How to integrate custom AI bookkeeping into your firm

Part of the reason for this is that these firms have staff who have worked on the same clients, using the same software and the same workflows, for years or even decades. They’re highly efficient at what they do, and changing these processes feels cumbersome for them. They feel they’re already working well enough and don’t see much benefit in the change.

We help firms like this still get the benefits of AI by building custom solutions that don’t disrupt how the team works and keep change to a minimum. These solutions work within the firm’s existing workflows. One example of a high-leverage area is AI bookkeeping in combination with your Excel workpapers, for smaller clients who still send in bank statements or don’t have accounting software.

AI is excellent at this, and it can be set up on your current drive and folder structure, especially if you use OneDrive or SharePoint.

Most accounting firms already save each client’s yearly documents in that client’s folder, including:

• the workpapers
• the bank statements (where relevant)
• the prior year information
• relevant email correspondence

An AI agent can read across all your client folders, so your staff keep saving documents the way they always have.

We then build a secure dashboard that syncs with your folders and gives your staff a single point of login. From this dashboard, the agent automates your manual bookkeeping tasks with standardised skills developed for your firm. It reviews the job, and staff can also ask it questions about the job. It can connect to the accounting software your clients use too, for review purposes.

This is a viable alternative to upskilling your whole team on Claude, Copilot or another AI agent platform. Taking Claude as an example, each staff member needs their own account and has to learn an entirely new platform. Each user also has to build their own library of skills, and sharing those skills across a team isn’t straightforward. If a staff member who has built up their own library leaves the firm, their skills leave with them, and they become difficult to replace.

With the custom approach, the skills are standardised and built for your firm, so everyone works from the same set. It fits into the way they already work, which makes it easier for them to adopt. The skills also stay with the firm so when someone leaves, new staff can be brought into your processes quickly, and the work is done the same way across the team.