How to Build a 90% Automated Accounting Firm

Is the traditional general ledger dead? As small businesses and startups demand real-time data, the standard "wait two weeks for a black-and-white P&L" model is becoming obsolete. In this episode of Growing Your Firm, host David Cristello sits down with Jeff Seibert, co-founder and CEO of Digits and former Head of Consumer Product at Twitter (now X). Jeff reveals why he spent over five years and $100M in venture capital to rebuild accounting software from the ground up to be AI-native. Whether you're a firm owner looking to scale or a tech-forward CPA, this conversation explores how "Agentic Accounting" is moving the profession from manual data entry to high-level advisory. In this episode, we discuss: The Genesis of Digits: How Jeff's experience scaling Twitter exposed the massive data gap between engineering and finance. What is an Agentic General Ledger? Moving beyond "bolt-on" AI to a vector-graph data model where the intelligence is baked into the ledger itself. Automating the Month-End Close: Why Jeff predicts 90% of bookkeeping, reconciliation, and schedules will be automated by the end of 2026. Classification Accuracy: Why LLMs (like ChatGPT) fail at bookkeeping and how Digits achieved 97% accuracy using custom predictive models. The Future of Firm Competition: Why the gap between AI-adopting firms and traditional firms will create a "margin opportunity" that reshapes the industry. Jeff's Top AI Tools for Founders: Insights into Whispr Flow (for voice dictation) and Granola (for frictionless meeting notes).