If you run or manage an accounting firm, you’ve likely heard the buzz around AI—and Microsoft Copilot in particular.

And you may be asking the same question we’re getting from a lot of clients:

“Why should I pay $360 per user per year for Microsoft Copilot when there are free AI tools out there?”

Fair question. But here’s the honest answer:

Free tools like ChatGPT are powerful.
But Copilot is something else entirely—because it’s built directly into the Microsoft 365 tools your business already relies on.

Let’s break down why accounting firms especially can benefit from the full version of Microsoft Copilot—and why it’s worth the upgrade from the free AI tools floating around.

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🧠 AI That Understands Your Workflow

Unlike standalone AI tools, Copilot is integrated directly into:

• Excel

• Outlook

• Word

• Teams

• PowerPoint

That means you can do things like:

• Ask Excel to create charts from your monthly P&L

• Draft a professional follow-up email in Outlook with one click

• Summarize long email chains about client billing

• Create engagement letters, proposals, or client memos in Word—instantly

• Get a summary of what your team discussed in a Teams meeting

No copy/pasting between apps. No toggling. Just results.

For a busy accounting firm, this means less time formatting and more time focusing on client value.

📊 Built for Accountants and Financial Pros

Accounting firms run on details and deadlines. You juggle client expectations, compliance regulations, reporting, and internal communication—all at once.

Here’s where Copilot delivers real, practical help:

✅ In Excel:

• Quickly summarize monthly financials

• Spot trends in client billing

• Generate forecast models without complex formulas

• Turn raw spreadsheets into charts, summaries, and dashboards

✅ In Word:

• Draft audit summaries, client communications, and reports with natural language

• Get instant suggestions for tone, clarity, or formatting

• Save templates and rework them in seconds with fresh content

✅ In Outlook:

• Clean up long email threads into short summaries

• Draft professional replies with one click

• Prioritize what to respond to first (so your inbox doesn’t own you)

✅ In Teams:

• Record and summarize staff check-ins

• Automatically track who committed to what during planning meetings

• Instantly access meeting notes and action items without writing them manually

For a tool that works in the background and meets you where you already are—it’s hard to beat.

🆚 Why Copilot > Free AI Tools

Yes, you can ask free AI tools to write a professional email.
But Copilot can do that while seeing the thread inside Outlook—and suggest a reply based on your previous tone, attachments, and contacts.

Yes, you can paste spreadsheet data into ChatGPT.
But Copilot already knows the context of your Excel document—and can create summaries, projections, or graphs without switching platforms.

This is the difference:
Copilot is inside your workflow. Free tools aren’t.

💲Is It Worth $360 Per User Per Year?

Let’s be blunt. If you or your team spend:

• 10+ hours a month formatting spreadsheets, writing proposals, or managing emails...

• Any amount of time doing admin or catch-up work during tax season...

• More time explaining things than actually acting on them...

Then yes, it’s worth it. Easily.

That’s $1 per day to save hours, improve collaboration, and reduce mental load.
And if even one $300/hour billing cycle doesn’t get delayed because of time saved, you’re already ahead.

🚀 How to Get Started

You’ll need:

• A qualified Microsoft 365 plan (most of them are)

• A Copilot license add-on ($30/month per user)

• A team that’s open to using it (we help with that part)

We recommend starting with a few users—like managers or billing leads—then scaling across the firm once you’ve seen the results.

🛠️ We’ll Help You Set It Up Right

At Big Water Technologies, we help accounting firms:

• Understand where Copilot can make the biggest impact

• Enable licenses across their Microsoft environment

• Train their team to actually use it (not just have it)

• Monitor and optimize as new features roll out

Copilot isn't just a productivity tool—it’s a smarter way to run your firm.

📩 Curious if Copilot makes sense for your accounting firm?
Let’s talk. We’ll help you compare options and see where the real ROI is hiding in your Microsoft stack.

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