Term
What is pre-accounting? Meaning and explanation
Pre-accounting is the preparatory bookkeeping work in which invoices, receipts and bank transactions are collected, checked and prepared as entries before they are posted to the accounting software.
Definition
Pre-accounting is the preparatory bookkeeping work in which invoices, receipts and bank transactions are collected, checked and prepared as entries before they are posted to the accounting software.
Also known as: Pre-accounting, Voorbereidende boekhouding, Voorbewerking
Pre-accounting covers every step between a document arriving and a final journal entry. That includes collecting purchase and sales invoices and receipts, recognising the supplier, amounts and VAT, choosing the general ledger account and VAT code, matching payments and asking the client for missing information. It is the foundation for the annual accounts, the VAT return and every advisory conversation.
For an accounting or bookkeeping firm, pre-accounting is often the largest share of the workload. The work is repetitive, peaks around VAT deadlines and depends on clients delivering documents on time. The more of it is standardised or automated, the more administrations a team can handle and the more time remains for review, compilation and advice.
Autoboeker is an AI platform for pre-accounting that runs on top of Exact Online, Twinfield, SnelStart and e-Boekhouden. It recognises invoices and receipts without templates, creates booking proposals with a confidence score and books automatically above the threshold you set. Bank lines are matched (Exact Online, Twinfield and SnelStart) and missing information is collected from the client through client questions. The result is written back to your own accounting software.
Example
A client emails twenty purchase invoices and photographs five receipts. During pre-accounting those documents are recognised, checked, assigned to the right general ledger account and either prepared for review or booked directly.
FAQ
Questions about pre-accounting.
Bookkeeping is the whole process of recording, processing and reporting. Pre-accounting is the preparatory part: collecting, recognising, checking and preparing documents as entries.
No. Pre-accounting software such as Autoboeker works on top of your accounting software and writes entries back to it. You keep working in Exact Online, Twinfield, SnelStart or e-Boekhouden.
Further reading
Related in the knowledge base.
Guides
What is pre-accounting? A guide for accounting firms
Pre-accounting is the groundwork before bookkeeping: collecting documents, coding, bank matching and asking clients for missing info. How it works, with AI.
9 min readRead the guideRunning a firmIncreasing your bookkeeping firm's capacity with AI
How to increase your bookkeeping firm's capacity without extra staff: automate processing, bank matching and client questions, and manage by exception.
8 min readRead the guide
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