17/09/2026
Xero has apologised after its accountant community reacted badly to a sponsored ad claiming business owners could drop their accountant and use Xero connected to Claude AI instead, supposedly saving £800 a month.
Most of the commentary has focused on whether the ad was fair to accountants. We think the more useful question is what it reveals about where the value in accountancy actually sits.
If AI can replace something that was costing £800 a month, that tells you what was being paid for. A monthly spreadsheet should get cheaper as technology improves. That's not a problem for the profession, it's progress.
The issue is that producing management accounts and providing management accounting advice are not the same thing and treating them as interchangeable misses the point entirely.
The same pattern is showing up everywhere. AI tools can now help with marketing, HR, legal documents, and website copy. A business owner could, in theory, do most of it themselves. Very few will choose to, because their time is better spent on what they're actually good at, while good people handle the rest, often faster and cheaper thanks to the same technology.
Accountancy is no exception.
Ask an AI tool a simple tax question and the answer is usually competent. Ask about advanced tax planning, complex restructuring, or spotting an opportunity you didn't know existed, and the difference between information and real expertise becomes obvious.
AI is going to make a lot of professional services cheaper, and that's good news for clients. But it doesn't make genuine expertise less valuable. It makes it easier to spot.
That's the conversation worth having with Hydref Accounting.
