The short answer
Sort the work by what has to be true when the task finishes, not by what the software appears able to do. Some UK filing is already compulsory through commercial software. One client check is named as acceptable in the Money Laundering Regulations 2017. Most of the rest produces a draft that a named person still has to adopt. The remainder is not reliable enough to leave alone, and the band, not the technology, decides which is which.
Key takeaways
- The question that sorts every task is what the rule at the end of it will accept, which is a question a demo is built to avoid.
- Filing is already the compulsory band: the joint accounts and Company Tax Return service closed on 31 March 2026.
- Companies House has moved software-only accounts filing to April 2028, not the April 2027 that most commentary still carries.
- Regulation 28(19) names an electronic identification process as acceptable, which makes onboarding checks the clearest case for handing work over.
- A supplier who can name what the workflow writes to is describing something real. One who names a capability instead is describing the middle of it.
The assumption behind almost every demo a practice sits through is that the constraint is capability. Show that the software reads an invoice correctly and the argument is won. It is the wrong test, and an expensive one: a practice that buys on capability discovers the limit at the point of use, months later, when somebody has to put their name to what came out.
The real constraint is at the other end of the task. Every piece of work in an accountancy practice finishes with something being true: a filing accepted by a system that takes one format, or a set of figures adopted by a person who carries the consequences of adopting them. Those endings are published, and they sort the work far more cleanly than any assessment of what the technology can manage.
Four bands, and the rule at the end decides which one you are in
Two tasks that look equally mechanical can sit in different bands, because the difference is not in the task, it is in what happens after it. Reading a bank statement and reading a set of management figures are the same operation to the software. One ends in a reconciliation the practice can check against a source. The other ends in advice, which somebody signs.
CompulsoryThe route is already software, by law
Accounts and Company Tax Returns, and the accounts reform that follows
Not a purchase decision. The only question left is which product, and whether the practice has moved yet.
NamedA regulation names an automated process as acceptable
Regulation 28(19), Money Laundering Regulations 2017
The strongest case for handing work over, because the standard the tool must meet is written down rather than asserted.
Draft onlyThe output is a proposal a named person adopts
Anything ending in advice, an opinion, a judgement or a signature
Genuine time saved, and the saving is in the drafting rather than in the deciding. The review does not go away.
Not yetNo rule at the end, and no reliable output either
Nothing external tests the result, so errors surface late or never
Interesting in a demo. In a practice it creates work that looks finished, which is worse than work that looks unfinished.
Band one is not a forecast, and part of it closed in March
A practice filing company accounts is already using commercial software for one of the two returns, whether or not it framed that as automation. The joint service for company accounts and Company Tax Returns closed on 31 March 2026, and from 1 April 2026 those returns go to HM Revenue and Customs through a commercial product. The second half arrives later and is larger. Companies House confirmed on 9 June 2026 that from April 2028 every registered company must file accounts in iXBRL through commercial software, and that the registrar's web and paper routes for accounts close on the same date. Web filing survives for everything that is not accounts.
The date is worth holding precisely, because it moved. The reform was widely reported for April 2027 and a good deal of the commentary still says so. A supplier who quotes 2027 at a partner meeting is reading second-hand, which is a cheap test to run on somebody claiming to understand the practice's obligations better than the practice does. The registrar also publishes the software it has tested, so the shortlist for this band is not a matter of opinion at all.
Band two: the one check the regulations describe in terms
Client onboarding is the strongest candidate in a practice, because the standard an automated check has to meet is set out in the statutory instrument rather than in a sales deck. Regulation 28(19) of the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 accepts information obtained through an electronic identification process as coming from a reliable source independent of the client, provided that process is secure from fraud and misuse and capable of giving assurance to the degree the money laundering risk requires.
Read the rest of the regulation before treating that as the whole job. Paragraph (2)(c) separately requires the firm to assess the purpose and intended nature of the business relationship, and no identity product does that. A supplier proposing to automate onboarding is automating one requirement inside a regulation with several, which is useful and is not the same thing. It is also the kind of gap that explains why two quotes for the same brief come back multiples apart: one has scoped the paragraph, the other has scoped the regulation.
Before the demo
Not sure which band your task is in?
Free to your firm. The agency pays us, and only if the relationship works, which is why we would rather tell you a job is already a setting in your practice management software than introduce somebody to build it again.
Get a recommendationThe ordinary work of a practice, sorted
Eight tasks that come up in almost every conversation, against the band each one actually falls into. The pattern is not that the hard work resists automation. It is that the drafting of nearly everything is available and the adopting of it is not.
- Filing accounts at the registrar
- CompulsoryiXBRL through tested software from April 2028
- Verifying a new client's identity
- NamedAccepted by regulation 28(19) at the stated standard
- Pulling figures off a purchase invoice
- Draft onlyChecked against the ledger, so an error surfaces quickly
- Bank reconciliation exceptions
- Draft onlyThe match is proposed, the write-off is a decision
- Chasing records before a deadline
- Draft onlySequence and tone are yours, sending is not a judgement
- Drafting a client email or letter
- Draft onlyThe saving is in the first version, never in the sending
- Explaining a variance in management figures
- Not yetReads plausibly, and nothing in the process tests whether it is right
- Deciding a treatment or a position
- Not yetSomebody signs it, and a confident draft makes review harder
When a practice should not automate anything yet
Two conditions make the whole exercise premature, and neither is about the technology.
- The process has never been written down. Automating it does not document it, it fixes one person's version of it in software, and the partner group finds out which version at handover
- The task runs a few times a year. A build plus an annual review will consume more partner attention than the task ever did, and volume is the only thing that repays either
Saying so costs us the introduction fee, because we are paid by the agency and only when a relationship works. It is the right answer often enough to be worth writing down. When a supplier is genuinely needed, four different kinds of company answer that brief and file different trade codes. What we assess before recommending anyone, including the cases where we recommend nobody, is set out for accountancy practices and specialist tax advisory teams.
Frequently asked questions
What partner groups ask us about automating practice work.
What can AI actually automate in an accountancy firm today?
Work where nothing at the end of it requires a person to form a judgement. Extraction, matching, drafting, routing and chasing all qualify. The useful test is not how capable the software looks in a demo, it is what the rule at the end of the task will accept.
Is any of this already compulsory for a UK practice?
Yes, for filing. The joint service for company accounts and Company Tax Returns closed on 31 March 2026, so those go through commercial software now. Companies House has confirmed that from April 2028 all accounts must be filed in iXBRL through commercial software, and its web and paper routes for accounts close on that date.
Can client identity checks be done by software?
Regulation 28(19) of the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 accepts an electronic identification process as a reliable, independent source, provided it is secure from fraud and misuse and gives assurance appropriate to the risk. The same regulation separately requires the firm to assess the purpose and intended nature of the relationship, and that part is not an identity check.
How do you tell a working tool from a demo?
Ask what the workflow terminates in and who is accountable for the output. A supplier who can name the product or the record the automation writes to is describing something that exists. A supplier who answers with the capability rather than the destination is describing the middle of a process and leaving the practice to build the ends.
When should a practice not automate anything yet?
When the task has not been written down, because automating an undocumented process fixes one person's version of it permanently. The other case is a task that runs a handful of times a year, where the build and the annual review will cost a practice more partner attention than the task ever consumed.
Sources and useful reading
- Companies House to bring in changes to accounts filing from April 2028, published 9 June 2026, for the iXBRL requirement and the closure of the web and paper routes for accounts.
- Closure of the service to file your company accounts and Company Tax Return, for the 31 March 2026 closure date and what replaced it.
- Regulation 28, the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds Regulations 2017, for paragraph (19) on electronic identification and paragraph (2)(c) on the purpose of the relationship.
- Find software for filing company documents, for the products the registrar has tested.
This article is commercial decision support and is not legal or regulatory advice. Dates for the accounts reform have already moved once and may move again. Whether an electronic identification process meets regulation 28(19) is a judgement for the firm.