AI assistants

Solid Accounting gives you two optional ways to get AI help with your books. You set both up in Settings → AI & Integrations (also reachable from AI setup on the Welcome screen):

Your own AI assistant — let an assistant you already use, such as Claude® or ChatGPT™, work on your company file.
On-device AI — Solid Accounting AI, an assistant that runs on this computer. Coming soon: it's still being trained.

Neither is required. Solid Accounting does not send your books anywhere on its own.

Connect your own AI

Your assistant connects to the company file through Solid Accounting's local connection (MCP, the standard AI desktop apps use to reach other programs). Only an Admin can connect an assistant.

Claude Desktop or ChatGPT Desktop

Both use the same connect screen, from AI setup or from Settings → AI & Integrations (click Connect next to Claude Desktop, or Connect ChatGPT next to ChatGPT Desktop).

The screen names the company the assistant will work with, and what the assistant's company receives: anything you ask it to read from your books is sent to Anthropic (Claude) or OpenAI (ChatGPT).
Under What Claude can do (or What ChatGPT can do), choose:
- Read only (the default) — look up balances, reports and transactions. It can't change anything.
- Read and change the books — enter and edit transactions, following your review and permission rules. It can't change users, passwords or company settings.
Click Connect Claude or Connect ChatGPT. Solid Accounting saves the connection for you (and opens ChatGPT, for ChatGPT).
Restart the assistant's desktop app once, start a new chat, and paste the question the screen gives you (Copy puts it on the clipboard) to check it works. If it answers without your books, quit and reopen the desktop app, then ask again.

Good to know:

The assistant asks before voiding, deleting or undoing anything. That confirmation stays on by design; Solid Accounting doesn't suggest turning it off.
Every change it makes is in the activity log and can be undone (see below).
It works in the Claude and ChatGPT desktop apps, not in the web versions.
Disconnect anytime in Settings → AI & Integrations.

In Claude the connection is named after your company, for example solid-accounting-your-company.

ChatGPT and Codex. ChatGPT keeps this connection in a settings file it shares with OpenAI's Codex tools, so those tools on the same computer get the same access. The connect screen says so before you connect.

Keeping Claude connected when Solid Accounting is closed. On Windows, Mac and Linux, Claude keeps working with your books after you close Solid Accounting. To do this, Solid Accounting runs a small background program and adds it to the programs that start when you sign in. To turn it off, open Settings → AI & Integrations and switch off Keep Claude connected when Solid Accounting is closed; Claude then works only while Solid Accounting is open. ChatGPT always needs Solid Accounting open with the company.

Cursor, Gemini CLI, VS Code or another MCP app

Click ChatGPT, Cursor, Gemini or another…, then Set up next to your assistant.
Click Create key, then Copy settings. The key is shown only on this screen.
Paste the settings into your assistant's MCP server settings, then restart it.

To take access back, click Disconnect next to the assistant in Settings → AI & Integrations.

What an assistant can do

Ask in plain words. A connected assistant can:

answer questions about your books — what you earned last quarter, who owes you, what a number is made of;
enter invoices, bills and receipts, and bring in bank files;
work your bank feeds: add what Solid Accounting is sure of, ask you about the rest in one list, learn rules from your answers, and finish reconciliations that tie to $0.00 — across all your companies in one conversation;
fix mistakes in the original record. When an assistant corrects a wrong account, amount or memo, it changes the original transaction — the bank-feed item, the imported row, or the check, bill or entry you typed — instead of adding a reclassification entry. You approve each change in the conversation;
void a posted transaction, post a reversing entry, or delete a draft, with the same checks as the app (closed periods, reconciled items). Posted entries are never deleted;
add an account to the chart of accounts after you confirm its name, type and number;
map an account to its line on the tax return after you confirm it. See Tax-ready books.

When a change isn't allowed — a closed period, a reconciled item, your role — the assistant tells you why.

See and undo what an assistant did

Every change made by an AI assistant or an integration is recorded in Company → Activity Log (AI & Integrations), grouped by session, with the reason the assistant gave and a line-by-line Was / Now view. Undo all on a session puts every change back exactly; you can also ask the assistant to undo its own session. Changes also appear in the Audit Trail, each in one sentence with the before and after. See what it did in Settings opens the same log.

On-device AI (coming soon)

Solid Accounting AI, the assistant that runs on this computer, is still being trained. In AI setup and Settings → AI & Integrations it shows as Coming soon; there is nothing to turn on or download yet. Until it's ready, connect Claude or another assistant (above). PDF bank statements still import without it.

The Ask the books button on the right-hand toolbar answers questions like "What do customers owe?" on this computer. Amounts always come from the open company file, never from the model.

What leaves your computer

With your own assistant, whatever it reads — balances, invoices, names, amounts — goes to that assistant's provider (for example Anthropic for Claude, OpenAI for ChatGPT), under your agreement with them. You decide when to connect it. On-device AI sends nothing.

What it needs

Claude Desktop and ChatGPT Desktop connect on every tier, and during the trial. Cursor, Gemini CLI, VS Code and other MCP apps use the local API, which needs Professional or Accountant. A Standard license fixes one transaction at a time; fixing many at once needs Professional or Accountant.
You also need your own account with the assistant's provider.
On-device AI is coming soon.
Your own AI assistant keeps working if Updates & Cloud Services lapses.

Claude is a registered trademark of Anthropic, PBC. ChatGPT is a trademark of OpenAI. Solid Accounting is not affiliated with or endorsed by either.