Customer story · For the Books
For the Books keeps client accounts accurate and saves hours a month.
Michelle Irwin cares about accuracy more than almost anything. AccountKit lets For the Books deliver the accrual and prepayment bookkeeping she prefers, work that wouldn’t be worth doing by hand at the rates clients pay for bookkeeping.
“Where has this been for the last 15 years of my life?”
- Who
- Michelle Irwin, owner and registered BAS agent, 30 years in the industry
- Firm
- Michelle plus a team of part-timers; owner since early 2025
- Clients
- Small businesses, with a growing interest in helping authors
- Stack
- Xero, Dext, AccountKit
The starting point
Inter-entity loans took a highlighter and a ruler.
“I’m old enough to remember having to print out my old ledgers,” Michelle says. Three pages from one client’s file, three from the other, and a ruler down both lists. On a hospitality group with 20 or 30 lines a month moving between entities, that took real time.
The firm’s week, before and after
Each month, one client
Before20–30 linesPrinted ledgers, a highlighter and a ruler down 20 or 30 lines, then journals for the ones that didn’t match.
Now2–3 hrs savedOne click clears the matches and leaves only the exceptions to deal with.
Annual insurance
BeforeWithout the tools, a year’s premium lands in one month: “a lumpy profit and loss”.
Now12 monthsSpread across twelve months with prepayments, which she says wouldn’t be economic to do by hand.
What they switched on
The tools For the Books runs in AccountKit.
Alongside Xero, Dext. Each tool links to how it works.
- ComplianceInter-entity loansOne client has around eight entities that “regularly share money back and forth”. Her rating: 10 out of 10.
- ComplianceEquipment financeSet-and-forget for each new loan, and the same for insurance premium funding.
- ComplianceAmortisationPrepayments and amortisation keep accrual bookkeeping accurate month to month.
- AdministrationWorkflowNow in trial, for the peace of mind that work can carry on if she’s away.
- AdministrationDocument managementAlso in trial, after big improvements since she first saw it.
The result
What changed at For the Books, in their numbers.
- hours saved a month on a single complex client
- 2–3
- entities in that one client group, reconciled with a click
- ~8
- Michelle’s score for the Inter-Entity Loan Tool
- 10/10
“It’s probably not so much the time, it’s probably more the accuracy.”
Figures and quotes from the For the Books case study, first published on the AccountKit blog.
See how it fits your firm
Try the tools behind this story on your own clients.
Start a 14-day trial, or book a demo and walk through the setup For the Books uses with the team.
