What do you get when you mix thirty years of bookkeeping experience, a creative brain, and a deep dislike of wasting time? You get someone who doesn’t just accept inefficient processes. You get someone who goes looking for better tools and finds them.
Michelle Irwin, a registered BAS agent and the owner of For the Books, has seen bookkeeping evolve from handwritten ledger books to fully cloud-based systems. Today, she runs a firm that serves SMEs across Australia, using AccountKit to automate the parts of bookkeeping that used to take hours.
And when you hear what those parts are and how much time she saves, you’ll probably wonder why you’re still doing it the hard way.
Michelle started out reconciling bank accounts manually in ledger books. "One of them was one cent out and my boss made me find it to teach me a lesson," she recalled. That lesson stuck, but so did her desire for better systems.
Today, she’s 100% cloud-based, works entirely in Xero, and leans on automation wherever it makes sense. AccountKit is a permanent part of her tech stack. Not because it is trendy, but because it saves time, improves accuracy, and lets her offer better service without working longer hours.
So what’s the shortcut? Just three tools inside AccountKit that handle:
Let’s break that down.
If you’ve ever managed inter-entity loans manually, you’ll know how messy it gets. One of Michelle’s clients has eight entities that regularly transfer money between each other. Without the right tools, that means hopping between files, checking lines one by one, and hoping nothing gets missed.
With AccountKit, it takes one click to match everything that balances. Michelle only needs to focus on the outliers.
“It easily saves me two to three hours a month, just for that one client,” she says. “And it’s not just the time. It’s the accuracy. I can’t bill a client three hours just to reconcile between their own accounts, but the work still needs to be done properly.”
Another big win is with equipment loans. When a client buys a car, Michelle sets up the loan and interest schedule in AccountKit. The system handles the postings automatically. She doesn’t have to touch it again.
“No stress. I just check that it’s all green down the page,” she explains.
Even if there’s a small difference between the supplier’s figures and the system’s calculation, it’s usually immaterial. More importantly, the figures are accurate throughout the year, not just cleaned up at year end.
If she had to go without it?
“I probably wouldn’t touch equipment loans at all. I’d just post the purchase and leave the rest for the accountant. It’s too much effort to calculate different interest amounts each month manually.”
Prepayments used to mean setting up recurring journals, managing the balance each month, and hoping it all lined up on the balance sheet. Now, Michelle sets them up once in AccountKit and reviews the summary each month to make sure it all ties together.
“We don’t do it exactly the way the system suggests, but it still works. The accounts are accurate and the P&L is clean, with things like insurance and work cover spread over the full year rather than hitting in one lump.”
She’s clear about the benefit. Without automation, she likely wouldn’t bother prepaying some items at all. It just wouldn’t be worth the manual effort.
The core benefit of using AccountKit across these areas isn’t just about time saved. It is about being able to deliver accurate, accrual-based bookkeeping at a price clients are willing to pay.
Without automation, the work would either be unaffordable or unprofitable. With it, Michelle can keep her workload manageable and still maintain a high standard of reporting.
“It lets me offer a higher level of service that would otherwise be too time consuming,” she says.
Michelle isn’t just using AccountKit for what it offers now. She’s keeping an eye on what’s coming next. Document storage, workflow automation, and client collaboration features are all on her radar.
She’s been trialling some of the new features and has already seen improvements since she first looked at them a year ago.
“I wasn’t impressed at first, but the updates have made a big difference. I’ve got a demo coming up to look at the full workflow tools, and I’m keen to see how far it’s come.”
Her ideal setup includes a centralised workflow where she can assign tasks, track deadlines, and know exactly what has been done. That visibility is especially useful when managing staff or planning for succession.
“If I ended up in hospital tomorrow, I want to know someone could log in, look at the file, and know exactly what to do.”
Michelle’s used a lot of systems over the years. What keeps AccountKit in her stack isn’t just the features. It is the responsiveness of the team behind it.
“The support team is great. I’ve never had a bad experience. And they actually improve the product based on feedback.”
When she first saw automations in AccountKit, she wasn’t convinced. Now it is part of her daily workflow, and she’s looking forward to seeing what else it can do.
For Michelle, AccountKit has gone from a nice-to-have to something she couldn’t imagine running her firm without.
“Even if it never added anything new, I’d still keep it for those three things: inter-entity loans, prepayments, and finance schedules. It’s a permanent part of my tech stack.”
She’s seen the full journey, from ledger books and rulers to efficient, automated workflows. While some bookkeepers still hang on to old habits, Michelle’s approach is clear. Let tools do the grunt work so you can focus on the parts of bookkeeping that matter.
So if you’re still manually managing inter-entity loans, recurring journals, or prepayments, ask yourself this.
How much time are you losing each month, and what could you be doing with it instead?