I was at the QB Connect event in Calgary this week. Not surprising, the hot topic was AI. As a finance professional coming from a tech background I went to all the AI presentations.
One of the things I noticed as a bookkeeper is that much of the AI depends on having clean data already in the accounting software. Since a lot of work I do is in Catchup and Cleanup bookkeeping, I was very interested to find out how people were using AI to get the information INTO the bookkeeping software.
Anyone who works in the rescue bookkeeping space knows how bad the information can be. Receipts are faded, sometimes written on, sometimes coffee stained, often times missing. You know, real life receipts from real customers.
My mission was to find out from tech enabled service providers using AI, how they handled the imperfect data that we get from our clients.
I heard stories about trying to use various tools like Claude to interpret receipts once scanned in. Machine produced perfect receipts are not a problem. Easy and fairly reasonable priced tools like HubDoc and Dext have existed for years that can handle this. Some of the accounting software providers are starting to include this feature right in the product.
Where the solutions still need a ‘real’ bookkeeper is for those receipts that aren’t perfect. Very complex AI systems still struggle with receipts that are crinkled, coffee stained, written or even contain a ‘received’ stamp.
This is some areas where I see the tools struggle:
A restaurant receipt with two different type of taxes (thank you British Columbia) and a tip.
Border receipts from imported goods GST is randomly applied and sometimes the whole transaction.
Receipts with a mix of taxable/non taxable line items
Receipts with handwritten notes.
Missing receipts
While these don’t represent ALL receipts, they aren’t unusual.
And what was the solution I heard for the imperfect data? Yep, you guessed a real human person verifying and coding the information.
A few more ‘tech-enabled’ firms are using tools like Claude to help – I am not sure yet about the security in using AI but I am not an expert in this space.
So while it isn’t 100% there yet, there are some ‘secure’ tools that can help do the heavy lifting. For the complex or unusual – you still need a competant bookkeeer.
Cleanup vs Catchup bookkeeping - whats the difference?
You’ve been meaning to get to your bookkeeping, but you keep putting it off. The pile of receipts and invoices on your desk is getting bigger and bigger, and your anxiety is growing with it. Don’t worry; you’re not alone! Many business owners fall behind on their books.
When you’re ready to get back on track, I can help. I offer two services that will get your finances in order and your peace of mind back:
Catch-Up Bookkeeping and Clean-Up Bookkeeping.
What’s the difference?
Catch-Up Bookkeeping: Think of this as filling in the gaps. If you have months (or years) of unrecorded transactions, we’ll work together to enter everything into your accounting system so your records are current and complete.
Clean-Up Bookkeeping: This service is for when your books are incomplete and filled with errors. Whether it’s due to incorrect entries, duplicate transactions, or an unorganized chart of accounts, I’ll clean up the clutter and get your books accurate and reliable.
Often, businesses need both services to get completely caught up. A backlog of unrecorded transactions can easily lead to a disorganized and error-prone accounting system.
Ready to clear the clutter and get your books in shape? Let’s chat and create a plan to get your business finances organized and stress-free. Send me a message, and let’s get started!
So why did I do this? For years I have been providing custom migration services from pretty much any other software to QuickBooks Online. This year I noticed something different. Suddenly I was getting requests to migrate FROM QuickBooks Online and most of the requests were to ZohoBooks.
What?! Why the sudden interest in migrating to ZohoBooks?
Migrate to ZohoBooks
Especially from QuickBooks Online. I suspect it is due to a combination of the rapid price increases by Intuit plus all the changes to the QuickBooks platform (often without notice and just as often not well tested). If any one has thoughts on this, I love to hear it in the comments.
I don’t really know why the increased interest in ZohoBooks, what I do know is that it seemed like time to take a look at migrating to ZohoBooks. Since I am an expert at migrating accounting systems – how hard could it be? (Spoiler – not hard at all).
So I created an account on ZohoBooks and started looking around. I did find quickly the places where information could be migrated, so I just jumped in.
Migrating to ZohoBooks is like migrating to any other accounting package, first you set up the basics, Chart of Accounts, Customers, Suppliers/Vendors, Item List and opening balances. Sample import templates are easily found.
Importing information was straightforward. I really liked how ZohoBooks does a validation and gives a summary report on the state of the file to be imported BEFORE you do the import. This gives you an opportunity to go back to the file and make any corrections. You can also download the actual error file as well so you can go through all the lines in your import file and make any corrections.
For my test, I chose to upload journal entries. Mostly because I have a code base that already turns an export from QuickBooks into a file ready to be imported. It was easy enough to customize this and create an import ready journal file specifically for Zoho Books.
I couldn’t find anywhere a limitation on the lines in the import file and I tried some with varying number of lines. All seemed to import fine although bigger files can take some time. One thing I would have liked to see is a status on how many records have been imported, there’s just a swirling icon that indicates the progress.
Once my import was completed, I compared the Trial Balance with my test data and it all balanced quite nicely. It is my second day with Zoho, but I was able to create a number of custom reports quite quickly.
I went on to import open Invoices and Bills and setup the GST/HST. Reconciled the bank, and I was done!
It wasn’t EXACTLY the same and there are something in QBO that I did still like better. I created a chart showing the differences I found between migrating to QBO and migrating to ZohoBooks.
Feature
Zoho
QBO
Winner
Import
Clean, opportunity is given to download any errors and stop the import.
Clunky. If there is an error must screen print the error. No way to pre-check before importing
Zoho
Import line limit
Doesn’t appear to have a limit
Limited to 1000
Zoho
Documentation
Documentation for Zoho leaves a lot to be desired. Account types were misspelled, and some type were missing in the import documentation. In some cases, there was no documentation at all for some of the fields.
Very good. Lots of information and videos available.
QBO
Account name structure
Zoho doesn’t allow subaccounts to share name. All subaccounts have to have a unique name. Makes it clunky to name accounts.
QBO Allows subaccounts to have the same name. This is very handy when you are structuring a chart of accounts.
QBO
Interface
Zoho interface was clean and consistent between all modules. The current file in use was always displayed at the top right-hand side of the screen.
QBO screens do not consistently display the file name you are working on. When I first started migrations, I inadvertently picked my own file to import a chart of accounts because the import screen doesn’t show the file you are on.
Zoho
Multicurrency
Even though the file was set to multicurrency, I wasn’t able to create a Foreign AP or AR account. All transactions had to be converted to CAD, so not sure how this works in real life.
QBO lets you create multiple AR/AP accounts (actually forces you to create them for each currency).
QBO for now because it just might be I don’t understand completed how Multi-currency works in Zoho.
Customers/Vendors/Suppliers
Can have the same name
Names must be unique between Customer and Vendor/Suppliers. Causes a lot of duplicate entries.
Zoho
This was my first shot at migrating to ZohoBooks and I feel like it was a success. There are a lot of similarities between migrating to ZohoBooks and migrating to QuickBooks Online. Because it was the first one, I had a lot of manual work in excel to get the imports just right. Once I work through my process the actual migration steps will be very similar to migrating to QuickBooks Online.
Now the next time someone asks me about migrating to ZohoBooks, I can confidently say YES I can do it!
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