Before automating finance processes for others, we did it for ourselves. Pentalink's bookkeeping is now almost fully automated. That is our reality check: what we recommend to clients, we use every day.
The foundation: a catalogue of booking cases
It does not start with technology but with a question: which business transactions recur, and how are they booked? The answer lies in booking case templates. They define which accounts, tax codes and contra accounts belong to which transaction. A document is not interpreted but assigned to a case. In a small company, a manageable number of such cases covers the majority of all postings.
Does this sound familiar?
If the same transactions are entered by hand in your accounting every month, let us show you in a first conversation which share can be automated through booking cases.
What runs automatically for us
Documents are recognised and posted. Payroll runs are booked automatically. The shareholder account is cleared, with travel expenses coming straight from our own travel tool, described in our article on time tracking and travel expenses. Access to the ERP runs through our own MCP server, on which an accounting skill operates. That way, the automation works with the same data and rules a bookkeeper would use.
What does not happen automatically matters just as much. If a document fits no case, it is not guessed but flagged as an open question. Every automatic posting carries its rationale and stays traceable. The automation only decides where the rule is unambiguous.
Complementing the tax advisor
Automation does not replace the tax advisor; it makes their work more valuable. They receive complete, correctly coded individual postings and can spend their time on advice rather than data entry. How the handover to DATEV works is shown in our article From Document to DATEV Entry.
Three takeaways
- Cases before technology. If you know and describe your recurring booking cases, you have already solved most of the automation.
- Automation is a chain. First the document, then the posting, then clearing the accounts. Every link that runs automatically relieves the next.
- Our own operations are the best proof. We do not show you what would be possible, but what runs for us every day. For your company, this is part of our Finance Office.