Founded in 2015, Botkeeper is an automated computer-based service meant to replace manual labor at bookkeeping firms. The virtual bookkeeper supports your accounting practice through machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). It was developed to handle your bookkeeping with more accuracy and efficiency than a regular bookkeeper.
Botkeeper charges a platform fee starting at $1,000 per month, plus a client entity fee that starts at $55 for its basic package and $165 for its advanced plan. The service is praised by users for its automation capabilities and multientity accounting. However, it has been reported that the software can be difficult to navigate and that the pricing can be steep if you have a large volume of clients.
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Pros
- Helps accountants service their clients better by reducing data entry
- Offers unlimited connections and transactions
- Features strong data security
Cons
- Is compatible only with QuickBooks and Xero software
- Has no free trial
- Charges $1,000 per month for the base platform fee
Pricing |
|
Free Trial | ✕ |
Assigned a Personal Bookkeeper? | ✓ |
Supported Bookkeeping Software | QuickBooks Online and Xero |
Additional Cost for QuickBooks or Xero Software | ✓ |
Full-service Payroll Available? | ✕ (only payroll administration) |
Bookkeeping Clean-up | ✓ |
Tax & Consulting Services Available | ✕ |
Standout Features |
|
Customer Support | Telephone, email, and live chat |
Average User Reviews | Botkeeper received high marks for its automation features and ability to accommodate accounting firms and other accounting professionals; its drawbacks are the lack of a dedicated mobile app and tax services |
- Accounting firms offering bookkeeping services: If you own an accounting firm that has bookkeeping services, you can use Botkeeper to handle basic transaction processing. Instead of entering transactions, you can focus on more profitable client services, like business consulting and tax planning.
- Accounting professionals including certified public accountants (CPAs): Botkeeper will help to offload daily bookkeeping tasks like data entry, reconciliations, and classifications and allow accountants to focus on higher-level client-advisory services.
- Multilocation and enterprise businesses: While geared predominantly toward accounting firms, Botkeeper allows your large business to perform multiple-entity accounting, going beyond your core business pipeline to automate accounting for your associates, affiliates, and subsidiaries.
Botkeeper Alternatives & Comparison
Monthly Pricing | Catch-up Bookkeeping | Account Reconciliations | Invoicing & Bill Pay | Payroll Integration | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Starts at $1,000 for platform fee, plus a client entity fee that starts at $55 for Basic and $165 for Advanced | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ |
 | $499 to $699 or custom pricing (billed annually) | ✓ | ✓ | Additional fee | ✕ |
 | $200 to $600, plus QuickBooks Online subscription ($30 to $200) | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | Additional fee |
 | Flat fee of $190 | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ |
Best For | Learn More | |
|---|---|---|
| Businesses seeking a controller or CFO: Botkeeper won’t handle year-end work or create supporting schedules to the books, such as depreciation and deferred revenues. Pilot offers CFO services that range from monthly engagement to annual budgeting and forecasting. It also provides fundraising strategy and support. | |
| Businesses looking for a do-it-yourself (DIY) bookkeeping solution: We recommend QuickBooks Online for small businesses wanting to do their own bookkeeping. In conjunction with it, owner-managers can also get QuickBooks Live for assisted bookkeeping. The QuickBooks Live Bookkeeper will categorize transactions, correct your errors in data entry, close the books, and generate financial reports. | |
| Businesses that need an affordable bookkeeping service: If you are looking to save money and don’t have a need for invoicing, bill pay, or payroll, Merritt Bookkeeping is a good option. Its services cost a flat 190 per month, regardless of your monthly expenses or transactions. Merritt provides catch-up bookkeeping services as well, for an additional fee. |
Botkeeper Reviews From Users
| Users Like | Users Dislike |
|---|---|
| AI and ML automate accounting processes to save time | No dedicated mobile app, only integrates with ScanBot to extract financial data |
| Accounts payable (A/P) and accounts receivable (A/R) capabilities | Software can be difficult to navigate |
| Multientity accounting available | No tax filing and consulting services |
Users who left a Botkeeper review praised it for its automation that saves time and lets you focus on performing the activities that drive your business. They appreciated that the service can help with sending invoices to customers and follow up with late-payment reminders when needed. However, reviewers complained that the software can be difficult to navigate and that it doesn’t have its own dedicated mobile app.
- G2.com[1]: 4.4 out of 5 stars based on about 30 reviews
- Software Advice[2]: 4.4 out of 5 stars based on around 70 reviews
Botkeeper Pricing
Botkeeper doesn’t provide detailed pricing information but requires firms to pay for a client entity package and a platform fee, which starts at $1,000 per month. The client entity fee starts at $55 per month for the Basic tier and $165 per month for the Advanced package. While this is a bit expensive, Botkeeper can save you considerable labor costs and allow you to increase revenue by concentrating on value-added services that can be billed at higher rates.
Basic | Advanced | |
|---|---|---|
Monthly Platform Fee | Starts at $1,000 | Starts at $1,000 |
Monthly Per-client Entity Fee | Starts at $55 | Starts at $165 |
Cash Basis Transaction Categorizations | ✓ | ✓ |
Bank & Credit Card Reconciliations | ✓ | ✓ |
Basic Payroll Categorization | ✓ | ✓ |
Simple Month End Journal Entries | ✓ | ✓ |
Basic Schedule Maintenance With Monthly Journal Entry | ✓ | ✓ |
Income Statement, Balance Sheet & Statement of Cash Flow | ✓ | ✓ |
Overall Book Review for Unusual Balances or Discrepancies | ✓ | ✓ |
Complex Payroll Categorization | ✕ | ✓ |
A/P Processing | ✕ | ✓ |
Applying Payments to A/R Invoices | ✕ | ✓ |
Credit Card Merchant & POS Reconciliation | ✕ | ✓ |
Inventory Reconciliation | ✕ | ✓ |
Enhanced Ongoing Report Support | ✕ | ✓ |
Monthly Standard Invoicing | ✕ | ✓ |
QuickBooks Online W-9 Requests | ✕ | ✓ |
Class & Department Tracking | ✕ | ✓ |
Job/Project Tracking | ✕ | ✓ |
Botkeeper: Bookkeeping Features
Botkeeper’s many valuable services include its integration with the mobile app ScanBot, the ability to provide multi-entity accounting, and unlimited custom reports. However, while it has useful features, such as automated bookkeeping via ML and AI, it doesn’t provide full payroll services; instead, it has solely payroll administration.
It has many features that distinguish it from other online bookkeeping services and accounting software, including the following:
The ML engine and AI facilitate automated bookkeeping, which includes comprehensive financial reports, account reconciliations, and categorization of transactions. The company’s team of specialists counter-checks the data, ensuring tax compliance and error-free accounting.
Botkeeper’s automated bookkeeping features (Source: Botkeeper)
Botkeeper allows you to cover supplementary entities that form part of an entire organization, such as subsidiaries alongside the parent company.
ScanBot, a mobile app that integrates with Botkeeper, can extract financial data directly from a photo of a receipt or invoice taken with your mobile phone. You can drag and drop files in ScanBot, and it will read the file automatically.
ScanBot’s Drag and Drop Feature (Source: Botkeeper)
Botkeeper uses optical character recognition (OCR) when scanning documents. With OCR, it can organize files as receipts, unpaid bills, and revenue automatically.
Botkeeper boasts an interactive dashboard that grants you direct access to your key performance indicators, trending analytics, and data visualizations. You can also share the dashboard with your clients. When sharing dashboards with clients, you can grant specific permissions and additional security, such as setting “view only” permissions, adding an expiration date of the viewing permission, and protecting the dashboard with a password.
Client Dashboard (Source: Botkeeper)
Botkeeper will help you streamline employee payroll by maintaining a consistent schedule and keeping a detailed log of employee data.
Botkeeper integrates with your online store to keep track of items involved in each transaction, then it generates detailed reports about the subsequent stock levels of every product. Ecommerce integrations include BigCommerce, Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento.
If you need help with invoicing your customers, generating and sending statements, and applying payments to open invoices, Botkeeper will handle this for you.
Botkeeper applies 256-bit encryption to protect user data and uses the cloud infrastructure of Amazon Web Services (AWS), which means its servers are protected by some of the world’s best data security tools. Botkeeper’s file management system keeps things organized by creating folders by type, year, or tag. Within the file management system, you can directly comment on the file to communicate your concerns or questions to your client easily.
Data security and file management (Source: Botkeeper)
Botkeeper also has a Password Manager that compiles all the clients’ login credentials from banks, ecommerce platforms, and other third-party software. The Password Manager is a convenient way for Botkeeper to access client passwords easily without having to bother clients by asking for their login credentials.
All passwords are stored in an encrypted database. In this way, clients can strengthen access controls since they don’t have to keep passwords on sticky notes, in spreadsheets, or in notebooks.
Besides password security, giving Botkeeper access to your bank credentials speeds up the bookkeeping process through Smart Connect. This collects bank feeds from your client’s bank account automatically and can even collect bank feeds before the end of the month through a request. With Smart Connect and Password Manager, there’s no need to bother the client to furnish a copy of bank statements.
Botkeeper offers unlimited custom reports to help you track all the relevant data for your business. These reports are available on the “Financial Hub,” which offers a 360-degree view of your business while providing secure document management and storage, streamlining task and project management workflows, and safeguarding data integrity.
By customizing Botkeeper’s tools based on your preferences and business needs, the software will automate all the reporting and analytics functions. Apart from profit and loss (P&L) reports, you can track cash flow, A/P, job performance, inventory levels, credit, and fixed assets.
Botkeeper: Tax & Consulting Services
Botkeeper does not provide tax and consulting services directly, but you can see Botkeeper’s accounting partner ecosystem for a searchable list, which can be filtered by partners that provide tax services. Currently, there are 30 firms that provide tax and consulting services on the list.
For an efficient online bookkeeping solution that includes tax and consulting services, we recommend Bench. For its features, services, and pricing, read our Bench review.
Botkeeper: Working With Your Bookkeeper
With Botkeeper, support is included with every plan. As soon as you sign up, you’ll be assigned a dedicated account manager who will review your business structure and help you migrate your entire bookkeeping framework to Botkeeper. They’ll also provide onboarding assistance and customization of essential system components.
Communication with account manager (Source: Botkeeper)
Once that has been completed, Botkeeper will hand your account over to your Bot Team, an expert team of experienced accountants. Your account manager acts as the primary contact, while your Bot Team supports your core bookkeeping processes.
Botkeeper: Customer Service
Botkeeper comes with multilevel specialized support to assist you with both bookkeeping and technical issues. You can email your assigned Botkeeper, and your questions will be answered typically within 24 hours of submission. Support can also be accessed via live chat and by phone.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Botkeeper starts by importing all of your client data and connecting the accounts with its software. The data is synced with its proprietary ML tool, which will take note of transactions and categorizations. The services provided are customizable based on your needs.
Yes, Botkeeper supports bookkeeping on a cash and accrual basis.
Yes, Botkeeper works with both QuickBooks Online and Xero.
Bottom Line
Botkeeper provides automated bookkeeping support for accounting firms and businesses by using a powerful combination of skilled accountants, ML, and AI. Clients receive 24/7 accounting support and insight into their financials, with interactive dashboards and unlimited reporting. However, Botkeeper isn’t suitable for small businesses. If you think that its features are too advanced for your needs, we recommend checking out our roundup of the best online bookkeeping services.
User review references:
1G2.com
2Software Advice
