Sage expands further into the North American market, which makes up more than 44% of the company’s global revenues already. The company is making heavy investments in this region, which include technology but also additional staff as well as new facilities. Hickman said they will be building a whole new campus in Atlanta to serve as their new base for North American operations (in addition to the office they already maintain in that city), as well as new offices in Portland and Vancouver.
Hickman said Sage’s thinking on these new locations came as the company emerged from the pandemic lockdowns, eventually settling on what he called a “hub strategy.” Previously, the company had over 80 offices around the world, but he said many of them were small and remote. The company chose a very deliberate strategy where they would instead have large offices in each of the major markets they really invest in, with fewer small satellite offices. This has allowed them to really focus their efforts around these flagship country “hubs.” He noted that the new offices in Canada is also a reflection of this hub strategy of “really increasing the investment in the offices where we want to concentrate our growth.”
“So the North American businesses, the US businesses, are the fastest growing [sector] with great growth, and we hope to really accelerate that growth as we move forward,” he added.
Custom-made; alter ego trip; super Genius; and other highlights of recent tax cases.
Cerritos, California: Customs broker Frank Seung Noah, of Corona, California, has pleaded guilty to defrauding importers out of more than $5 million, including after he had been indicted on fraud charges, and to committing more than $1 million in tax evasion.
Noah owned and operated Comis International, a logistics and supply-chain company that offered customs import brokerage services on behalf of businesses. From 2007 to 2019, Comis was an import broker for Daiso, a Japan-based variety and value store with stores in the U.S. Noah provided Daiso with false customs duty forms and invoices to support fraudulent requests for reimbursement for duty fees. These forms inflated the total amounts, resulting in Daiso overpaying Noah nearly $3.4 million.
After Noah was indicted for defrauding Daiso in 2022, he continued to defraud other clients out of more than $2 million using a different scheme. Noah defrauded two other client companies by invoicing and receiving funds from the two victim companies and then pocketing the money and later altering bank statements to cover his fraud.
Noah also evaded payment of federal taxes, resulting in a loss to the IRS of approximately $2.4 million, with penalties and interest continuing to accrue. After agreeing with the IRS that he owed more than $1 million in taxes in 2014, he dodged IRS attempts to collect, including by paying for two homes in his former girlfriend’s name, using check-cashing businesses to avoid IRS levies of his bank accounts, lying to IRS agents and spending thousands of dollars on country club memberships, travel and golf.
Sentencing is May 8. Noah faces up to 20 years in prison for each of two counts of wire fraud and up to five years for the tax evasion count.
Tampa, Florida: Terence Taylor has pleaded guilty to obstructing and impeding the administration of the internal revenue laws for actions seeking to defeat the collection of back taxes he owed to the IRS.
Taylor was sentenced in 2012 for failing to file his income taxes for several years while he lived in New York. He owed more than $810,000 in taxes and was required to pay the tax debt during the term of his sentence.
For more than seven years, continuing after he moved to Florida, Taylor engaged in a series of acts to defeat IRS collection. He hid assets, placed other assets and income in the names of alter egos or nominees such as his wife, and used money that he could have used to pay off his back taxes to buy assets including boats, jewelry and a home.
Taylor continued to earn income as a financial consultant during those years after 2012. He used that income for numerous personal purposes and expenses and only minimally paid his federal tax debt.
The IRS had made extensive efforts to collect Taylor’s debt between 2004 and 2008. Aside from contacting Taylor many times, IRS officers sent numerous forms for him to detail his financial situation. He responded with false or incomplete information about his assets, including boats, and about his business and its accounts and dates of operation. Taylor used his business income and bank accounts after 2012 to pay personal expenses, including marina and yacht club expenses, boat expenses and jewelry purchases.
Taylor also failed to file personal income tax returns for several years after his New York sentence had ended.
He faces a maximum of three years in prison.
Pennsauken, New Jersey: Business owner Tri Anh Tieu, of Camden, New Jersey, has admitted to conspiring to defraud the IRS by concealing cash wages paid to employees.
Tieu owned Tri States Staffing, which provided temporary workers to local businesses. Between the third quarter of 2018 and the second quarter of 2022, Tri States received more than $2.5 million in payments from customers.
Tieu paid employees in cash and failed to pay over the payroll taxes on those wages. He spent at least some of the unpaid taxes on personal expenditures, including gambling.
He admitted that he caused a tax loss of some $305,332.
The count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. carries a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Sentencing is June 26.
Charleston, South Carolina: Business owner Jonathan Ramaci, of Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud and filing a false income tax return.
Ramaci defrauded the Small Business Administration in his application and receipt of some $214,000 in Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan funds, submitting fraudulent tax documentation to the SBA for the PPP loan. For the EIDL loans, Ramaci falsely represented to the SBA the revenue and costs of goods sold for the businesses he was applying for.
From 2017 to 2021, Ramaci either failed to file or filed false income tax returns and owes the IRS $289,531. He paid personal expenses from a business he owned and operated, Elements of Genius, and did not report the expenses paid as income.
Los Angeles: Attorney Milton C. Grimes has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for evading more than $7.2 million in federal and state taxes over more than two decades.
He
In addition to the federal tax evasion, Grimes admitted that he owed more than $1,313,231 in delinquent California taxes from 2014 to 2023.
Beginning in September 2011, the IRS attempted to collect Grimes’ taxes by issuing more than 30 levies on his personal bank accounts. From at least May 2014 to April 2020, he avoided payment by not depositing income he earned from his clients into his personal bank accounts. Instead, he purchased some 238 cashier’s checks totaling $16 million to keep the money out of the reach of the IRS. Grimes would also routinely purchase cashier’s checks and withdraw cash from his client trust account, his interest on lawyers’ trust accounts and his law firm’s bank account rather than pay the IRS.
Grimes was ordered to pay $7,236,556 in restitution, both to the IRS and to the California Franchise Tax Board.
Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida: Business owner Dorian Farmer has pleaded guilty to one count of failure to pay employment trust fund taxes and two counts of willfully failing to file returns.
Farmer owned several area businesses and for years collected employment trust fund taxes from his employees. Rather than turning the money over to the IRS, Farmer took large, unreported cash distributions from one of his businesses. He also failed to file returns for himself and one of his businesses, Titleist Technologies, d.b.a. Summit Joint Performance, for tax year 2000.
Farmer’s acts resulted in a total tax loss of $806,653.
He faces up to five years in prison for the employment trust fund offense and up to a year in prison for each offense of willful failure to file a return.
The American Institute of CPAs published information on reporting on stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency, providing a framework to stablecoin issuers for presenting and disclosing information related to the tokens they issue, and to report on the availability of cash or other assets that back them.
Stablecoins are a kind of digital asset where the value is pegged to the assets backing them, such as U.S. currency, exchange-traded commodities like precious or industrial metals, or some other form of crypto.
The purpose of the AICPA’s Assurance Services Executive Committee document,
The release comes as the Trump administration is taking a decidedly more welcoming attitude to the crypto industry, including announcing a crypto reserve and setting up a crypto task force at the previously skeptical Securities and Exchange Commission.
Next month, as a second part of the stablecoin reporting criteria, the Assurance Services Executive Committee plans to release Proposed Criteria for Controls Supporting Token Operations: Specific to Asset-Backed Fiat-Pegged Tokens for public comment. As these control criteria are part of overall stablecoin reporting, they eventually will be incorporated into the 2025 Criteria for Stablecoin Reporting document once they’re finalized.
“This is the first available framework for stablecoin issuers to report on stablecoins, and the AICPA is excited to be at the forefront of bringing transparency and consistency to the digital assets space,” said Ami Beers, senior director, assurance and advisory innovation at the AICPA & CIMA, in a statement Thursday. “These criteria will serve as the basis for evaluating the availability of redemption assets that back stablecoins in attestation services that practitioners provide to their clients, driving this dynamic practice area forward for the accounting profession.”
The 2025 Criteria for Stablecoin Reporting: Specific to Asset-Backed Fiat-Pegged Tokens can be found
CPA business executives’ outlook on the U.S. economy appears to be dimming, thanks to persistent inflation and growing worry over tariffs, according to a new survey from the AICPA & CIMA.
The
The survey was conducted before the Trump Administration imposed tariffs this week on Canada, Mexico and China (and then delaying the tariffs today on Canada and Mexico for a month), but respondents were asked their general views about unspecified tariffs if they were put in place. Fifty-nine percent indicated that tariffs would have a negative effect on their businesses, while 85% said uncertainty surrounding the subject had influenced their business planning to some degree — nearly one in five (18%) described that impact as significant.
Inflation remained the top concern for CPA business execs, followed by issues related to staffing — employee and benefit costs (No. 2), availability of skilled personnel (No. 3), and staff turnover (No. 10). Domestic political leadership, which was absent from last quarter’s top 10 concerns, reemerged at No. 6.
“There are a lot of warning signs right now for business executives, particularly around inflation, payroll costs and consumer confidence, with tariffs adding another layer of uncertainty,” said Tom Hood, AICPA & CIMA’s executive vice president for business engagement and growth, in a statement Thursday. “That said, it’s important to recognize that economic optimism remains higher than at any point since mid-2021, aside from last quarter’s notable increase. Additionally, expansion plans have held steady from the previous quarter.”
The survey also found that business executives who said they were optimistic about their own organization’s outlook over the next 12 months dropped from 53% to 50%, quarter over quarter.
Revenue and profit expectations for the next 12 months both eased from the fourth quarter’s large increases. Revenue growth is now anticipated to be 3%, down from a 3.3% projection in the fourth quarter. Profit projections are now 2%, down from 2.2% last quarter.
Survey respondents who expect their businesses to expand over the next 12 months remained unchanged at 57%.
Some 39% of the business executives polled indicated they had too few employees in the first quarter, a 1% increase from the fourth quarter. One-in-five said they were ready to hire immediately, unchanged from last quarter.
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AICPA releases framework for stablecoin reporting
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