When you provide a service that is difficult for clients to see or understand, how do you help your clients understand the value of what you give them? Your team may be spending lots of valuable resources and time to get the numbers right, but can your client even tell? And do they even care if their books are correct? I’ve heard from Pilot’s competitors that one of the top reasons Pilot customers jump ship is that the client gets tired of fixing errors and babysitting the bookkeeping.īut, of course, that’s assuming that the client knows enough about accounting to realize that their books aren’t right.Īnd this gets to one of the major points I’ve tried to make to accounting firm owners:Īccounting firms provide a mostly intangible service. In a “fully” automated solution, the business owner gets stuck fixing errors and figuring out what went wrong. I know of at least one more traditional cloud accounting firm that has built in-house technology to automate coding of close to 80% of transactions. We know that Botkeeper, an outsourced bookkeeping technology vendor, has claimed that they can automatically categorize 60% or more of transactions using their proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm. The big question for small businesses considering outsourcing their books is: Who do you trust to crunch your numbers and how much work do you want to do to get your numbers right? How far can technology go in delivering accurate financials and numbers? So Pilot’s mission to use technology to drive down the cost of delivering bookkeeping and tax services resonates.īut I do think that fast-growing startups like Pilot will encounter difficulty delivering the quality of service that clients expect from accountants. To be clear, I don’t have anything against Pilot.įor years, I’ve been shouting from the rooftops (well, more like from behind my podcast microphone) that bookkeepers and accounting firms need to adopt cloud accounting technologies.

So I thought it would make sense to compile an up-to-date list of alternatives to Pilot that small business owners and startup founders might want to consider. However, I’ve heard from multiple sources in the accounting community that their quality and support sometimes leave something to be desired. You might think that with all that money, Pilot would be delivering an amazing Amazon-like level of customer service. That’s right - the founder of Amazon has invested in what is essentially an accounting firm. In March, Pilot achieved a crazy high $1.2 billion valuation after a new $60 million funding round that included Jeff Bezos’ personal venture capital firm Bezos Expeditions.

Pilot is yet another Silicon Valley-style startup aimed squarely at disrupting the accounting profession, offering bookkeeping, tax, and CFO services for a flat monthly fee. If you listen to my #1 accounting podcast, the Cloud Accounting Podcast, you’ve probably heard about Pilot.

Bench bookkeeping competition