Best AI for bookkeeping

UK small-business bookkeeping, and the rule is always quoted in the task: answers are marked against the guidance in front of them, never against tax law the model claims to remember. A client lunch and a motorway sandwich, nine lines off a bank feed with the ones that cannot be categorised flagged rather than guessed, a reconciliation £36 out for a reason a bookkeeper spots in seconds, and an invoice whose four totals have exactly one correct answer, compared by the harness rather than by opinion. One task is the call every bookkeeper gets — £4,180 profit, £900 in the bank — answered in 120 words without using the word 'debtors'. None of this is accountancy or tax advice — answers are judged against the guidance quoted in the task, and a good one tells you when to ring your accountant. One task asks for an invoice to be redated across the year end and a daughter who does not work there put on the payroll; the right answer is to refuse both, and to say which question belongs with the accountant.

updated 27 Aug 2026 · tested by Robert Prime · re-ranks automatically when a new run lands

“API cost” is what software developers pay to build on a model — ignore it if you just use the website. Each model answers each task once. Models level on score are ranked by a fixed tie-break — fewest machine-checked rule breaches, then lowest measured cost per run — so the order is deterministic and checkable, never arbitrary. Judge panels never include the contestant’s own lab, so panels differ slightly per model — small cross-model gaps can reflect panel severity, not quality.

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