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Client area FR

Accounting firms

Automation foraccounting and bookkeeping firms

Less document chasing, re-keying and repetitive email: more time for review and advisory work.

Estimate my hours
  • Customer messages & requests
  • Documents & admin
  • Custom business tools
Indicative estimate · example: 10 people, around 350 clients

In short

Iselia Projects automates the repetitive work of accounting and bookkeeping firms: chasing missing documents, cleaning up unrecognised transactions, bank reconciliation, answering routine client questions and producing management reports. Connected to the ledger you already use (Xero, QuickBooks, Sage…), these automations typically give each team member several hours back per week, which the firm reinvests in review and advisory work.

Who it’s for
Accounting practices, bookkeeping firms, tax preparers and outsourced finance teams
  • 7tasks quantified
  • 10industry tools supported
  • 5steps in the end-to-end example

Day to day

Where your team loses time.

Useful but repetitive tasks that pile up around the real work. They are usually the first ones that can be automated.

  • Chasing the same clients for paperwork

    Missing statements, receipts sent as phone photos, unexplained transactions: every month, staff email and call the same clients for the same things.

  • Bank feeds that still need cleaning

    Even with receipt capture and bank rules, a share of transactions is miscoded, duplicated or unmatched and has to be fixed by hand before month-end.

  • A suspense account that keeps growing

    Unidentified payments pile up until year-end, then trigger a wave of client queries at the worst possible time.

  • Inboxes full of simple questions

    “Has my return been filed?”, “Can you resend my accounts?”, “What do I owe this quarter?”: dozens of easy replies that break the flow of production work.

  • Deadline season crunch

    Year-ends and filing deadlines cluster into a few weeks; any time lost upstream turns into overtime during busy season.

  • Regulatory change to absorb

    Making Tax Digital in the UK, e-invoicing mandates across the EU, tighter AML expectations: processes have to change without slowing the team down.

Task by task

Where your hours are hiding.

Each row applies the same formula: weekly volume × manual time × automatable share. Volumes match the example “10 people, around 350 clients”.

Indicative estimate for the example “10 people, around 350 clients”, based on conservative assumptions you can edit in the calculator. Not a client result. Hours/week = Σ (volume × minutes × automatable share) ÷ 60 · hours/year = hours/week × 47 · Methodology
Task Volume / wk Time per unit Automatable Saved / wk
Customer messages & requests Chase missing documents and receipts Per-client list of missing items, personalised reminders by email or client portal, tracking of what came back and escalation to the account manager. 60 reminders / week 5 min 70 % 3.5 h
Documents & admin Code and check unrecognised invoices Reads purchase and sales invoices your capture tool missed, suggests account, tax code and supplier, flags duplicates; the bookkeeper approves. 400 documents / week 2 min 60 % 6.0 h
Documents & admin Resolve unreconciled bank transactions Matches unexplained bank lines with available documents, proposes allocations and sends the client one grouped query for the rest. 150 transactions / week 2 min 60 % 3.0 h
Customer messages & requests Answer routine client emails Triages the shared inbox, drafts replies to simple requests (status, copies of documents, deadlines) and routes technical questions to the right person. 80 emails / week 5 min 50 % 3.3 h
Documents & admin Prepare year-end and review files Pre-filled year-end questionnaire, list of balances to support, working papers initialised from the trial balance and prior year. 10 files / week 30 min 50 % 2.5 h
Documents & admin Engagement letters and client onboarding (AML/KYC) Collects ID documents, runs your due-diligence questionnaire, generates the engagement letter from your templates and sends it for e-signature. 3 new clients / week 45 min 50 % 1.1 h
Custom business tools Produce monthly client management reports Revenue, margin, cash position and upcoming deadlines generated from the ledger and sent monthly with a commentary for you to review. 15 reports / week 20 min 60 % 3.0 h
Estimated total · ≈ 1,056 h a year 22.5 h

By type of automation

The estimated hours are spread across these automations, each explained on its own page.

End-to-end example

Example: from missing receipt to approved entry

A typical scenario to show how it fits together: each step triggers on its own, your team approves what needs approving and can take over at any time.

Typical scenario

Human in the loop: approvals, escalations and a log of every action.

  1. Detection

    Every week, the automation compares bank transactions with documents received and builds a per-client list of what is missing.

  2. Personalised request

    The client gets one clear message (email or portal) listing the transactions concerned, with an upload link; a reminder goes out on its own if nothing arrives.

  3. Reading and matching

    Uploaded documents are read, matched to the bank line and a coding suggestion is posted to your ledger as a draft.

  4. Bookkeeper review

    The bookkeeper approves or corrects in one click; ambiguous items are flagged, nothing is posted without their check.

  5. Tracking

    A dashboard shows, per client, what is still outstanding and how much sits in suspense before month-end.

Calculator

What about your business?

The example’s tasks and volumes are pre-filled. Replace them with your own and the result updates instantly.

Compare with other industries
Your tasks

Untick what doesn’t apply and replace the volumes with your own. Example volumes: 10 people, around 350 clients

  • 3.5 h / week

    Per-client list of missing items, personalised reminders by email or client portal, tracking of what came back and escalation to the account manager.

  • 6 h / week

    Reads purchase and sales invoices your capture tool missed, suggests account, tax code and supplier, flags duplicates; the bookkeeper approves.

  • 3 h / week

    Matches unexplained bank lines with available documents, proposes allocations and sends the client one grouped query for the rest.

  • 3.3 h / week

    Triages the shared inbox, drafts replies to simple requests (status, copies of documents, deadlines) and routes technical questions to the right person.

  • 2.5 h / week

    Pre-filled year-end questionnaire, list of balances to support, working papers initialised from the trial balance and prior year.

  • 1.1 h / week

    Collects ID documents, runs your due-diligence questionnaire, generates the engagement letter from your templates and sends it for e-signature.

  • 3 h / week

    Revenue, margin, cash position and upcoming deadlines generated from the ledger and sent monthly with a commentary for you to review.

Average fully loaded cost of one hour of work for the team involved (€35/h by default).

Your estimate

Accounting firms

Hours back per week

22.5 h / week

Hours back per year
1,056 h / year
Equivalent staff cost per year
€36,944 / year
tasks included
7 / 7

Split by type of automation

  • Customer messages & requests 6.8 h
  • Documents & admin 12.6 h
  • Custom business tools 3.0 h

Indicative estimate, based on the assumptions above. No guaranteed results.

Typical scenario Illustrative example, not a real client

Example: a 10-person firm with around 350 clients

Illustrative scenario, not a client case: a 10-person practice (partners, accountants, bookkeepers, an administrator) serving around 350 small-business clients. Using the conservative assumptions above — 60 reminders, 400 documents to fix, 150 bank lines, 80 emails, 10 year-end files, 3 new clients and 15 management reports a week — the indicative estimate is about 22.5 hours back per week, or roughly 1,050 hours a year (47 working weeks). That time goes back into review, busy season and advisory work; actual figures depend on your tools and the state of your client files.

Example size
10 people, around 350 clients
per week
22.5 h
per year (47 weeks)
1,056 h
of staff time at €35/h
€36,944

Integrations

Plugged into your tools.

We connect automations to the software you already use, through APIs, webhooks or exports. No forced migration.

Common tools in this industry that we can connect to: these are not client references. Don’t see yours? We check compatibility during the assessment.

  • Xero
  • QuickBooks Online
  • Sage
  • Dext
  • Hubdoc
  • Karbon
  • TaxDome
  • IRIS
  • Microsoft 365
  • Google Workspace

Why automate an accounting practice now

Bookkeeping and compliance still rely on a long list of small, repetitive actions: asking for an invoice, fixing a misread receipt, identifying a payment, answering the same deadline question. Each takes a few minutes; across hundreds of clients they add up to days every month, mostly concentrated in busy season. Automating these actions does not replace your staff. It gives them time for the work that needs professional judgement.

Regulation is pushing towards structured data

Several changes are reshaping how data reaches the practice. In the UK, Making Tax Digital for Income Tax started in April 2026 for sole traders and landlords above the first income threshold, with lower thresholds planned for later years, which means digital records and quarterly updates for many small clients. In the EU, B2B e-invoicing is spreading: mandatory in Belgium since 1 January 2026, and in France receiving e-invoices has been mandatory for all VAT-registered businesses since 1 September 2026, with issuing phased in through 2027. Structured data helps, but exceptions, rejections and client questions do not disappear. Our automations plug into these new flows rather than duplicating them.

What automates well, and what stays with you

Good candidates for automation:

  • collection: missing-item lists, reminders, portal uploads, acknowledgements;
  • preparation: coding suggestions for unrecognised documents, bank matching, pre-filled year-end questionnaires;
  • communication: replies to simple requests, monthly management reports, deadline reminders;
  • practice admin: engagement letters, onboarding, work-in-progress and fee chasing.

What stays with the firm, by design: approving entries, accounting and tax judgements, review, sign-off and advice. The automation flags unusual cases rather than deciding them.

Points of attention specific to the profession

  • Confidentiality and data protection: client data is only reachable by the workflows that need it, with full logging. Hosting location and AI model (including open-source models) are chosen according to how sensitive the files are.
  • Anti-money laundering: automation can collect ID documents and structure your due-diligence questionnaire; the risk assessment remains yours.
  • Record retention: retention periods depend on jurisdiction (for example six years for UK company records, ten years for accounting records in France); our workflows file and timestamp documents in your existing storage instead of creating a parallel archive.
  • Audit trail: every suggested entry points to its source document, so reviews and inspections stay simple.

Where to start

Usually with the task that recurs every week for every client: chasing documents and clearing unreconciled bank lines. It is also the easiest to measure. The calculator below uses the assumptions on this page; adjust the volumes to your practice for your own indicative estimate, then book a free assessment so we can check it together.

Keep exploring

Automations and related industries.

Automations involved

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From the blog

What happens after go-live? Support plans

FAQ

Your questions, answered.

What professionals in this industry ask us most often before getting started.

How much does it cost to automate an accounting practice?
The 30-minute assessment is free. Each automation is then quoted as a fixed project based on its complexity and compared with the hours it gives back, starting with the one that saves the most time for the least effort. You own what we build, with no lock-in to an opaque platform.
Does it work with Xero, QuickBooks or Sage?
Yes. We connect to your existing stack through APIs, exports or connectors (ledger, practice management, document storage, email, client portal). You don’t have to switch software; the automation extends what your tools already do, including receipt capture.
Is our client data kept confidential?
Yes. Access is limited to what each workflow needs, every action is logged, hosting can stay in Europe and AI models are chosen according to data sensitivity. Processing is covered by a GDPR-compliant agreement consistent with your professional duty of confidentiality.
Can the AI post journals without anyone checking?
No. Automations suggest coding and prepare the work; a qualified person approves. Uncertain items (unusual VAT, capital items, unknown suppliers) are always escalated. Professional judgement and responsibility stay with the firm.
How quickly will we see time saved?
The first automation is usually live within a few weeks, starting with a high-volume task such as document chasing. We then measure the hours actually saved before moving to the next one.
How do e-invoicing mandates and Making Tax Digital change the work?
Structured e-invoices (mandatory for B2B in Belgium since January 2026, and being phased in in France from September 2026) and digital record-keeping under Making Tax Digital mean cleaner data, but not less checking: invoices still need matching, exceptions still need chasing and clients still need guidance. That is where automation saves the most time.

Free assessment · 30 minutes

Your 22.5 estimated hours, checked in 30 minutes.

We review your tasks, your real volumes and your tools, then quantify what you can actually get back. You leave with a clear roadmap, whether or not you work with us.

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