Good annual accounts do not start with the accountant, but with tidy books. The fewer items left on a suspense account and the better your balances reconcile, the faster and cheaper the year-end work. That groundwork is exactly the kind of searching and comparing an AI assistant is good at.
Can AI prepare the annual accounts?
No, and that is not the point. Drawing up and signing the annual accounts remains your accountant's job. What an assistant connected to Exact Online can do is the groundwork: check which periods are still open, retrieve balances per G/L account, show the age of your receivables and payables at 31 December, and find the items still sitting on a suspense account.
The checklist, with the tool per step
| Step | What you want to know | Tool |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Periods | Which periods and journals are still open? | financial_periods_list, financial_journalstatus_list |
| 2. Balances | Balance per G/L account, opening balance and movements | financial_reporting_balance_search |
| 3. Result | Revenue, costs and result for the year | financial_profitloss_get |
| 4. Receivables and payables | Outstanding per account, by age | financial_aging_receivables, financial_aging_payables |
| 5. Suspense accounts | What is still on suspense and clearing accounts? | financial_transactions_search |
| 6. Corrections | Prepare a general journal entry (Advanced) | financial_generaljournal_create |
Prompts per step
- "Which periods of 2025 are still open, and in which journals?"
- "Give the balance at 31 December 2025 of all balance sheet accounts, including the opening balance."
- "Which entries are still on the suspense and clearing accounts, with date, amount and description?"
- "Produce an aging analysis of receivables at year end and name everything older than 90 days."
- "Compare revenue per G/L account for 2025 with 2024 and name the biggest differences."
The last one is often the most useful: an account that suddenly comes out at half of last year is usually not a business development, but an entry on the wrong account.
What to know about the figures beforehand
The balances come from the reporting balances in Exact Online, and those are refreshed once a day. If you book corrections during the day and want to see the new position straight away, refresh the data first via Settings → Cache → Load changes. Mind the sign as well: in the reporting balances revenue is a credit, so it is negative.
Exact Online without and with an AI connection
| Exact Online without an AI connection | Exact Online with Ledger Botje (MCP) | |
|---|---|---|
| Compare balances per account with last year | export two reports and put them side by side | one question, biggest differences first |
| Go through suspense accounts | open the movements per account | all open items in one list, with description |
| Draw up the annual accounts | accountant | accountant — with a tidy file |
Where the limit is
The assistant does not judge whether an item has been treated correctly for tax purposes, and it does not book depreciation, provisions or accruals on its own initiative. With Advanced it can prepare a general journal entry, but whether that correction is right is your decision — preferably together with your accountant.
So start well before the deadline: have the list of open points made, clear them, and run the same questions again a week later. Whatever is still left is worth the conversation with your accountant. Also read speeding up the month-end close with AI — whoever tidies up every month has little to do in January — and finding duplicate invoices. All tools are in the tool catalogue.