Claude Sonnet 5 vs Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview for bookkeeping

The verdict

Claude Sonnet 5 wins, 8178

Same 12 bookkeeping tasks, marked blind by three rival labs. Claude Sonnet 5 took 5 tasks, Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview took 4, 3 tied. Tested 18 Aug 2026.

Where they differed most

The task — The client lunch and the sandwich

Guidance excerpt: 'VAT incurred on business entertainment provided to people who are not employees cannot normally be reclaimed as input tax. VAT on subsistence — reasonable meals and drinks for employees, or for the business owner, while travelling on business — can normally be reclaimed if you hold a valid VAT invoice. Where one bill covers both employees and non-employees, only the employee element may be reclaimed. A card receipt that does not show the supplier VAT number is not a valid VAT invoice.' The situation: Ray runs a VAT-registered building firm. In March he has two receipts. One is £86.40 for lunch with a prospective client, at which he also ate; it is a card slip with no VAT number on it. The other is £14.20 for his own sandwich and coffee at a motorway services on the way to a site 90 miles away, with a full VAT receipt. Answer using only the excerpt above — your answer is marked against that excerpt, not against outside knowledge. Take each receipt in turn, say what happens to the VAT and to the cost itself in the books, and say plainly which point here is one to put to his accountant rather than settle from the excerpt.

# Receipt 1: £86.40 lunch with prospective client

- **The VAT**: This is business entertainment provided to someone who is not an employee (the prospective client). Per the excerpt, VAT on entertainment for non-employees "cannot normally be reclaimed as input tax." Even if Ray's own meal element could theoretically be separated out, the excerpt states this receipt is a card slip **with no VAT number on it**, so it does not qualify as "a valid VAT invoice" at all. Without a valid VAT invoice, no input tax can be reclaimed regardless of the ente…
Based strictly on the provided excerpt, here is the treatment for each receipt:

**Receipt 1: £86.40 lunch with a prospective client (card slip, no VAT number)**
*   **What happens to the VAT:** No VAT can be reclaimed. The excerpt states that VAT on entertainment provided to non-employees (the prospective client) cannot normally be reclaimed. While the excerpt notes that on a joint bill the employee/owner element can normally be reclaimed, it also explicitly states that a card receipt without a supplier VAT number is not a valid VAT invoice. W…

Task by task

TaskClaude Sonnet 5Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview
The client lunch and the sandwich57
Categorise, and admit what you cannot89
The invoice totals1010
Find the £3633
Profit but no money98
Not your decision to make108
The faded shoebox89
It is my company, it is my money67
The mileage claim108
Capital or revenue108
Quote, invoice, receipt97
Refuse the backdated invoice99

Full receipts: Claude Sonnet 5, Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview · judges gemini-3.1-pro-preview, gpt-5.6-terra, grok-4.5

Questions people ask

Which is better for bookkeeping: Claude Sonnet 5 or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?

Claude Sonnet 5 — it scored 81/100 against 78/100 on our 12-task bookkeeping suite, winning 5 tasks to 4 with 3 tied. Every answer was marked blind by three judges from three rival AI labs.

How was this tested?

Both models answered the identical published bookkeeping tasks. Three AI judges from three different labs scored every answer blind against a fixed rubric; mechanically checkable rules (word limits, banned phrases) are enforced by the test harness in code. The raw outputs and judge verdicts are downloadable.

More bookkeeping head-to-heads: Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.6 Sol · Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview vs GPT-5.6 Sol · Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.5 · Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview vs GPT-5.5 · Claude Sonnet 5 vs Grok 4.5 · Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview vs Grok 4.5

Full ranking: Best AI for bookkeeping · model pages: Claude Sonnet 5, Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview