I thought bookkeeping software problems were accounting problems. I was wrong.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been talking to bookkeepers/accountants while validating an idea called ClarifyBooks.
What surprised me is that almost nobody complains primarily about “bookkeeping.”
The bigger pain seems to be operational chaos around bookkeeping:
- chasing client replies
- missing receipts
- scattered communication
- reopening transactions later because context got lost
- trying to remember why something was categorized a certain way
- info spread across emails, texts, spreadsheets, QBO notes, etc.
A few people mentioned tools like Double, Dext, Financial Cents, Jetpack Workflow, etc.
So now I’m trying to understand something deeper:
Is the real problem actually:
“keeping operational context organized before month-end becomes a mess”?
Feels like there may be a bigger opportunity around workflow/context management than accounting automation itself.
Would love to hear from people building in accounting/bookkeeping SaaS or firms dealing with this internally.
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Yeah this matches what I’ve been thinking too.
I have some ERP experience and used to work at a Big Four firm, and now that I’m starting my own business, I keep looking for ways to automate bookkeeping because honestly I really don’t want to hire an accountant too early lol.
My feeling is the biggest pain is not just “can this tool categorize transactions better.” It’s more about everything around bookkeeping.
Upstream, the tool needs to pull together data/files/context from other workflows: receipts, reimbursements, invoices, bank transactions, etc. And for more complex businesses, maybe even supply chain or ERP data. By the time something hits the ledger, a lot of the context is already gone.
Downstream, I also think there’s a lot of value if the bookkeeping tool can make tax filing, reporting, and compliance prep easier, instead of just giving you cleaner books.
So yeah, I think the real opportunity is probably not just AI bookkeeping, but a better context layer across the whole finance workflow.
I’m also trying to find early testers through Reddit, but I noticed it’s easy to get filtered if the post sounds too much like promotion. I’m now trying to focus more on problem validation and commenting in relevant threads instead of posting links directly.
This is a sharper insight than “AI bookkeeping.” The real wedge seems to be context loss before the books are even touched: missing receipts, scattered client replies, old transaction decisions, and the back-and-forth that makes month-end messy.
I’d probably position ClarifyBooks less as bookkeeping software and more as an operational context layer for bookkeeping teams. That makes the product feel broader and more urgent, because firms are not only trying to categorize transactions faster, they are trying to stop the same missing-context problem from coming back every month.
One thing I’d watch is the name. ClarifyBooks explains the current category, but if the opportunity is really workflow/context management for financial operations, it may become narrow quickly. A more expandable SaaS-style name like Beryxa.com could give the product more room if it grows beyond bookkeeping into finance ops workflows.