Frequently Asked Questions

Most businesses are live in under 20 minutes. Connect your bank account or upload a CSV export, and BookkeeperAI categorizes the last 90 days of transactions automatically. You review flagged items, confirm the category logic, and go. No week-long onboarding. No consultant handoff. If you hit a snag, live chat is staffed Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 6 PM PT.

BookkeeperAI is built for business owners and office managers who are not accountants. The language is plain, the workflow is visual, and the AI explains every categorization decision in one sentence so you understand the reasoning, not just the result. Most customers run day-to-day operations entirely in-house and invite their CPA into the platform only at tax time -- which takes about 15 minutes to set up.

Primary fit: service businesses with 1 to 50 employees -- contractors, agencies, clinics, salons, shops, consultancies. The AI is trained on the expense patterns and revenue structures common in these industries, so it categorizes correctly out of the box rather than guessing based on generic accounting theory. Product-heavy businesses with complex inventory may find specialized inventory software a better complement.

Yes. The 14-day free trial includes all features with no credit card required. You can connect a real account or import sample data to test the categorization engine. At the end of the trial, if you have not upgraded, your data is preserved read-only for 30 days and then deleted -- we send two reminders before that happens.

All data is encrypted in transit (TLS 1.3) and at rest (AES-256). Bank connections go through Plaid, the same infrastructure used by most major US fintech apps. We never store raw credentials. Our servers run on AWS in US-based regions with SOC 2 Type II compliance audited annually. A full security report is available on request.

No. Your data never cross-contaminates another account. The AI model uses your own confirmed categorizations to improve its future suggestions only for your account. When we improve the underlying model using aggregate patterns, we use fully anonymized, aggregated signals -- no transaction amounts, no vendor names, no account identifiers. Your books stay yours.

Always. Export your full transaction history, categorization log, and reports as CSV or PDF at any time from Settings. If you are migrating to another platform, our export matches QuickBooks import format so you do not need a data consultant. We believe in making it easy to leave because it is the only way we earn the right to keep you.

Role-based access is built in. Owner accounts see everything. You can invite bookkeepers with read/write access to transactions but not bank settings. CPAs can be added as accountant-view-only -- full ledger visibility, no ability to change categories or settings. Invite links expire after 48 hours, and you can revoke any user instantly from the team dashboard.

Accuracy on first categorization runs at approximately 91 percent across our customer base, rising to 97 percent after two weeks of corrections as the system learns your patterns. When the AI is uncertain, it flags the transaction for your review rather than guessing silently. You correct it with one click, and the system applies that correction logic to all similar future transactions automatically.

Yes. Connect as many accounts as your business uses -- operating checking, savings, business Amex, Stripe, PayPal -- and BookkeeperAI reconciles them into a single ledger view. It automatically detects and flags potential duplicate transactions when the same payment appears in two places (common with Stripe payouts and bank deposits). Reconciling across 4 accounts takes the same workflow as reconciling one.

Cash transactions are entered manually via the quick-add panel on mobile or desktop. You can photograph a receipt, and the AI extracts vendor, amount, date, and suggested category automatically. Petty cash accounts work the same as any other account -- you set an opening balance, enter withdrawals, and the system flags when the running balance diverges from what you expect.

The P&L updates in real time as transactions are categorized. You can view it by month, quarter, or custom date range, and toggle between cash and accrual basis. The report flags unusual variances -- a category that is 40 percent higher than the prior month -- so you notice before your CPA does. Export to PDF for your bank, your accountant, or your own records in one click.

Pricing is based on the number of connected accounts and monthly transactions. The Solo plan (1 business account, up to 300 transactions/month) is $29/month. The Business plan (up to 5 accounts, up to 1,500 transactions/month) is $79/month. The Growth plan (unlimited accounts, up to 5,000 transactions/month) is $149/month. All plans include unlimited users, all reports, and live support. Annual billing saves 20 percent.

None. No onboarding fee, no per-user fee, no charge for adding your accountant. If you exceed your plan's monthly transaction limit, we notify you before charging an overage -- you always have the option to upgrade your plan or export and remove old data first. We do not auto-upgrade you without explicit confirmation.

Yes. Upgrades apply immediately and are prorated to the day. Downgrades take effect at the end of your billing period. Cancellations are self-serve from the billing settings page -- no retention call, no support ticket required. If you cancel a paid plan, you revert to free read-only access for 30 days so you can export before leaving.

Bank connections use Plaid, which covers 12,000+ US financial institutions including all major national and regional banks, credit unions, and credit cards. Direct integrations are available for Stripe, PayPal, Square, and Shopify Payments -- these sync automatically every 4 hours and pull richer metadata than a bank feed alone.

Zapier and Make (formerly Integromat) integrations are available for connecting to invoicing tools like Jobber, HoneyBook, FreshBooks, and others. A direct API is available on Growth plan for custom integrations. If you use a niche tool that lacks a Zapier connector, contact us -- we evaluate connector requests monthly and have shipped integrations for popular service-industry platforms within 6 weeks of request.

Most CPAs use BookkeeperAI data alongside their existing workflow by exporting a quarterly or annual CSV/PDF and importing it into their software of choice. For firms that prefer a direct connection, we offer a read-only API token your accountant can use with their own tools. We do not require your CPA to adopt a new platform -- they work in theirs, you work in ours.

Import takes about 10 minutes. Export your QuickBooks data as a CSV, upload it to BookkeeperAI, and the importer maps your existing chart of accounts automatically. Historical categorizations come over with it. You will likely need to review 15 to 30 items where the mapping was ambiguous -- the importer surfaces those specifically and explains why each one needs a manual decision.

No. Import brings over your full transaction history, and historical P&L reports are generated from that data immediately. If your accountant asks for a P&L for a year that predates your BookkeeperAI start date, you can still run it as long as you imported that year's data. We recommend running parallel for one month before canceling your QuickBooks subscription as a sanity check.

Customers who have used QuickBooks for years typically say the adjustment takes 2 to 3 weeks before the new workflow feels natural. The hardest part is trusting the AI to categorize rather than doing it manually from habit. Our in-app onboarding includes a 5-day email sequence that specifically addresses common QuickBooks-to-BookkeeperAI transitions, and live chat is available if you get stuck on something that used to work a specific way in QuickBooks.