For Accountants and Bookkeepers: Cleaner Records, Not a Replacement

Our position: preparation, not practice

FinnAccountings prepares. It connects a client's business bank account through Open Banking, reads and matches receipts, categorises transactions, tracks what is missing, and assembles VAT and bookkeeping packs. Then it stops. It does not submit to Revenue Online Service or HMRC, it does not produce statutory accounts, and it does not offer an opinion that anyone could rely on for filing.

That boundary is deliberate and it is not a roadmap gap. Software has no legal accountability for a return. A Chartered Accountant in Ireland, or an ICAEW or ACCA member in the UK, does. Any product that blurs that line is either overselling or quietly transferring risk to a client who does not understand they have accepted it.

So the honest description of what we sell to your client is: fewer gaps in what they send you, and less time spent asking for it. The honest description of what we do not sell is judgement.

• Prepares VAT and bookkeeping records; does not submit them anywhere
• No statutory accounts, no accounts production, no tax computations you would sign
• A Chartered Accountant team reviews AI output — as insight, never as sign-off
• The client stays responsible, and the page they read says so too

What actually changes on your side

The practical difference is in what arrives. A client using the product hands over a period with categorised transactions, receipts already matched to the bank line they belong to, and an explicit list of the transactions that still have no document against them. That list is the useful artefact — it turns a vague request for missing paperwork into a specific one the client can act on.

Categorisation suggestions show their reasoning rather than appearing as a finished answer. Where the product is uncertain, it flags rather than guesses. That matters because the failure mode of confident automated bookkeeping is not obvious errors, it is plausible ones that survive review.

Everything is exportable. Records and documents belong to the client and can be taken out at any time, in a form you can work from, without a per-export charge or a retention negotiation.

• A per-period list of transactions with no matching receipt
• Categorisation with the reasoning attached, not a black-box result
• Uncertain items flagged for review rather than silently assigned
• Export packs the client owns and can hand over whenever they choose

The AI question, answered directly

Practitioners are, in our experience and in the published evidence, tired of being told AI will replace them. It is worth saying where we stand: we do not think it will, and we have not built the product on that premise. The bookkeeping judgement calls that actually matter — is this capital or revenue, is this genuinely wholly and exclusively for the business, does this VAT treatment survive scrutiny — are exactly the calls a language model should not be making unsupervised.

What we optimise for instead is auditability. Sage's own chief executive has argued publicly that accountants will not trust black-box AI, and the practitioners' stated test of good software is how easy it is to find and fix errors, not how much it automates. That is the test we build against. Every suggestion can be traced to the transaction, document, or rule it came from.

There is also a commercial point worth being blunt about. Several vendors have used AI as the justification for price increases, and their users have noticed. We are not charging separately for AI, and we do not intend to introduce an AI line item.

• Auditability over autonomy — every suggestion traceable to its source
• Uncertain classifications surfaced, not resolved silently
• No separate AI charge, and no plan to add one
• No marketing that positions the software as a replacement for your work

What we have not built — read this part

There is no partner programme today. No revenue share, no tiered status, no free practice subscription, no partner directory listing. If you are comparing us against an established vendor's partner offering, we do not have one and it would be misleading to imply otherwise.

There is no practice-side product. No multi-client dashboard, no bulk onboarding, no workpapers, no practice management, no accounts production, no white-label. A client invites you into their own workspace; you do not manage a portfolio from a single console.

There is also no independent track record yet. We are a newer product with a small user base and little third-party review history. For a practice deciding what to recommend to clients, that is a legitimate reason to wait, and we would rather you weighed it than discovered it later.

What does exist is a shared workspace with multiple users and an account-administrator role, so a client can bring you in and control what you see. That is the extent of it today.

• No partner programme, revenue share, or practice subscription
• No multi-client dashboard, bulk onboarding, or practice management
• No accounts production, workpapers, or white-label option
• Short track record and thin independent review history — weigh it honestly

Ireland and the UK are handled separately

The two markets are not the same product problem and we do not treat them as one. Ireland runs a bi-monthly VAT cycle filed through ROS, with a VAT 3, a 19th-of-the-month rhythm, and PAYE Modernisation for anyone with employees. The UK runs quarterly VAT under Making Tax Digital, Self Assessment, and RTI payroll, on a mandate timetable that is already live.

Pricing is set in euro for Ireland and pounds for the UK — not a single currency with a conversion applied at the card. It is a small thing that signals a larger one: several established products still bill Irish subscribers in US dollars.

For clients with employees, be aware of the boundary. Payroll here is drafts only and sits on the top plan. It is not a payroll bureau and it does not submit to Revenue or HMRC. Clients running payroll properly will need dedicated payroll software alongside, in either jurisdiction.

• Ireland: bi-monthly VAT 3 rhythm, ROS references, euro pricing
• UK: quarterly VAT under MTD, Self Assessment, RTI, pound pricing
• Payroll is drafts only, top plan only — not a bureau in either market
• Neither market gets the other's copy pasted over it

How to talk to us

We would rather hear from a small number of practices in detail than launch a programme nobody asked for. If your clients are contractors, consultants, freelancers, or one-person limited companies in Ireland or the UK, and receipt-chasing is a real cost in your workflow, that is the conversation we want.

Useful things to tell us: how many clients sit in that profile, what you currently receive from them and in what state, which part of the hand-off costs you the most time, and what would have to be true before you would recommend a newer product to a client.

Being direct about the exchange: early practices get direct access to us and disproportionate influence over what gets built, particularly on the practice-side gaps listed above. What we cannot offer yet is a commercial arrangement, because there is not one to offer.

• Best fit: practices with contractor, consultant, and one-person-company clients
• Tell us where the hand-off actually costs you time
• Early practices shape the practice-side roadmap
• No commercial arrangement available yet — we will say when there is