About the Author
Zach Miller
Zach Miller is the Chief Operating Officer at Fine Point Consulting, where he leads firm operations and supports the continued growth of the business
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Zach Miller
Fine Point Consulting has been named the 2026 Community Building Winner in Gusto’s AI-Powered Practices awards, recognizing the firm’s approach to using artificial intelligence to solve real business challenges, empower its team, and share what it learns with the broader accounting community.
The recognition is part of Gusto’s nationwide search for accounting firms putting AI to work in meaningful, practical ways. Six firms were selected as winners across six categories, with each receiving $5,000 to continue investing in their AI initiatives.
For Fine Point, the recognition validates an approach to AI that has been intentional from the beginning: start with people and problems, NOT technology.
As AI continues to reshape the accounting profession, Fine Point isn’t looking at the technology simply as a way to automate more work.
Instead, the firm is focused on helping its people understand how to think with AI; identifying inefficient processes, asking better questions, experimenting with new approaches, and finding opportunities to create more value for clients.
As Fine Point President Chelsea Stanton explained in Gusto’s feature on the award winners:
“We weren't going to start by trying to automate accountants. We were going to teach accountants how to think with AI.”
That philosophy has helped create an environment where employees are encouraged to experiment with AI while bringing their own professional experience, critical thinking and judgment to the process.
The goal isn’t AI for AI’s sake. It’s finding better ways to work.
Helping lead that effort is Heather Nathan, Fine Point’s Director of Digital Strategy & Solutions, who has spearheaded the firm’s work to explore how AI can be applied thoughtfully across the organization. Heather has helped turn Fine Point’s AI strategy into action, working alongside team members to identify real business challenges, test new approaches, and build solutions that create measurable value for our people and our clients.
One client challenge highlighted by Gusto shows exactly what that approach can look like in practice.
A monthly invoicing process was consuming nearly 20 hours every month. Heather and our team saw an opportunity to rethink the workflow and apply the AI-first problem-solving approach she has helped champion across Fine Point.
Using AI alongside tools already available within the client’s Microsoft environment, the team designed a Power Automate workflow and Office Script that dramatically streamlined the process.
The result?
A process that once required roughly 20 hours each month now takes fewer than THREE.
That represents more than a time savings. It creates capacity for our people to focus on higher-value work — analyzing information, solving problems, advising clients, and making decisions that require human expertise.
It’s also an example of how Fine Point approaches innovation: start with a real problem, find the right solution and measure whether it actually makes a difference.
Gusto’s Community Building category recognizes firms that aren't only adopting AI themselves, but are helping others learn how to use it effectively.
That part of the recognition is especially meaningful to us here at Fine Point.
Our team believes innovation becomes more powerful when knowledge is shared.
When someone discovers a better way to approach a process, that lesson shouldn't stop with one employee or one client. We work to bring those ideas back to the broader team, creating opportunities to learn from each experiment and apply those insights elsewhere.
Over time, one solution becomes another idea. One experiment creates a new capability. And one employee learning how to work differently can help an entire team rethink what's possible.
That mindset extends beyond Fine Point, too.
As AI changes accounting, tax, HR and financial advisory services, we believe firms have an opportunity to learn from one another and help shape what responsible, practical AI adoption looks like across the profession.
There is another important piece of Fine Point's AI strategy: people remain at the center of the work.
AI can help gather information, analyze data, streamline repetitive processes and accelerate work. But technology doesn't replace the experience, context or professional judgment our clients rely on.
That distinction was also evident across Gusto's 2026 winners. While each firm approached AI differently, the winning applications maintained professional oversight of the work.
At Fine Point, we see the greatest opportunity where technology and human expertise work together.
AI can create capacity.
Our people determine what to do with it.
Winning Gusto's 2026 Community Building award isn't the finish line for Fine Point.
It's encouragement to keep going.
With Heather continuing to lead Fine Point’s AI and digital innovation efforts, we’re focused on building on that momentum, not simply by adopting more technology, but by continuing to ask where it can make a meaningful difference for our team and our clients.
We’ll continue experimenting with new technologies, challenging long-standing processes, and looking for opportunities to make our work and our clients' businesses smarter and more efficient.
Some experiments will create significant breakthroughs. Others will simply teach us something new.
Both matter.
Because the future of accounting won't be shaped by firms waiting to see exactly how AI changes the profession. It will be shaped by the people willing to thoughtfully explore what’s possible.
We're proud to be one of them.
Thank you to Gusto for recognizing Fine Point Consulting and for highlighting the accounting firms helping move our profession forward.
Read Gusto's feature, Six firms show what AI actually looks like inside an accounting practice, to learn more about Fine Point's recognition and the other 2026 winners.
Zach Miller is the Chief Operating Officer at Fine Point Consulting, where he leads firm operations and supports the continued growth of the business
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