How accountants can work efficiently with clients without a general ledger

A major challenge for many accoun­tants is that clients who don’t use a digital ledger are happy to leave them the time-consuming task of manually entering and recon­ciling financial data line by line.

Many customers still need that “do it for me” service, but fortu­nately there are more and more ways to work with them more efficiently, including new software solutions that simplify the account creation process.

These efficiencies can help you save signif­icant time, reduce errors, and provide more value-added services.

How many customers don’t use ledgers?

Most accoun­tants are familiar with the struggle of having to wade through reams of paper or downloaded state­ments, invoices and receipts from clients who do not use a general ledger.

In a brief survey for this article, only one company said it does not work with such clients. For the other companies, bookless companies still make up 10 to 35% of the customer base.

These are usually sole propri­etors or young companies in sectors such as real estate rentals, dentistry and crafts. They tend to be cost-sensitive, conduct fewer trans­ac­tions and therefore feel less need for accounting software.

But many accoun­tants enjoy working with such clients and don’t want to stop — they just need more efficient ways to serve them.

Effects of the digitalization of tax policy

Self-employed people and landlords earning more than £50,000 will need to keep digital records under Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax Self-Assessment (ITSA) from April 2026.

But even if they have a digital archiving solution in place, some companies still don’t use it because they lack the time or knowledge, or because they still prefer you compile, compare and analyze the records for them.

Therefore, this issue is likely to persist beyond 2026 and it is critical to continue to look for ways to process Do it for me customers’ data faster and more accurately.

David Burr, director at Carroll Accoun­tants, says: “Serving clients without general ledgers takes us more time as we have to create manual cash books and advanced trial balances. We need to increase our fees for these jobs.”

Alex Manley, business services manager at Albert Goodman (AG), adds that using manual records creates more work as they need to be analyzed before being passed through accounting or tax software.

“Often there are errors in manual records and we have to spend time recon­ciling the accounts and identi­fying differ­ences,” she says. “This additional time commitment means our fee is generally higher than if they were using accounting software.”

Hunting for lost data “like opening Russian dolls”

Bani Lamba, data analytics and technology manager at the Institute of Chartered Accoun­tants in England and Wales (ICAEW), says one reason some clients are reluctant to use cloud-based ledgers is miscon­cep­tions about how cloud technology works — for example in terms of data storage, privacy and protection.

Some also believe the rollout will be ineffi­cient and time-consuming, but are unaware of the time and efficiency savings that can outweigh this, Bani adds.

Ben Sztejka, CEO of Your Ecommerce Accountant, says his non-ledger customers are mostly new customers looking for software cost savings. “These customers often wait until the end of the year to process the infor­mation, making it more difficult for us to monitor their sales and provide them with proactive advice,” he says.

“For example,” adds Ben, “if they are close to the VAT threshold, we may not have been able to alert them to the need to register and inform them of pricing in a timely manner.” Or if they are making a loss due to pricing or spending errors , they may not notice this until the end of the year.

“It also means you are more likely to have incom­plete data and it can be like a Russian doll trying to dig into accounts to find the right infor­mation and figure out what money went where.”

The problem is exacer­bated when customers have multiple bank accounts, such as foreign currency accounts, savings accounts and credit cards.

Ben wants to increase efficiency with these clients by ensuring they are sending his team the correct infor­mation throughout the year, including all past accounts, bank state­ments and all bank state­ments. He recom­mends being precise and clear about what infor­mation you need and in what format.

Yogesh Dhanak, Senior Technical Advisory Manager at the Associ­ation of Chartered Certified Accoun­tants (ACCA) UK, agrees, adding: “Commu­ni­cation is the biggest asset here – training and commu­ni­cating with clients on how to maintain the best and most accurate financial records , will benefit both of you.” .”

Graham Cantlay, partner at Robb Ferguson, has a different solution: he may provide clients who don’t have a general ledger with templates that they can fill out and do the necessary analysis themselves.

The benefits of cloud software

Many accoun­tants will attempt to solve the problems of error-prone, fragmented data by convincing non-ledger clients to adopt a complete accounting software system with linked bank accounts.

Ben says this helps save time when requesting infor­mation and allows his company to look at its customers’ accounts holis­ti­cally, identify any issues and provide advice.

“Accounting software with banking data also solves the problem of poten­tially incom­plete infor­mation because customers have not kept complete records throughout the year,” he says.

Albert Goodman also encourages his clients to consider a cloud accounting solution by explaining the benefits of being able to see the company’s perfor­mance, stay on top of finances and pay lower accounting fees, even if Software subscrip­tions are taken into account.

“Sophis­ti­cated software solutions can also cross-check and validate data inputs, allowing for greater precision,” says Alex. “This increased accuracy improves the relia­bility of financial reports and improves regulatory compliance, reducing the risk of costly errors and audits.”

OCR and accounting preparation solutions

But whatever you do, some customers will still balk at full accounting software.

To do this, Robb Ferguson uses AutoEntry’s optical character recog­nition (OCR) software. This scans and captures data from invoices, receipts and bank state­ments by converting them into a CSV or Excel file. This software has signif­i­cantly improved efficiency, says Graham.

Automatic cash book solutions such as: Accounting prepa­rationan add-on to AutoEntry, further improve this technology.

AccountsPrep is ideal for simple, “do it for me” clients. It allows you to create financial state­ments retro­spec­tively, saving time on manual entry and replacing Excel-based prepa­ration.

After you upload state­ments to AutoEntry, import the data into AccountsPrep, where it is reviewed, updated, and quickly coded into a chart of accounts. The created trial balance can then be imported into your chosen final billing solution.

The AutoEntry subscription includes an unlimited number of customer services, which is crucial because accoun­tants have found that other solutions that charge a per-user fee are not as cost-effective.

More benefits of account preparation solutions

Albert Goodman has used cloud-based accounting prepa­ration solutions to reduce manual effort, increase accuracy and enable data to be fed directly into its accounting package.

It also allows for rules that match trans­ac­tions in bulk based on the same payee — for example, all BT costs would be allocated to “phone”. This requires some initial setup work, but will save time in the future, says Alex.

With cloud-based account creation software you can also:

• increases consis­tency by reducing the idiosyn­cratic aspects of customer records.
• gives team members the oppor­tunity to perform valuable business consulting work within existing fees.
• allows AG immediate access to data to help resolve any issues.

The time savings can be enormous. For example, AccountsPrep can shorten an entire workday to just 60 minutes for “Do it for me” clients. This makes the low subscription cost worth it and allows you to get a compet­itive price with these customers.

Jo Gibson, business services partner and head of Hurst’s specialist digital team, says another benefit is having a proper business trans­action audit trail in the event of an HMRC inspection or due diligence require­ments for fundraising or a business sale have.

Capturing and organizing data sets efficiently could make a big difference in the future. So think not only about your customer’s current needs, but also about how they want to develop further.

With all these benefits, account prepa­ration solutions can signif­i­cantly increase the overall value of your service and strengthen customer relation­ships and trust.

Final Thoughts – Room for Improvement

Despite the launch of Making Tax Digital, the “do it for me” approach will remain for many customers, and this cohort will benefit tremen­dously from solutions that can help process data faster and more accurately.

As we’ve seen, there are many ways to work with these customers to increase efficiency and offer cloud at fair prices Account prepa­ration solutions can play a key role both for you and for your customers’ happiness and peace of mind.