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YC Root AccessThis Is The Next Industry AI Will Disrupt
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At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
AI threatens accounting firms by automating tax, audit, and compliance
- Accounting work is largely repetitive data movement and documentation substantiation, making it ripe for AI-driven automation beyond prior-era RPA tools.
- Onshore shifted from selling software to accounting firms to serving corporations directly, arguing that firms resist automation because it undermines billable-hour economics and internal incentives.
- Large firms’ public AI posturing often masks limited real transformation, constrained by lack of engineering talent, partner incentives, and short time horizons before retirement.
- A wedge strategy—starting with R&D tax credits and expanding based on customer pull—builds trust and creates a practical path to broader accounting, tax, and eventually audit automation.
- AI is expected to dramatically increase revenue per employee and change firm pyramids (fewer juniors, more technical operators), with employment impacts likely lagging capability by several years.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasAccounting is more about proof than math—and AI can now handle both.
Vitucci argues the arithmetic is trivial; the hard part is substantiating claims with contemporaneous documentation (Jira/Git/tickets, records). Modern language models can read, summarize, and connect documents, unlocking automation that older tooling couldn’t deliver reliably.
Big firms resist real automation because it attacks their business model.
When value is framed as billable hours, reducing hours threatens pricing power and internal career metrics. Senior partners near retirement also have weak incentives to fund long-horizon transformation that could reduce their payouts.
“AI investment” at incumbents often equals tooling purchases, not capability change.
Examples include buying Copilot licenses without workflows, adoption, or engineering teams to build products. Without software talent and process redesign, generic tools don’t translate into end-to-end automation.
Selling to accountants can be a trap; sell to the beneficiary instead.
After two years of pushback selling to firms, Onshore “fired” its customers and rebuilt for corporations/taxpayers who directly benefit from faster/cheaper outcomes. This reframes accountants as optional middlemen rather than required gatekeepers.
Start with a narrow, high-value wedge to earn trust, then expand.
Onshore began with R&D tax credits to prove speed, price, and traceability, making adoption low-risk for CFOs. Expansion then follows customer requests (“you did X well, can you do Y?”), rather than claiming to replace Deloitte on day one.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesAccountants have kind of just wormed their way into the middle and artificially sel- set themselves up to be, you know, "I'm the middleman. I'm the expert." But like what if we just didn't have to have that?
— Dominic Vitucci
It's rarely about what math you can do. It's about what you can prove happened.
— Dominic Vitucci
The fact of the matter is that today is the worst they'll ever be.
— Dominic Vitucci
Selling software to accounting firms and consultancies is a losing game.
— Dominic Vitucci
Conversely, I don't actually think they've earned the right to maintain the, the reverence that they've, they've been granted for all of these decades, centuries sometimes.
— Dominic Vitucci
SPEAKERS
Dominic Vitucci
guestCEO and founder of Onshore, working on AI-driven automation for accounting/tax workflows (including R&D tax credits).
Tom Blomfield
hostYC partner and tech entrepreneur (best known as a co-founder/former CEO of Monzo).
David Lieb
hostYC partner and tech entrepreneur (co-founder of Bump), hosting and interviewing the guest.
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
