AI-Powered Accounting in Business Central

AI-powered accounting in Business Central helps you reconcile bank transactions by proposing matches and posting accounts. Start with the client’s bank records, inspect each suggestion and confirm what the chosen action saves or posts before accepting it.

Find the Supported Accounting Task

Microsoft documents bank account reconciliation assist as two tasks: finding additional transaction matches and suggesting general ledger accounts for unmatched amounts. Ordinary automatic matching runs first. Copilot then considers the remaining transactions. A suggested account comes from the transaction description and account names, which gives you a starting point for review.

Use Business Central online. Copilot is included with its Business Central licence, but on-premises installations cannot use it. Microsoft lists reconciliation assist for all supported country versions, including Australian English. An administrator must activate the capability and resolve any required permission to process data across geographies.

Before opening client records, confirm your access to the correct company and bank account.

Bank reconciliation assist requires access to proposal pages 7250 and 7252. Keep the client’s existing accounting permissions appropriate to your role.

The selected feature works on bank transactions and accounting entries. An explanation of an account is a different output from a proposed match. Posting a new payment changes records. Neither an account suggestion nor a fully matched statement establishes an Australian tax treatment.

For other tasks, use the practical AI guide for accountants. The AI bookkeeping guide covers broader coding and reconciliation review.

Review the Client’s Source Records

Obtain the original bank statement and the documents explaining unresolved transactions. Confirm the account belongs to the client entity you are reviewing. Match the statement period and ending balance to the reconciliation. Check each amount and transaction date against the underlying document, then establish why the client paid or received it.

Follow this sequence for an existing reconciliation:

1. Open Bank Account Reconciliations and select the client’s reconciliation. Confirm the bank account and statement details before proceeding.
2. Supply the bank statement transactions through the client’s established import or bank connection. Copilot does not retrieve them from the bank itself.
3. Run Reconcile with Copilot and inspect its proposed matches against the source records. Check every entry making up a combined payment.
4. Record the decision in the practice’s approved workpaper or review record. Keep the source reference and your reason for accepting, correcting or returning the item.

Consider this fictional example. A company’s bank statement shows a $900 customer receipt. Two existing bank account entries record receipts of $550 and $350. The remittance names the same customer and invoices, and the receipt dates fit the statement period.

Suppose Copilot proposes matching the $900 statement line to both entries. Staff can accept that proposal after confirming the remittance and the correct entity. The arithmetic is $550 + $350 = $900. If the remittance instead identifies another invoice, staff discard the proposed match and ask the client to explain the allocation.

The review record can state that the remittance supports both entries, or that the allocation remains unresolved. An equal total alone cannot explain the payment’s purpose.

Keep Changes Under Staff Approval

Inspect proposals before selecting Keep it. Delete Line removes a proposal. Discard it abandons the proposals. In matching, Post if fully applied posts a fully matched reconciliation when you select Keep it. Leave that option off for a separate posting review.

Post difference to G/L account proposes accounts for unresolved amounts. Review the account and journal template and batch. Keep it posts new payments and applies statement lines. Treat that confirmation as a posting decision.

After accepting matches, review the reconciliation test report and check the resulting balance against the statement. A remaining difference calls for an investigation of missing entries or an incorrect match. Use the ordinary reconciliation tools to correct the affected item.

If an error has already been posted, identify the entry and follow Business Central’s documented correction procedure with the authorised reviewer. Recheck the reconciliation and any affected accounts afterwards. Do not assume that generating a replacement suggestion reverses a completed posting. The AI agent permissions guide explains the wider distinction between suggestions and authorised actions.

Tax Genie Supplies Checked Client Details

Tax Genie prepares client information for your practice through a guided form. Rule-based checks cover formats, register matches, consistency between answers and missing documents. AI then reviews the answers for common client mistakes after every Tax File Number (TFN) has been removed.

Tax Genie emails fixable issues to the client and reopens the affected sections on the same private link. Corrected details reach your engagement letter and your tax software, saving time spent chasing answers and typing them again. Staff can choose which checks run.

That client preparation is a separate job from reconciling transactions in Business Central. Use the AI client onboarding guide to prepare complete client answers. For the Business Central review, finish with the source records, the accepted accounting entries and the reconciliation balance agreeing.