AIP Podcast EP 72 – Smarter Bookkeeping and Month-End Close with AutoAccru’s AI

This episode’s guest, Kulan Kahadugoda, Founder and CEO of AutoAccru, joins host Anne to uncover how AI is transforming one of the world’s oldest professions—accounting. Kulan shares how a frustration with bookkeeping led him to build AutoAccru, now recognized as one of Canada’s Top 100 AI Startups, and how their agentic AI doesn’t just process data but understands businesses, learns nuances, and makes real decisions. He dives into the idea of “usable AI,” tackling the trust gap by showing how accounting firms can confidently rely on automation without losing oversight. Additionally, Kulan highlights how AutoAccru complements existing platforms like QuickBooks, addresses the accounting talent shortage, and enables firms to save time while serving small businesses more effectively. Tune in to learn how AutoAccru is reimagining accounting with intelligent, practical AI that drives efficiency, trust, and growth. 

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The AIP Podcast is hosted by Anne Cheng, on behalf of the AI Partnerships, a Railtown company

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Ever so often we meet a person who builds a business out of a problem that he or she personally faces. Often we test our hypothesis by demonstrating how we solve a problem to see if the problem is common enough and then to identify solutions that fall below one's expectations. When the problem is common enough, it takes great courage to challenge the way it's always been done, which is the subject of a podcast today. Hello everyone and welcome back to yet another episode of the AIP podcast. Once again, I am your host and Chenning, and today my guest is Kulin Khadgoda. Kulam is the founder of AutoAccru, an AI company that is transforming an industry that has been steeped in tradition for centuries. Accounting. Hailed by Scale AI as Canada's top 100 AI startups. AutoAccru aims to get everything an accountant will do done and then a bit more. Welcome, Kulan, to our show. Let's dive right in.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Awesome. Thank you so much, Anne.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Coolan, you stumbled into this startup somewhat unexpectedly. Tell us that story.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Yeah, for sure. It's commonly said the best things uh are found by things by people who are not looking for those things. Um, and that is the case here. Um my co-founder and I, we were running a totally separate business in the sustainability logistics space when we realized that bookkeeping and accounting was the part we hated the most about our running our practice. Um every month uh it was such an annoying thing for us to do, and we always dreaded doing it. Um, and out of pure frustration, we started building some internal tools to make our own bookkeeping less painful. Nothing fancy at first, and obviously only something for us to see, but uh one day um our accountant saw what we were using, and he came over and said, Hey, what is that? Um and you know, he said, Can I use it? And we said, sure, why not? So we threw it on our website, gave him a login, and the rest is history. Um since then he's been using it, he's told all of his friends about it, and uh, we're now running a business that we uh didn't really intend to.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

That's uh really, really p uh peculiar for a story, but you know, the need is immense. Accounting is really quite a fragmented industry, and of course, so are the tools that aid accounting professionals. So, how is your solution different from the rest?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Yeah, that's that's a great question. It's one that we get often. Um there are a bunch of amazing tools in the space, and each that solves its own problem. Um, you know, the receipt capture software does a really good job of being like a digital filing cabinet. The ledgers do a great job of recording transactions, the practice management platforms do a great job of organizing work, organizing teams, and organizing clients. But the problem is none of the solutions take action. They're all they're all tools designed for your team to use, not to work alongside your team. Uh, they don't understand the businesses that you serve and they don't make decisions. Auto crew is agentic. It doesn't, it's designed to work with your team, not just for your team. You can say, hey, this client is a restaurant, um, their food purchases are inventory, and it'll actually understand what that means and take decisions accordingly. Um it's uh it it it understands the businesses and uh it learns the nuances over time. Um newer solutions like Keeper do a little bit of what we do, which is the month end close automation, and while they're moving in the right direction, they're still kind of bogged down by the traditional way that software has worked in this industry, um, working through checklists and being a little bit too rigid. Um we're building AI that thinks like a bookkeeper, not just one that follows predefined rules.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

It's amazing. You know, you mentioned during a pre-show call that you were obsessed with usable AI. Can you talk me through what usable AI is and why is it important?

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Yeah. Um as we kind of got on in this journey, um, one of the things we've been most surprised by is how excited and intrigued our customers and the firms in this industry are about AI. Um, the problem is that the AI that they use is fairly useless. Um and what I mean by that is a lot of the suggestions that they get, um, there's no way for them to know which ones uh the tools are confident in, which ones are not, how is it, how did it come about? Um AI being a black box is a big problem for this industry. It makes it so that you can't trust what it's giving you. Um and we know that AI doesn't have all the answers and it won't be able to do all the work. The really important thing to make it usable is for it to be able to identify what it can and can't do and do so confidently. Um, our platform tells you hey, this 2%, this 5%, this 10% of transactions, you don't have to review. Don't worry about them. Um, and obviously that number grows over time as the AI learns, gets feedback. Um, but that's been a really, really key differentiator in making this uh AI that's usable in practice.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

That's brilliant. There are a lot of solutions in the market today, as you mentioned, and from NYOB or Mind Your Own Business to QuickBooks, and of course, a lot of them are already integrated with artificial intelligence solutions that do what they call the heavy lifting, as you alluded to. Do you think Autoacrew would be one that complements these tools? Or do you think it might one day replace them?

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Yeah. Um, we absolutely complement these existing systems. Um, right now we're kind of in an intelligence layer that sits on top of whatever tools the firms use. Um, you know, think of it this way: QuickBooks is a really good filing cabinet, but somebody needs to decide where things should go. Um, this intelligent assistant is the one that understands your business well enough to actually make those decisions reliably. Could we eventually replace some of those tools? Possibly, but that's not really our immediate focus. For right now, Canadian accounting firms are struggling with a talent shortage and increasing client demands. Our goal is to make the existing workflows dramatically more efficient and not force them onto entirely new platforms. Nobody needs all that extra work right now.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

That's brilliant and absolutely true. You've been recognized as one of the top 100 um AI startups in Canada. So, what's next for you and how do you think you would be able to get there?

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yeah, um it's it's uh recognition we've been really proud to receive, um, but we're really just getting started. Um we're we're laser focused on saving time per client per month. That's the metric we track and the one that we look at every single day. Um so as we expand our capabilities, we will, you know, uh get that number further and further down. Um different industries, different types of clients have different needs. We're still learning a lot of this stuff. Um and uh there's still more integrations that people need, right? A lot of accounting firms use different types of tools. So we're we're navigating those types of things. But what gets us most excited is that we're solving a real workforce workforce challenge in an industry that's absolutely critical to the Canadian economy. Um, every small business needs good good bookkeeping um coming from a small business that needed it too. Um and we're super proud to be making that more affordable and accessible. And you know, when accounting firms can serve their clients more efficiently, uh, that means financial small businesses get the financial advice that they need to thrive. Um that's what we're super excited about, and uh we can't wait for what's next.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Cool, and it's been so refreshing to speak with you, and I'm glad that we've got you on our show. So, listeners, once again, thank you for tuning in. Remember, liking, following, and sharing our episodes does so much for us, and we'd be grateful that you did. Until next time, I'm An Cheng, your host of the AIP podcast, and my guest today was Kulan Kahadugoda of Auto Accru.