Last week, I told you about how I’ve been frustrated with the bookkeeping process for my small business for 10+ years.

I wrote about it here - I'm Building My Own Accounting Software

I’ve made a ton of progress and want to update you.

My current bookkeeping company is affordable [only $1,500 for the entire year for 2 different entities], but the problem is the friction involved in the process.

And you know I hate friction.

The problem I had is not their cost. It was how much of my time and how much of a pain it was for me to work with them to get the necessary info.

So I built using Claude Code + Plaid’s Free Trial for 10 connections.

I maxed out my 10 Plaid slots [I didn’t think I would do this], and that’s with some slots having multiple accounts where the transactions get linked — see image.

But I needed all 10 because I added personal accounts and 2 LLC accounts.

[What can I say, I’m a credit card hacker at heart — so I needed the slots! — it’s also why I created https://creditcardtracking.com/ for myself 😁]

This past week, some cool things stood out.

I grabbed some screenshots when interesting output happened.

The one that blew my mind the most was this one 👇

I thought that I had added all of my credit cards correctly.

Then it found a hole in the data.

It reviewed and guessed that we were missing household spending.

Which led me to look and realize that we had not yet connected one of our household credit cards!

This is truly the sign of a smart collaborative partner that’s drawing conclusions and digging deep.

It easily confirmed duplicates of entries and removed them.

It also helped normalize transactions — you know, where on one card it may say *Uber567 and another may be *Uber-Ride-cc757 [I still don’t get this, but I digress].

I also sent it additional transaction data to help give more context.

The way each credit card company does things is different.

Numbers you’d expect to be negative are shown as positive.

Positives shown as negative.

Maybe this doesn’t confuse accountants — but it does for your average dude (me).

The tool was able to catch on.

It even went down the wrong path for a bit, but came back and reversed course.

Ok, so the company that does my current bookkeeping is sending final financials for my 2025 this week [yes, I know, I’m behind].

I’m sending both sets to my CPA.

If my newly formed financials work, then I’m ending my contract with my bookkeeper.

But listen carefully.

I’ve been asking them for years if there’s an easier way for us to work together.

And I’ve increased that ask over the last 3 months.

I put the ball in their court to find a solution — but while their process is fine, it’s stuck in 2015. They ask for statements, review them, and then send me a spreadsheet to clarify transactions.

That’s just not good enough in 2026.

I know, $1,500 for bookkeeping is cheap. But the hours I burn every year answering their spreadsheet aren't.

Hey, maybe my output is trash, and I only use it for personal finance reference.

Time will tell.

But I’ve said this before.

You must start using AI tools to get more efficient in your business.

This is what I’ll continue to tell college-aged students as well…

Ok, I’ll update you after my CPA has a look!

What are you using for your process?

If you missed these from last time… 👇

If you haven’t used Google Search Console in a while, here’s a nice little bonus.

You can now add the following web properties — Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube.

What does this mean?

You can now see what search terms from Google traffic is sending traffic to those platforms.

Pretty cool!

If you want to get a deep dive into watching how I work with Claude Code to build sites, this video is for you 👇

Other projects I’ll update over time (or provide future updates) include…

If I can help your business apply AI and reduce friction, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Until next time!