Exploring the Intersection of Accounting and AI - Nov 2025
The Accounting Firm Landscape
Most business owners don't care much about accounting. That's true from my personal experience too.
They hire an accounting firm that keeps their books fresh. These firms care only about accounting.
A16Z partner Seema Amble, mentions that firms are a good entry point.
I saw many firms on Youtube managing 50 clients or more. They make rules for each client, hire employees mostly in India, or SEA countries, and serve SMBs in US.
QuickBooks Dominance and Pain Points
Quickbooks is the undisputed champion.
QBO does ingestion, categorisation, matching. Although many people hate it online and call it inaccurate. It says it learns from your work, but in reality it doesn't seem to. The UI is also a common complaint. Slow and laggy.
Agency Management Tools
There is also a suite of tools aimed at agency management. Like Double and monday.
Process documentation also seems to be a recurring pain. I saw one YouTuber using Google Docs. Jason on Firms suggested to use Guidde and one comment on the video praised Guidde
Accounts Payable Automation
There is a power tool called MakersHub that automates accounts payable.
General Ledger Competitors
There are tools like Puzzle.io and Digits.com that are going directly after Quickbooks with their own General Ledger.
There are three YC companies that also seem to be building their GL: Truewind, Minerva and Tabula
The companies that build GL tend to target companies, not agencies.
There is also Kick that has individuals on their testimonials page.
Although QBO is the undisputed king, AI GL tools are popping up and claiming territory like DualEntry and Light. QBO seems to be the common man's bookkeeping tool.
AI-Powered Analysis and Advisory
A hard thing that accountants do is spot anomalies. If expenses shoot up, or income dips or is on a down trend. Then suggest mitigations. Xbert helps you write prompts on your data to do this on autopilot.
Accountants give "advice" to clients after reading their books. It's the perspective that numbers give you. Aider is a company that does this on autopilot.
Spreadsheet Automation
Excel and Google Sheets always stay in the background. It's like a calculator for tabular data, so codegen with AppScript and Python is something advanced and curious accountants partake in.
Community and Where Accountants Gather
Accountants hang out on Facebook groups. There are many women-led (Bookeeping moms group) bookkeeping firms. They also seem to have a community on YouTube and Reddit: r/Accounting, r/Bookkeeping r/smallbusiness r/pf_tools
Summary Table of Accounting Tools
| Tool Name | Category | Employees | Location | Pricing Summary | LinkedIn Followers | X (Twitter) Followers | G2 Rating | G2 Reviews | Self Signup | Money Raised | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aider | AI Advisory | 17 | Contact Sales (no free tier) | 2,108 | 465 | 0 | No | ~$4.6 M | Website | ||
| Digits | GL (General Ledger) | 94 | San Francisco, CA | $35–$100/mo (Starter/Core plans; free trial; Pro custom) | ~36.6K | Yes | $97.5 M | Website | |||
| Guidde | Documentation | 59 | Freemium (free plan available; paid plans for teams) | 8,754 | 1,869 | 4.8 | 76 | Yes | $30 M | Website | |
| Double | Agency Management | 20 | New York, NY | $10–$50 per client/mo (tiered plans; no free tier) | 5K | 5.0 | 75 | Yes | $12.5 M | Website | |
| Kick | GL (AI Bookkeeping) | 692 | Palo Alto, CA | Free up to $25k expenses; $35–$125/mo paid plans (14-day trial) | 5K | Yes | $9 M | Website | |||
| MakersHub | AP Automation | ~10 | Austin, Texas | $99–$249/mo (tiered by AP volume; 21-day free trial) | 1K | 4.9 | 28 | Yes | $11.5 M | Website | |
| Minerva | GL (AI Accounting Firm) | 5 | Contact for pricing (AI-driven accounting service) | No | (n/a) | Website | |||||
| Monday | Agency Management | 3,018 | $8–$16/user/mo (Free tier available) | 4.7 | 17,226 | Yes | $234.1 M | Website | |||
| Puzzle | GL (Generative AI) | ~84 | Free for <$20k txn; paid plans $25–$85/mo (14-day trial) | Yes | $50 M | Website | |||||
| QuickBooks | GL | 18,200 | $30–$200/mo (tiered plans; no free tier) | 4.0 | 3,569 | Yes | (n/a) | Website | |||
| Tabula | GL (Europe SME) | 5 | (n/a) | Website | |||||||
| Truewind | GL (AI Bookkeeping) | 30 | San Francisco, CA | 6K | No | ~$17 M | Website | ||||
| Xbert | AI Analysis | ~18 | Yes | (n/a) | Website |
Conclusion
Accounting and LLMs are a great fit. But accountants resist change. Also, accountancy needs a GL UI. Agents need to be able to talk to the GL. There is space to build here. Research more.