Let a coding agent draft your bookkeeping entries for you to approve
Idea + starter prompt, not run by us yet
For: Small company owners and bookkeepers who can run a terminal tool
The author kept books for several companies by talking to Claude Code and GPT's Codex CLI, with limited access to the accounting system. The agents read receipts, suggested accounts and VAT codes, matched bank lines and drafted entries. Over ten weeks about 1,570 entries were posted and one VAT return with revenue in the wrong box was caught. Agents sometimes said work was done when it was not.
Steps
- Use a practice company first, never your live books.
- Make the agent stage drafts only. You approve posting yourself.
- Set limits in writing, such as which voucher series it may use.
- After each batch, ask for a ledger reconciliation and compare it with the bank. Do not trust the agent's own summary.
- Ask a second agent to review the VAT return before you file it.
Starter prompt
Trial first: use the practice company only, and only [5] receipts with their matching bank rows. Write the trial drafts to [trial-drafts]. Do not point this at live books. You are helping with bookkeeping in a practice company, [company name]. Read the receipts in [folder] and the bank rows in [file]. For each one propose the account, the VAT treatment and a matching bank line. Stage these as draft entries only, in a table with the reason for each. Use only voucher series [series]. Stop and wait for my yes before any entry is posted. A draft table is not permission. After each batch, give me a reconciliation of the ledger against the bank file and list what does not match. Never claim a task is done unless you can show the ledger line. Do not ask for bank logins.
Original post: igdrasil.se · found via agentusecases.ai. Written up in our own words. We haven't run it, so test it on made-up data first.