Dext CEO Sabby Gill explains what the next stage of automation looks like for small businesses.
Ask any small business owner what they would happily hand off, and bookkeeping admin is usually near the top of the list. Receipts, invoices, transaction categories, description fields, data structure for reporting, these are the tasks that accumulate quietly and eat hours that could be spent on the actual work of running a business.
Technology has already made a significant dent. Dext, which specialises in bookkeeping automation, says its platform has already removed millions of hours of manual data entry from bookkeeping, with automation capturing and processing over 350 million documents at scale. In January 2026 alone, the platform processed 31.4 million receipts and invoices globally.
Based on a conservative estimate of three to four minutes to manually process each document, that represents more than two million hours of administrative work. Using Dext, users spent approximately 206,000 hours processing those same documents, a reduction in processing time of more than 90%.
But document capture, while significant, is only part of the picture. The decisions that sit on top of that data, how transactions are categorised, how description fields are used, how data is structured for reporting, have remained largely manual. Until now.
What AI Assist actually does
Dext’s new AI Assist is designed to tackle what the company calls the next stage of automation: the nuanced, organisation-specific decisions that vary between firms, clients and finance teams.
The tool is built into the Dext platform and works by learning from how users already operate. It observes decisions, preferences and edits, then uses that understanding to surface suggestions for automating those same choices across future transactions.
“Dext has already helped remove millions of hours of manual data entry from bookkeeping by automating document capture and processing at scale,” said Sabby Gill, CEO of Dext. “With AI Assist, we’re taking the next step; helping firms and finance teams apply their own judgement and way of working more consistently across every transaction.”
“Every organisation, whether a firm or a finance team, has its own approach to categorising transactions, structuring data and managing workflows. AI Assist learns how you work and helps apply those decisions automatically, while keeping you fully in control.”
The result, Gill said, is less time spent manually applying judgement across repetitive tasks and more time available for higher-value work, including financial analysis, advisory and stronger client relationships.
Staying in control
A common concern with AI automation in financial workflows is the question of oversight. Dext has built AI Assist around what it describes as a human-in-the-loop approach, meaning every suggestion the system makes remains transparent and reviewable before it is applied.
Stephen Edginton, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Dext, said the design intent was clear from the start. “We designed Dext AI Assist to work alongside users, not replace them. The platform already processes financial data at scale with high accuracy; AI Assist builds on that by learning how each team works and applying those decisions consistently. Human judgement remains central to the process, while AI helps reduce the manual effort that slows teams down.”
The system is also designed to improve over time. Because it learns from user feedback, accuracy and consistency are expected to increase the more it is used within a specific organisation.
Early feedback from beta testing supports that trajectory. Michele Grisdale, Founder of Rainforest Bookkeeping, said the difference was immediate. “Dext AI Assist has already made a noticeable difference to how we work. It’s reduced the amount of manual entry and corrections we need to do, saving us several hours. What stands out is the level of control; we can set the parameters and be confident the right assumptions are being applied, which is critical in accounting.”
“It feels like the system is learning how we work and applying that consistently across transactions. That not only saves time but also improves accuracy. It’s easily the smartest AI tool I’ve seen to date and has real potential to change how bookkeeping gets done.”
For small business owners who rely on a bookkeeper or accounting firm, AI Assist works in the background of their existing Dext workflow. The immediate benefit is faster, more consistent processing, with fewer manual corrections and less back-and-forth over recurring transactions.
For those managing their own books, the broader message from Dext’s data is significant. The gap between manual and automated processing is no longer marginal. A 90% reduction in processing time is the kind of efficiency that changes what is actually possible in a small business week.
Dext AI Assist is now rolling out across the platform. A free trial is available until 23rd April, with additional capabilities planned as the system continues to develop.
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