AI-Powered Accounting with Excel and Power BI : Transform Finance Workflows with Real-World Cases Using AI, Excel, Power BI, Claude, and Copilot.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rubin, Lance.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rubin, Lance.

Artificial intelligence.

Accounting--Data processing.

Accounting.

Local Subjects:

Rubin, Lance.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (374 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Birmingham : Packt Publishing, Limited, 2026.

Summary:

Learn how accountants and finance teams can use AI tools in the real world with practical cases that reduce manual accounting and finance processes, improve reporting accuracy, and build AI-augmented workflows in Excel and Power BI Key Features Automate accounting workflows with AI-powered Excel techniques Build Power BI reporting.

Contents:

Cover

AI-Powered Accounting with Excel and Power BI

Transform finance workflows with real-world cases using AI, Excel, Power BI, Claude, and Copilot

About the author

Table of Contents

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Download the Module Chapter kit

Conventions used

Get in touch

Free benefits with your book

How to Unlock

Share your thoughts

Part 1

Foundations and Framework for Change

1

Defining the AI-Powered Accountant

Real-world perspectives on why being AI-powered matters

The core definition

Strategically," not opportunistically

3-5X efficiency gains," measured, not assumed

Trust, accuracy, and professional judgment" is non-negotiable

Why now: the disruptive context

The gaps in accounting and finance are widening

The Big Four have already moved

The talent pipeline is breaking, not bending

The cost of using AI badly is higher than the cost of not using it

Augmentation vs. automation

Automation

Augmentation

Why the distinction matters

The third-year associate analogy

The personal trajectory: where this book came from

Summary

2

The HACK Framework

The origin of HACK

The HACK hierarchy: why order matters

H - hygiene: the foundation

Why is hygiene the first letter of HACK

Hygiene self-diagnostic: ten questions for your most-used spreadsheet

Actionable hygiene steps

A - automation: the accelerator

Order of operations: automation must follow hygiene

Three categories of automation in finance

The deterministic discipline of automation

Actionable automation steps

C - capability: the toolbox

The capability paradox: AI requires more Excel knowledge, not less

Actionable capability steps.

K - knowledge: the human edge

Why knowledge is the apex of the framework

Actionable knowledge steps

HACK in the wild: trust and risk

HACK applied: A tool comparison

3

The Six Pillars of an AI-Powered Accountant

Mapping HACK to the Six Pillars

Pillar 1 - Excel Fluency

The Excel Fluency stack

Layer 2 - modern Excel

Layer 3 - financial modeling

Layer 4 - automation and AI

Layer 5 - best practices

Pillar 2 - process and data mastery

The 4Ds - the project operating model

D1 - diagnosis

D2 - design

D3 - development

D4 - deploy

ETL-V - the data operating model

E - extract (sourcing)

T - transform

L - load

V - visualize

The eight steps to your first Power BI report

Pillar 3 - technology assessment

Pillar 4 - AI concepts

Pillar 5 - growth mindset

Pillar 6 - human-centered skills

The Six Pillars self-assessment

EXERCISE - The Six Pillars Personal Audit (20 minutes)

4

Why AI Is Fundamentally Different

Deterministic vs. probabilistic

Deterministic systems

Probabilistic systems

Why the distinction matters in finance

The "many ways to the same answer" exercise

EXERCISE - Many ways to the same answer (30 minutes)

Hallucinations: the critical risk

What a hallucination actually is

Why finance is uniquely vulnerable

Prompt decay

Calibrating trust

5

The Technology Assessment Framework

Why structured assessment matters

Dimension 1 - Total Cost of Ownership

Dimension 2 - integration and compatibility

Dimension 3 - scalability and flexibility

The flexibility test

Dimension 4 - user adoption and learning curve

Dimension 5 - data security and compliance

Lens 1 - regulatory and security frameworks

Lens 2 - data classification and sensitivity

Lens 3 - data lifecycle management.

Lens 4 - access control, encryption, and authentication

Lens 5 - training data provenance

SOC 2 deeper dive

AI governance - the NIST AI RMF

AI governance maturity stages

Data classification - the four tiers

The acceptable use matrix

Dimension 6 - vendor stability and support

The vendor failure cautionary tale

The three pillars of the fintech stack

Pillar 1 - automation (RPA, VBA, Python, AI)

Pillar 2 - financial modeling (3-way modeling, scenario analysis)

Pillar 3 - analytics (descriptive → diagnostic → predictive → prescriptive)

A worked assessment example

6

AI Concepts: How LLMs Actually Work

What is a large language model?

Tokens and context windows

Tokens

The context window

The real cost of AI usage

Prompt engineering: the six building blocks

The six building blocks of every strong prompt

Before and after - the same task, two different prompts

Four core prompting techniques

Technique 1 - Zero-shot

Technique 2 - Few-shot

Technique 3 - Chain-of-thought

Technique 4 - Role-based

The chain-of-thought finding - why this technique matters most

Mark Wickersham's five essentials

My own standard context prompt

The specific-request prompt that follows the context

Hallucinations revisited - the prompt engineering angle

Defense 1 - ground in source documents

Defense 2 - demand citations

Defense 3 - force uncertainty flagging

Defense 4 - never use AI for pure calculations

The nine-point pre-send checklist

Your starter prompt library

Skills and markdown files - the composing layer

Where skills live and how to manage them

The golden rule of Skills

7

Growth Mindset

Why a growth mindset matters specifically now

Why accountants struggle with change

The identity shift

Core reframes - fixed → growth.

The seven growth mindset exercises

Exercise 1 - The "Yet" Audit

Exercise 2 - The Failure Resume

Exercise 3 - Fixed vs Growth Mindset Scenario Role-Play

Exercise 4 - The "Effort = Path to Mastery" Tracker

Exercise 5 - Mindset Trigger Mapping

Exercise 6 - The "Advice to Others" Flip

Exercise 7 - Skills Evolution Timeline

The growth mindset muscle: daily practices

The five mental barriers

Barrier 1 - "I'm too old

Barrier 2 - "I don't have time

Barrier 3 - "What if I make a mistake?

Barrier 4 - "My company isn't ready

Barrier 5 - "AI will expose my gaps

The closing question

8

Human-Centric Skills

The value stack shift

The traditional accountant value stack

The AI-augmented value stack

The five categories of Human-Centric skills

The six human skills exercises

Exercise 1 - the "so what?" cascade (business context translation)

EXERCISE 1 - The "So What?" Cascade (30 minutes, groups of 3)

Exercise 2 - the investigation framework (Hypothesis-Driven questioning)

EXERCISE 2 - The Investigation Framework (45 minutes)

Exercise 3 - the Three-Path presentation (option thinking)

EXERCISE 3 - The Three-Path Presentation (30 minutes)

Exercise 4 - The Boardroom Story (Storytelling with Data, SCQA)

EXERCISE 4 - The Boardroom Story using SCQA (45 minutes)

Exercise 5 - The Multi-Audience Translation (Stakeholder Mapping)

EXERCISE 5 - The Multi-Audience Translation (40 minutes)

Exercise 6 - The Contrast Framework (Difficult Conversations)

EXERCISE 6 - The Contrast Framework (30 minutes)

Strategic Thinking and Business Partnership

Business model understanding

EXERCISE - Value Chain Mapping

Scenario planning - the Three Horizons method

Cross-functional collaboration

Judgment and critical thinking

Distinguishing data from insights.

EXERCISE - The Metric Audit

Trade-off thinking

Ethical and values-based decision-making

Pattern recognition beyond the data

Relationship building and trust

Curiosity over expertise

The 80/20 conversation format

Building credibility through reliability

EXERCISE - The Reliability Audit

Managing up and across - Influence Without Authority

The skill development roadmap

Months 1-2: Foundation

Months 3-4: Building

Months 5-6: Integrating

Why this work matters

9

How to Prepare for the Journey Ahead

The only rule that matters

Where you are now

EXERCISE - the end-of-Part-I personal audit (45 minutes)

Tools you need available before Part 2

The career roadmap

Component 1 - the Career Roadmap

Component 2 - the skills development plan

Component 3 - the 90-Day action plan

EXERCISE - draft your career roadmap (60 minutes)

The Personal Canvas: mapping your goals to the learnings of Part 1

The nine boxes of the Personal Canvas

Why this canvas matters specifically for the AI-powered accountant

Mapping the Personal Canvas to the foundations of this book

EXERCISE - Complete your Personal Canvas (90 minutes: revisit quarterly)

What Part 2 covers

Your three commitments

The closing thoughts of Part I

Part 2

The Practical Modules

10

Introducing the Modules - the Operating Manual

The standard long-form context prompt

The short-form prompt for memory-enabled tools

The specific-request pattern

The verification stack

Tools you need open before starting any module

How each module chapter is structured

11

Module 1 - Foundations and Formula Ideas

Technical requirements

The workflow problem

Where this module sits in the Excel Fluency Stack

The Starting workbook

The prompt

What each tool produces.

Claude (browser).

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Part of the metadata in this record was created by AI, based on the text of the resource.

Other Format:

Print version: Rubin, Lance AI-Powered Accounting with Excel and Power BI

ISBN:

9781808087943

OCLC:

1609716066