Ryan Pearcy, Indi Tatla and John Toon are back together covering QuickBooks updates, a significant Active Workpapers release, and two AI stories worth your attention.

QuickBooks has restructured its payroll offering into three tiers: Core for simple automated salary runs, Premium adding time tracking and self-serve tools, and Elite bringing in geo-fencing and project profitability. Indi covers Intuit Intelligence, a conversational AI built into QuickBooks that lets business owners ask questions about their own data. She makes the point that QuickBooks has always been more direct about going after the business owner than Xero — this is the latest iteration of that strategy. John adds the arrival of auto-save in invoices and estimates, though he and Ryan disagree on whether it genuinely qualifies.

Tax Systems has launched an AI assistant for cross-border tax via its Loctax acquisition, covering 220 jurisdictions and drawing on verified content from the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation. Indi's take: the biggest problem with AI in tax is not speed, it's trust. John raises the billing question — if research time drops significantly, hourly-rate firms face a difficult conversation.

John covers a LinkedIn video from Daryl Aw demonstrating the use of Claude to produce financial statements. Pretty much any accountant can do this. The harder question is whether you can do it reliably at scale.

Digits has moved to outcome-based pricing. Firms pay only when 95% of transactions are fully automated with no human edits. Ryan thinks they're either very confident or making a desperate growth bet. John says he'd put all his most complex clients on it and never pay a penny.

Also covered: WorkGuru's Easter release with new Sales and Operations Hubs, Certinia's Veda AI engine for professional services firms, and the Digital Disruptors Awards returning at Accountex North in Manchester.

Advancetrack provides outsourcing and offshoring services for accounting firms, covering bookkeeping, accounts preparation, payroll, VAT and self-assessment. www.advancetrack.com

00:00 Introduction and Nostalgia

03:54 QBO launches new payroll stack

07:04 QBO launches Intuit Intelligence

12:02 QuickBooks adds auto-save to invoices and estimates

13:26 WorkGuru releases major Easter update

16:31 Ryan's AI reluctance

18:01 Active Workpapers drops April UK release

21:25 Nostalgia Trip

22:52 Tax Systems targets cross-border tax with verified AI

28:37 Wrap-Up and Community Engagement

29:37 Daryl Aw demonstrates building financial statements with Claude

33:30 Certinia launches Veda, an AI operations engine for professional services firms

36:54 Digits bets its revenue on whether its AI actually works

41:54 Register for the Digital Disruptor Awards

Indi is joined by Billie Mcloughlin and Kevin Fitzgerald for a busy episode covering AI's move into tax preparation, Xero's repositioning as an operating system, and a string of practical product updates across the accounting tech stack.

Indi opens with news of Advancetrack's upcoming GBX conference on 12th May at the National Gallery, where the 2026 Accounting Talent Index launches. Early data suggests 70% of firms say workloads are increasing pressure on senior staff, cutting against the narrative that AI is the profession's most urgent problem right now. Kevin adds context with Employment Hero's March Jobs Report, drawn from roughly 120,000 UK employees. Headline employment growth is positive at just over 5.3% month on month, but wage growth at 8.8% remains high and SME hiring confidence is wobbling again as April's employer legislation updates and the Fair Work Agency's growing focus create fresh uncertainty.

Billie recalls a live demo she recorded: Perplexity's new Computer tool filling out a US tax return end to end, pulling documents, error-checking and asking clarifying questions. It doesn't file, but it does everything up to that point. US-only for now, but a clear direction of travel. Kevin links it to a bolder claim from Tom Blomfield, ex-CEO of Monzo, who argued income tax collection could be restructured within five years, cutting out advisers and individual returns. The hosts are sceptical, but take the underlying question about accountant value seriously.

Mayday gets a positive segment covering a strong Q1: centralised control of contacts, chart of accounts and tracking categories across multiple Xero entities, plus the acquisition of Easy Month End. Indi raises the question of whether a Xero acquisition is on the cards.

Xero OS generates the most debate. Billie breaks down Jax shifting from assistant framing to something closer to an AI CFO. Indi's reading is more structural: the move from ecosystem to operating system signals Xero closing the dome around its data, compressing the opportunity for apps sitting on top of it.

Kevin covers Oracle's Fusion Finance agentic applications, where agents chase payments and manage collections without waiting for human input, and notes AI is collapsing roadmap timelines from twelve months to weeks.

Also covered: Dext Payments moving into payroll payments; Briefcase One adding live bank feeds with automated categorisation and ledger posting; FreeAgent's MTD bulk workflow release; and GoCardless cutting 90 jobs while targeting EBITDA positive in 2026.

FreeAgent is the proud sponsor of this episode. FreeAgent is an HMRC-recognised MTD solution for sole traders, landlords and CIS clients. Find out more at freeagent.com.

00:00 Introduction to the Digital Disruptors Podcast

04:25 The state of accounting employment and talent

08:51 Perplexity AI going after accounting?

11:29 Income tax redundant in 5 years?

17:22 Huge Q1 for Mayday

22:10 Xero's new AI operating system

30:00 Oracle announces Fusion Finance

31:23 Dext Payments: automation in payroll and accounting

34:46 Briefcase One now has bank feeds

38:10 MTD-focused releases from FreeAgent

41:24 GoCardless axes 90 jobs

49:09 Close

Ryan Pearcy, Heather Smith and Leigh Stallard return for Season 3 of Digi-Tools in Accrual World, covering the biggest stories in accounting tech this week.

Xero has launched a new accounts production workflow in partnership with BGL, bringing year-end workpapers directly into the platform. Heather reports from Australia, where the feature has been live for some time, and flags a data access issue that UK firms need to know about before they rely on it.

Xero has also announced a multi-year partnership with Anthropic, the company behind Claude. The announcement has generated significant discussion in the profession, not least because Xero previously stated that JAX would not provide financial advice. The new partnership appears to suggest otherwise. Ryan, Heather and Leigh examine what that means for accountants, who carries the liability, and whether AI becoming the default interface puts the underlying ledger at risk of becoming irrelevant.

US accounting platform Aiwyn has embedded its tax product inside Claude, allowing users to generate a 1040 tax return through the AI interface via an MCP-style connection. The hosts debate whether building core workflows on top of an LLM is a sound strategy right now, and whether the product will still be differentiated in two years once the base models catch up.

NetSuite used its Suite Connect London event to shift the conversation from co-pilot to autopilot, outlining plans for autonomous period close through its NetSuite Next platform. Leigh invokes Jurassic Park. Ryan pushes back with a transactions-first argument. Neither of them is entirely wrong.

Also covered: TaxNav launches Navi, a green furry MTD mascot of questionable necessity; TaxCalc Engager announces a collaboration with Virtual Cabinet and Workiro to embed document management into tax and accounts workflows; and Xero's credit note bank rec update gets more credit than the headlines suggest.

Chapters

00:00 Intro

02:22 Xero Accounts Production

06:09 Xero Credit Note Bank Rec

09:47 Xero and Anthropic

18:33 Aiwyn Tax inside Claude

23:31 NetSuite Autopilot

30:39 Navi launched to simplify MTD conversations

34:33 TaxCalc integrates with Workiro and Virtual Cabinet

35:58 Functional Updates from Xero