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Comparison · Last updated 2026-07-28

HelloBooks vs Bokio (UK closed July 2026): Bokio UK shut down on 7 July 2026 — where to move your books now

Bokio UK is gone. Bokio announced the closure on 18 May 2026, said the service would end on 30 June 2026, and the bokio.co.uk homepage now states that Bokio UK closed on 7 July 2026 and can no longer be accessed by UK users. Bokio continues to operate in Sweden — this was a UK withdrawal, not a company failure.

If you were a UK customer: subscription refunds were issued for remaining fees, and users were urged to download reports, invoices, receipts and accounting records before the cutoff. After 7 July, account data is no longer accessible in the platform. For anything outstanding, Bokio directs UK users to support@bokio.co.uk. Bokio offered a nine-month free trial of Tide Accounting as a migration path; AccountingWEB noted at the time that Tide does not have equivalent functionality.

HelloBooks is one option worth evaluating: free forever with no time limit, £7.99/month on Pro, MTD-ready VAT, AI categorization and OCR, inventory and multi-currency. One thing to be clear about — HelloBooks does not file MTD for Income Tax, so if that is your requirement, look at Clear Books, ANNA or Pandle instead.

Researched & written by the HelloBooks editorial team. Checked against Bokio (UK closed July 2026)'s public pricing and docs on 2026-07-28 · how we compare.

Scorecard: how they stack up

An at-a-glance rating on the criteria that decide an accounting-software purchase. Ratings reflect verifiable facts — not an invented score. See how we compare.

HelloBooks rates strong on 7 of 8 buyer criteria

HelloBooks vs Bokio (UK closed July 2026) — criteria scorecard
CriterionHelloBooksBokio (UK closed July 2026)
Currently available in the UKStrongNot offered
Access to your historic dataStrongNot offered
Free plan with no clockStrongNot offered
MTD for VATStrongNot verified
MTD for Income TaxNot verifiedNot offered
AI shipped and generally availableStrongNot offered
Inventory & operationsStrongNot offered
Multi-currencyStrongNot verified

Side-by-side feature comparison

Where a value is shown as “—”, the feature was not verified at review time. See Bokio (UK closed July 2026)'s site for the latest specifics. No paid placements — how we compare.

HelloBooks vs Bokio (UK closed July 2026)— feature-by-feature comparison
FeatureHelloBooksBokio (UK closed July 2026)
Current statusLive and actively developedUK service closed. Announced 18 May 2026 for a 30 June end date; the homepage states Bokio UK closed on 7 July 2026 and can no longer be accessed by UK users
Is the company gone?Not applicableNo — Bokio continues to operate and develop in Sweden. A spokesperson said the decision reflects a focus on Bokio's core Swedish business
Can I still access my data?Yes — CSV and Excel export throughout, on every plan including FreeNo. After the cutoff, customers can no longer access any of their information on the platform. Contact support@bokio.co.uk about refunds, data exports or remaining support
Notice givenNot applicableRoughly six weeks between the 18 May 2026 announcement and total loss of data access
What Bokio suggested insteadFree forever plan with no clock, so you can evaluate before committingAn optional nine-month free trial of Tide Accounting, which AccountingWEB noted does not have equivalent functionality and may not suit all users
Pricing (historic)Free forever; Pro £7.99/mo or £79.99/yr; Business £31.99/mo or £319.99/yr — unlimited users on paid plansPremium was the only tier: £24.95/month billed quarterly or £19.95/month billed yearly. The free plan had already been withdrawn before closure
Double-entry general ledgerYes — chart of accounts, journals, trial balance, IFRS and GAAP compliant reportsIt was a genuine ledger product — manual bookkeeping, custom bookkeeping templates, fixed assets, bank rules and automatic reports, with users relying on nominal activity PDFs on exit
MTD for VATMTD-ready VAT for HMRC Making Tax Digital, included from Pro at £7.99/moWas HMRC-recognised and remains on HMRC's list — but that listing is now stale given the 7 July 2026 UK closure
MTD for Income TaxNot claimed as shipped. If ITSA filing is your requirement, Clear Books, ANNA and Pandle all support itNever supported. Not named on GOV.UK ITSA guidance or third-party recognised lists
AI capabilityAI categorization at 95%+ accuracy, OCR line extraction, Munimji assistant with 60+ tools, AI payables, AI calling for AR, CFO agent, smart error detection, AI analysis on every report, public MCP serverNone documented. Its "smart bookkeeping templates" were rules-based, not marketed as AI
Bank feedsIncluded on every plan. UK bank feeds; Plaid across 11,000+ US banks; PDF statement upload with AI reconciliation anywhereBank feeds and a receipt inbox were included in the Premium tier
PayrollNot shipped for the UK. India payroll runs through HelloTime, a sibling productWas present — Capterra reviewers cite payroll integration and a director-payroll bug. Exact tier gating was never published
Inventory & purchase ordersItem master, BOM, valuation methods, GRN, multi-warehouse, POS and manufacturing; unlimited POs on every planNeither appeared in the published Premium feature list
Why users left before the closureFree plan kept permanently; launch pricing rate-locked twelve months after subscribingThe free plan was withdrawn in 2023, prompting UK accountants to migrate to Pandle, 100PcVatFreeBridge and Easy MTD VAT. Capterra reviewers cite price increases and features moving to higher tiers
Independent ratingsNewer product with a smaller review base — judge us on the free plan rather than review volumeCapterra UK 3.0/5 from 3 reviews — too small a sample to be meaningful

When to choose HelloBooks

  • You need somewhere to land before your next VAT quarter and want to evaluate without a trial clock.
  • You want AI doing the categorisation and reconciliation on the transactions you are re-entering.
  • You want a documented export path from day one, so a repeat of the Bokio situation costs you nothing.
  • You carry stock or raise purchase orders — Bokio offered neither, and most free UK tools do not either.
  • You trade in more than one currency and want automatic FX gain and loss.
  • You want the free plan kept permanently rather than withdrawn later, which is what happened to Bokio users in 2023.

When to choose Bokio (UK closed July 2026)

  • You are in Sweden — Bokio continues to operate and develop there, and this page is about the UK closure only.
  • You still have data with Bokio and need to contact support@bokio.co.uk about a refund or an export.
  • You took the nine-month Tide Accounting trial Bokio offered and want to see that through first.
  • You need MTD for Income Tax filing, in which case neither Bokio nor HelloBooks is your answer — look at Clear Books, ANNA or Pandle.
  • Your accountant has already moved you somewhere and you are simply confirming what happened.
  • You want to compare several replacements properly rather than switching to the first one you find.

Frequently asked questions

Has Bokio closed?

Bokio UK has. Bokio announced on 18 May 2026 that the service would no longer be available for UK users from 30 June 2026, and the bokio.co.uk homepage now carries a notice stating that Bokio UK closed on 7 July 2026 and can no longer be accessed by UK users. The announced date and the actual shutdown date differ by a week — both are documented. Bokio continues to operate in Sweden.

Why did Bokio leave the UK?

A Bokio spokesperson said the decision reflects a focus on Bokio's core business in Sweden, where the product will continue to operate and develop. It is tempting to link the timing to MTD for Income Tax becoming mandatory in April 2026 — Bokio never supported ITSA — but Bokio did not give that as a reason and we are not going to assert a causal link we cannot verify.

Can I still get my data out of Bokio?

Not through the platform. Users were urged to download any reports, invoices, receipts and accounting records they wanted to keep before the cutoff, and after 7 July 2026 customers can no longer access any of their information on the platform. Bokio's remaining UK page directs questions about refunds, data exports and available support to support@bokio.co.uk — that is the route to try if you missed the window.

Did Bokio refund subscriptions?

Yes. Users received refunds for remaining subscription fees, per contemporaneous AccountingWEB reporting. If you were billed quarterly or yearly and did not receive one, support@bokio.co.uk is the contact.

What did Bokio recommend I move to?

Bokio offered an optional nine-month free trial of Tide Accounting, which is Sage-partnered. AccountingWEB noted at the time that Tide Accounting does not have equivalent functionality to Bokio, so it may not be suitable for all users. Independent recommendations at the time also pointed to Pandle. Take the recommendation as a starting point rather than a conclusion.

What should I look for in a replacement?

Three things, given what just happened. First, whether it files what you actually need — MTD VAT, and MTD for Income Tax if you are caught by the April 2026 mandate. Second, whether the free tier is committed to permanently; Bokio withdrew its free plan in 2023 before closing entirely. Third, whether there is a documented, self-service export path, so if the vendor changes direction you can leave with your records intact.

Does HelloBooks file MTD for Income Tax?

No, and given the circumstances you deserve a straight answer rather than a pitch. HelloBooks is MTD-ready for VAT. MTD for Income Tax quarterly submission is not a shipped feature. If ITSA filing is what you need for 2026/27, Clear Books includes quarterly updates and year-end filing on its free tier, ANNA offers it free for 2026/27, and Pandle states it is HMRC-recognised for it. Any of those is a better fit for that specific requirement than we are.

What does HelloBooks cost in the UK?

Free forever with 2,500 AI credits a month and up to two users — unlimited invoices, bills, quotes and purchase orders, AP and AR aging, P&L, balance sheet and cash flow, and the full mobile app. Pro is £7.99/month or £79.99/year against a list price of £15.99, with unlimited users, unlimited bank connections, MTD-ready VAT, multi-entity, API access, inventory, three-way matching and multi-currency. Business is £31.99/month or £319.99/year.

Will HelloBooks withdraw its free plan the way Bokio did?

We keep the Free plan permanently — that is our published commitment, and paid launch pricing is rate-locked for twelve months after you subscribe with advance notice of any change. We would rather you held us to that than took it on faith: CSV and Excel export are available on every plan including Free, so you are never locked in, and our migration flow supports a clean exit as well as a clean entry.

How do I move my Bokio records into HelloBooks?

If you exported before 7 July 2026, import your chart of accounts, customers, suppliers, items, invoices and bills as CSV — the HelloBooks import uses AI to read your existing structure, retain nominal codes and map intelligently, and the flow at /migrate includes a dry-run preview and one-click rollback. If your only export was nominal activity PDFs, which several Bokio users reported relying on, the practical approach is entering opening balances at a cutover date and keeping the PDFs as your historic record. Our team can help structure that.

What AI does HelloBooks include?

AI auto-categorization at 95%+ accuracy, OCR bill and receipt capture with smart line-item extraction, Munimji — a conversational accounting assistant with 60+ tools — AI payables with approval routing, AI calling for overdue receivables, a CFO agent, Auto-Inbox capture from email and photos, smart error detection, Period Autopilot for automated month-end close, and an AI Analysis tab on every standard report. Included from the Free plan with 2,500 credits a month. Bokio documented no AI features.

Is HelloBooks financially stable?

A fair question after a vendor closure. HelloBooks is part of Meru Fin Tech, self-funded, founded 2024 by two practising chartered accountants who previously built and sold Meru Accounting, an Ahmedabad firm with 300+ professionals and 1,000+ SMB clients. We are not going to claim that guarantees anything — no vendor can. What we can offer is unrestricted data export on every plan so that our stability is never the thing standing between you and your records.

Is HelloBooks secure?

HelloBooks is SOC 2 Type II certified, with the report available under NDA through the Trust Center; ISO 27001 is on the compliance roadmap and we do not describe it as certified. Data is encrypted with AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.2+ in transit, MFA is available, hosting is AWS with 99.9% uptime and daily encrypted backups, and bank connections are read-only. HelloBooks is GDPR-aligned; sub-processors and residency detail are at /trust-center.

Migrating from Bokio (UK closed July 2026)?

HelloBooks supports CSV import for chart of accounts, customers, vendors, items, invoices, and bills. For QuickBooks Online, we offer a built-in two-way sync. For other platforms, our migration team can assist with a structured cutover.