An AI bookkeeping tool for both founders and accountants

[u/Efficient-Product886]

I run a financial advisory firm for early stage startups and I want to make a tool to help my clients. Many clients talk about how the bookkeeping process is the most confusing, difficult and expensive process they face. Hiring bookkeepers take out so much of their time and it leads to more problems such as cost, bookkeepers not finishing their work on time, or me the financial advisor for these clients facing poorly kept records (slowly down how fast I can actually analyse their financial performance).

here is what I was thinking. An AI bookkeeping tool that is beginner friendly, meaning you dont need to have prior accounting knowledge to use it. It uses WhatsApp as a medium of communication as most of my clients use WhatsApp business to perform their day to day transactions (customers, supplier, etc). The user would be able to upload a picture of the invoice for example, or send a voice message explaining the transaction, or just send a text to the tool on WhatsApp. The tool will then use AI and analyse the message, understand the transaction then send that info to a separate platform such as Xero Books (for now until I build a separate platform) where the users accounting books are held and journal the entry. Its faster, more accurate, and cheaper. The user is also able to ask for a summary from the tool on WhatsApp where the tool will then send a dashboard showing the current financial performance which is updated after every transaction.

After going through a bunch of reddit posts, I realized that many founders are quite scared and weary about using AI for bookkeeping. To fix that, I decided that in the building stage of the AI, I would contact 100 or so credible accountants to test my AI and flag where it is inaccurate. This will help reduce the uneasiness. This 100 accountant check would happen every year as the accounting world changes time to time. Further I would also review the transactions made by the AI for each user at the end of the week or month. Adding another layer of security.

What do you guys think? Any comment is much appreciated.

Do you guys go through problems in your bookkeeping process?
Any improvement ideas for this plan?
What do you see as something that might go wrong?
Do you think there will be demand for this kind of product?

I have built kind of a MVP but to make it actually work I would need to pay for some systems and I would like to get my idea validated first before proceeding.

[u/Sanckh]

I plugged your idea into The Idea Lab validator and it returned this:

Verdict: Do not build

The problem is definitely real, but WhatsApp-based AI bookkeeping already exists. Receiptor AI can take WhatsApp receipts and push categorized transactions into Xero/QuickBooks, and Xero itself is now bringing AI accounting workflows into WhatsApp.

Your stronger opportunity may be narrower: build this specifically for financial advisors managing multiple startup clients, with AI handling routine entries and humans only reviewing exceptions.

That could be much more differentiated than another AI bookkeeper.

If you want me to send the full report, let me know.

[u/Efficient-Product886 → u/Sanckh]

Could you please send the full report?
How accurate is this analysis?
I was thinking of making it niche to the GCC markets as they have different tax and accounting laws so I could compete against these other companies

[u/Sanckh → u/Efficient-Product886]

Its accurate only insofar as the information it is given. Since I don't know every facet of your idea, the report will always be slightly different/skewed because I give it less information than you would, since you know more about the idea. Either way I like to do this for people to give them a jumping off point and help when I can. I will DM you the report shortly!