Cosmin Nicolaescu

Cosmin Nicolaescu

CEO and Co-Founder

Accrual

Cosmin Nicolaescu is the CEO and Co-Founder of Accrual, an AI-powered accounting platform. Accrual automates complex workflows, centralizes client data, and helps firms scale high-quality tax and assurance work without adding operational burden. Previously, Cosmin was CTO at Brex, where he helped scale the company from 40 to over 1,000 employees and hundreds of millions in annual revenue. Prior to his leadership at Brex, Cosmin was an early engineer and manager at Stripe, building global payments infrastructure and launching Stripe Terminal. He began his career at Microsoft, working on early versions of Azure and Office 365.

Featured Sessions

Tuesday, May 19, 2026
1:55 pm

As accounting firms face mounting capacity constraints, increasing return complexity, and pressure to deliver faster turnaround times, many are looking to AI for answers. But moving from experimentation to real-world deployment raises important questions around trust, workflow integration, and maintaining professional standards.

In this case study, leaders from Armanino, a Top 20 accounting firm, will share how they partnered with Accrual to introduce AI directly into live tax operations.

  • Explain the rollout steps Armanino used to introduce AI in live tax work while keeping reviewer accountability clear
  • Identify the workflow steps where AI reduced manual preparation work and sped up review, especially in complex returns with heavy source documentation
  • Understand how Armanino is using Accrual to improve client-facing steps in complex returns by making document submission easier and reducing time spent collecting and reconciling source documents