Our story
I have worked in finance for more than fifteen years, first in audit and later in the finance leadership of companies. I spent a large part of that time on annual accounts, tax and bookkeeping. On both sides of the table I saw the same thing: no company found it easy.
That stayed with me for a long time, because the annual accounts are not an exception. Every limited company in the UK has to prepare statutory accounts and file them at Companies House, every year, under the same rules and with the same deadlines. It is the routine of every finance team. And yet the accounts are treated almost everywhere as a one-off: several Excel files, several Word documents, ever more versions. One change, and the reconciling starts again, from the balance sheet to the notes.
That is not the fault of the people who do this work. It is the tools. The powerful software for accounts and tax was built mainly for accountancy practices. For companies themselves there are bookkeeping and invoicing programs that stop exactly where it gets difficult. In between are a great many companies that have their figures, know their business and sign at the end, but have no tool to do this work themselves.
I see that as a real problem, not just an inconvenience. Annual accounts are more than an obligation. With them a company accounts to everyone who relies on its figures: shareholders and banks, suppliers and customers, its own employees and the public. Preparing the accounts carefully and on time is part of a company's responsibility. Anyone who takes that responsibility seriously should have tools that help rather than stop short.
For a long time there was little that could change this. The work was too varied for software: trial balances from different systems, last year's accounts as PDFs, wording for the notes and the directors' report that has to fit the company. Artificial intelligence has changed that. It now does the groundwork, the rules of company law and tax law are built into the software, and the decisions stay with the company. For the first time, the whole route from the trial balance to accounts prepared for filing fits in one program.
That is why I started this: first in Germany as Jahresabschluss.io, then in the Netherlands as jaarrekening.io, and now in the UK as StatutoryAccounts.io. We started with the annual accounts; in Germany and the Netherlands, bookkeeping and tax followed because customers asked for them. There are many good programs that record and process receipts and invoices, and they do their job well. The problem is that none of them, not even the modern ones, covers the whole route. To finish the work you still need an adviser, or a second and a third program. Back then we found no software with which a company could complete its bookkeeping, tax and annual accounts in one place. With us, the work sits in one place in the cloud, on the same figures.
We hold ourselves to a few principles. Companies should have their accounts in their own hands and understand what they sign, on their own or together with their accountant. What something costs is fixed in advance. The AI prepares, the company decides. And where the software falls short, we say so honestly.
Accountants and bookkeepers remain important partners. They can work with their clients in the same software, routine work takes less time, and more time is left for advice.
Our goal is that every company in the UK can prepare its statutory accounts and Corporation Tax return carefully and on time, with software that makes every step traceable.
B. de Jong, Founder of StatutoryAccounts.io, Berlin
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