FAQ
The questions people ask before they join
Straight answers on cost, who it is for, client data, and what actually happens in the room.
- What is AI Lab for Accountants?
- A working group of accountants using AI to save real hours, raise the level of service they give clients, and modernize how their firms work. Members meet on a weekly live call, share what they are building in a private Slack, and keep what they build in the ALFA GitHub.
- How much does membership cost?
- Membership is $29 per month for one accountant, or $24 per seat per month for a firm on the team plan. Membership includes the Weekly Call, the Member Brief, Slack, the Tool Safety Index, members-only courses, and the ALFA GitHub. The public newsletter and our public tools are free for everyone, no account needed.
- Who is it for?
- CPAs, EAs, bookkeepers, and firm owners in tax, bookkeeping, or advisory, from people just starting with AI to people already building with it. It is not open to vendors, recruiters, or sales.
- Is it for bookkeepers, or only CPAs?
- Both, plus EAs and firm owners who are not licensed. The work in the room is tax, bookkeeping, and advisory, and the tools are the same across all three.
- Do I need to know Claude or Claude Code already?
- No. Most members arrive using Claude or ChatGPT in a chat window. ALFA is where you learn the difference between chat, Cowork, and Claude Code, and when to use each. You do not need to be technical or write code.
- Is my client data safe if I use AI?
- It depends on the tool, the plan, and how you configure it, which is exactly what ALFA helps you work out. Members get our Tool Safety Index, which reads the binding terms of 220+ accounting, tax, and AI vendors and says where each lands for client data. Our baseline: no SSNs, EINs, or bank account numbers in any model, no vendor that trains on your inputs, and your stack and settings documented in your WISP. Where IRC section 7216 applies, we say so and point you to the current rule rather than guess.
- Where do I even start?
- Come to the Weekly Call with the one workflow that costs you the most time. Document intake, proposals and onboarding, and return-status tracking are the three most common first builds.
- What is the Weekly Call?
- A live working session every Wednesday at 2 PM Eastern. Members show real work, bring what they are stuck on, and the group works through it together. It is recorded, and members can watch the recordings.
- What is the Member Brief?
- A members-only email every Friday, in three parts: a close read of the few AI moves that actually touch tax and accounting work, with the numbers named and vendor claims marked as claims; a write-up of what came out of Wednesday's call, including what a member built and what it replaced; and everything else worth knowing in a line each. It is part of membership, not the public newsletter, and every back issue is on the site at /brief, so missing one in your inbox costs you nothing.
- What is the ALFA GitHub?
- Our private GitHub repos of the tools and skills we build in ALFA, ready to adapt for your own firm. Access comes with membership: we send the GitHub invite once you join, and members find the link at the top of the Library.
- Is there a team plan?
- Yes. The team plan is the same Member plan for your whole firm at $24 per seat per month, managed from one account.
- Can I cancel?
- Yes, any time, from your account's billing portal. You keep access through the end of the period you paid for. If you cancel and come back later, you rejoin at the rate current at that time.
- How is this different from a course?
- A course is finished when you watch it. ALFA is a weekly room where practicing accountants show each other what they shipped, what worked, and what broke. Proof, not theory, and it is updated every week because the tools change every week.
- Why does AI make up Code sections and citations?
- Because it is predicting the next word rather than looking anything up. A language model produces the most probable next piece of text based on patterns it learned, so a citation it gives you was composed, not retrieved. A fabricated Code section does not look different from a real one because both were produced the same way. That is why every citation gets verified against primary source before you rely on it. Our free guide, AI for Tax and Accounting Pros, walks through the mechanism and what follows from it.
- Why does AI give me out-of-date tax figures?
- Every model has a training cutoff, the date the text it learned from ends, and it does not know that it has one. Ask about anything after that date and it answers from the last version of the world it saw, with the same confidence it uses for everything else. That lands squarely on inflation-adjusted figures, thresholds, and recent guidance. Treat anything time-sensitive as stale by default, and tell it to search the web and give you the source URL rather than answering from memory.
- What is the difference between Claude chat, Cowork, and Claude Code?
- Chat lives in a browser tab and can only see what you paste or upload, which makes it right for thinking, drafting, and analyzing what you hand it. Claude Code runs in a terminal and works directly on real folders and files, which makes it right for work that lives in files: batch work, building things, and real automation. Cowork sits between the two, working on your files from a normal app window with no terminal. Start in chat. Our free guide, Which Claude Should You Use, covers all three and when each is the right pick.
- Do I need to be technical to use AI in my firm?
- No. Most of the value in year one comes from chat, which has no on-ramp at all: you open it and type. The things that separate useful output from generic output are the context you give it, standing instructions you write once, and the back-and-forth afterward, none of which are technical. Claude Code is the deeper end, and it is worth knowing it exists, but nobody should meet AI for the first time in a terminal.
- Where should a firm start with AI?
- Not with tax prep. Everyone reaches for prep and workpaper automation first, and those carry the most client data and the heaviest review burden. The fastest starts are the firm-running and firm-growing work: turning how you do something into a written SOP, meeting notes into a follow-up list, defining your ideal client and screening against it, or pressure-testing your pricing language. Almost none of that involves client data or tax law, and it is the work most owners never get to.
- Does ALFA offer CPE or IRS continuing education?
- Coming soon.
- Who runs AI Lab for Accountants?
- AI Lab for Accountants was founded by Rebecca Driscoll, CPA, and is co-led by Charlie Barmore, CPA, CFE, CVA.
Still deciding?
Learn more about ALFA, or see what membership includes.