Be a Refounder, Not an Heir" - What That Means for Your Accounting

The Business Times published a piece last week by Leonard Loo, CEO of Voltade, arguing that SME owners fall into two groups: heirs and refounders.

Heirs inherit systems and preserve them. Refounders preserve the purpose of the business while reinventing how value is created. Over time, refounders tend to outperform.

The article made a specific point about AI that applies directly to accounting.

AI automates coordination - the administrative work that keeps a company moving. Leads get qualified automatically. Quotations generate without anyone copying data between spreadsheets. Supplier invoices flow straight into the accounts.

In accounting, that means reconciliation happens in the background. Bank feeds match transactions without manual entry. GST returns pull from records that are already accurate. Month-end closes in hours, not days.

Loo's key insight: "Automating coordination is the beginning, not the destination. What an owner does with that newly freed capacity is what separates an heir from a refounder."

Productivity alone is a ceiling. The real growth comes from what you do with the time you get back.

For most SME owners, that time goes to the things that actually move the business - pricing strategy, cash flow planning, supplier negotiations, customer relationships. These are decisions that need a human who knows the industry from the inside.

The businesses getting this right aren't the ones with the biggest AI budgets. They're the ones whose owners understand their industry deeply enough to know where AI fits and where it doesn't. They've used accounting software long enough to trust their numbers. When the system handles the routine, they focus on the strategy.

That's the refounder mindset. Not replacing your finance person. Not automating everything at once. Starting with the foundation - accurate, automated accounting - and using the freed-up capacity to build something new.

The question isn't whether AI will change your industry. It's whether you'll be the one leading that change, or the one reacting to it.

Source: The Business Times, 09 Jul 2026
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/singapore/smes/be-refounder-not-heir-family-business