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Comparison · Last updated 2026-07-28

HelloBooks vs Dext: Capture inside the ledger vs a pre-accounting layer you pay for separately

Dext, formerly Receipt Bank, is pre-accounting document capture. It extracts data from receipts, bills, invoices and bank statements and publishes into a general ledger — it has no chart of accounts of its own.

Dext no longer publishes prices on its own pricing pages; both the business and partner pages render a "build your plan" configurator. Third-party listings put Business at $31.50/month monthly or $25.21 billed annually for 250 documents and up to five users, and Practice at $239.19/month for ten business clients. Dext AI Assist is a separate paid add-on, published at US$7 per client per month for practices and US$10 per month for businesses, on a launch offer to 31 October 2026.

HelloBooks includes OCR capture with AI line-item extraction inside the ledger, drawn from the same credit wallet as everything else, starting on a free plan. Dext remains the more specialised capture engine with a deeper practice workflow and a 4.6 G2 rating — the question is whether you want to pay for capture as a separate subscription.

Researched & written by the HelloBooks editorial team. Checked against Dext'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 9 buyer criteria

HelloBooks vs Dext — criteria scorecard
CriterionHelloBooksDext
Entry price & free tierStrongLimited
Pricing transparencyStrongNot offered
General-ledger depthStrongNot offered
Document capture depthPartialStrong
Practice / multi-client workflowPartialStrong
AI included vs charged separatelyStrongLimited
Multi-country tax complianceStrongNot offered
Inventory & operationsStrongNot offered
Data portabilityStrongStrong

Side-by-side feature comparison

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

HelloBooks vs Dext— feature-by-feature comparison
FeatureHelloBooksDext
What the product actually isA full double-entry general ledger with OCR capture, AP, AR, banking, inventory and reporting in one systemPre-accounting document capture. No chart of accounts, trial balance or financial statements — publishes into a separate GL
Published pricingFree forever; Pro $9.99/mo; Business $39.99/mo (US). Flat per account, unlimited users on paid plansNot published on dext.com — a configurator, no price table. Third-party listings: Business $31.50/mo or $25.21 annual; Practice $239.19/mo or $207.99 annual
What the entry plan includesFree: unlimited invoices, bills, quotes and POs, AP/AR aging, P&L, balance sheet, cash flow, mobile app, 2 users, 2,500 AI credits/monthBusiness plan: 5 users, 250 documents/month, 10 bank-statement sheets, 5 supplier-statement extractions, 5 line-item extraction documents
How usage scalesAI credits: 2,500/month Free, 15,000 Pro, 50,000 Business. Top-up packs never expire while the account is activeEach additional user adds 50 documents/month, 5 bank-statement sheets, 5 line-item documents and 1 supplier statement — capacity is tied to seat count
Practice / multi-client pricingFree Partner Program — no upfront fee, a practice dashboard, bulk AI operations across clients and a directory listingPractice plan bundles ten business clients per month; the 2023 shift to per-client billing produced substantial public pushback from UK firms
Do you still need separate accounting software?No — HelloBooks is the books of accountYes. Dext publishes into Xero, QuickBooks, Sage and 30-plus other accounting systems
AI captureOCR with AI line-item extraction, auto-categorization at 95%+ accuracy, Auto-Inbox capture from email and photos — included, no add-onDext AI Assist launched March 2026 and is generally available, learning from how you work and offering reviewable suggestions with visible reasoning
Cost of the AI layerIncluded in the plan — one credit wallet covers OCR, categorization, matching and the assistantA paid add-on on top of the subscription: US$7 per client per month for practices, US$10 per month for businesses (launch offer, uncapped until 31 Oct 2026)
Conversational assistantMunimji, with 60+ tools, plus bookkeeping over WhatsApp in Hindi, English and Hinglish with voice notesNot a published capability — AI Assist is suggestion-based rather than conversational
Capture channelsMobile app, email forwarding to Auto-Inbox, photo upload, WhatsApp, and bulk CSV/ExcelWeb, mobile app, "Extract by email", Fetch for auto-pulling supplier invoices, and WhatsApp
Bank statement extractionPDF bank-statement upload with AI reconciliation, plus Plaid feeds across 11,000+ US banks and India SMS/email auto-importBank statement extraction included but quota-limited by plan; UK reviewers describe statement extraction as "hit and miss"
Three-way matchingPO / GRN / bill comparison with quantity and amount discrepancy flags — included with ProNot a capture-tool function; handled in your accounting system
Tax complianceIndia GSTR-1/3B/9 filed via a GSTN-authorized GSP, e-invoicing and e-way bills; US 1099 e-filing and multi-state sales tax; UK MTD-ready VAT; UAE FTA-aligned VATExtracts tax lines from documents; statutory filing happens in your accounting software
ReportingP&L, balance sheet, cash flow, aged AR/AP, general ledger, 4/12/26-week forecasting with scenarios, AI analysis on every reportDocument and workflow reporting only — Dext is not the reporting system of record
Getting your data outCSV and Excel import/export throughout, plus a migration path with dry-run preview and one-click rollbackWell documented — export items as CSV, PDF or ZIP from the inbox or archive, with configurable custom CSV export formats. Source documents download as PDFs
Independent ratingsNewer product with a smaller review base — judge us on the free plan rather than review volumeG2 4.6/5 from 329 reviews; Capterra 4.3/5 from 174 reviews (retrieved 28 Jul 2026)

When to choose HelloBooks

  • You are paying for capture and a ledger separately and would rather have one subscription that does both.
  • Document quotas keep forcing plan upgrades — HelloBooks meters AI credits rather than tying capacity to seat count.
  • You do not want the AI layer to be a per-client or per-month add-on on top of the base subscription.
  • You want the captured document to become a matched, coded, reconciled journal entry without a publish step to a second system.
  • You need purchase orders and three-way matching, which sit outside a capture tool entirely.
  • You want a free plan to evaluate on real documents before committing budget.

When to choose Dext

  • You are staying on Xero, QuickBooks or Sage and only need a better capture front end for it.
  • Fetch — automatically pulling invoices from suppliers rather than waiting for them — is genuinely useful to your workflow.
  • You run a practice with an established Dext workflow across many clients and retraining is the real cost.
  • Supplier statement extraction and reconciliation is a core part of how you close.
  • You want the reassurance of a 4.6 G2 rating and a long track record in the pre-accounting category.
  • Your accounting system's native capture is genuinely poor and a specialist tool is the right fix.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Dext cost in 2026?

Dext no longer publishes a price table. Both dext.com/us/business/pricing and the partner pricing page render a "build your plan" configurator with no prices in the HTML, and the partner page says only "choose the features and support you need, then get a tailored package for your firm". Third-party listings on G2 and Capterra, accessed 28 July 2026, put Business at $31.50/month monthly or $25.21 billed annually, and Practice at $239.19/month or $207.99 annually. Treat those as indicative rather than vendor-confirmed.

What do you actually get on the Dext Business plan?

Per Dext's own help documentation: five users, 250 documents per month, 10 sheets of bank statement extraction, 5 supplier statement extractions and 5 line-item extraction documents. Each additional user adds 50 documents per month, 5 bank-statement sheets, 5 line-item documents and 1 supplier statement. Annual billing saves 20%. The key structural point is that capacity is tied to seat count, so growing the team is how you grow the quota.

Is Dext AI Assist included or extra?

Extra. Dext publishes AI Assist pricing separately: for practices it is £5, €6, US$7, C$10, A$10 or ZAR 111 per client per month, and for businesses £7.50, €9, US$10, C$15, A$15 or ZAR 168 per month. There is a launch offer with uncapped usage until 31 October 2026 and a free trial of 50 applied suggestions for first-time users. In HelloBooks, AI is not a separate line — OCR, categorization, matching and the assistant all draw on the same credit wallet included in your plan.

Is Dext AI Assist actually shipped, or still in beta?

Shipped. Dext's help centre documents it as a live paid add-on with region-specific pricing across the UK, Europe, Australia, Canada, the US and South Africa, not as a beta or early-access programme. It launched in March 2026. It learns from how you work, accepts written custom guidance — for example capitalising equipment over a threshold — and each suggestion carries reasoning you can accept, dismiss or correct.

Does HelloBooks replace Dext or complement it?

Replace, if Dext is feeding a ledger you are also willing to move. HelloBooks includes OCR bill and receipt capture with smart line-item extraction, Auto-Inbox capture from email and photos, WhatsApp capture, and AI categorization at 95%+ accuracy — and the captured document becomes a coded, matched journal entry in the same system, with no publish step. If you are keeping Xero or Sage as your ledger, HelloBooks is not a drop-in capture tool for them and Dext remains the better fit.

Why did UK firms push back on Dext pricing?

The 2023 move from unlimited packages to per-client billing generated a large public AccountingWEB thread, with firms reporting increases such as "from £325 to around the £900 per month" and one describing a 330% rise as unacceptable, alongside complaints about the change not being documented on the website or in FAQs. That history matters if you are a growing practice, because per-client pricing means your software cost scales directly with your client book.

How does the HelloBooks Partner Program compare to a Dext Practice plan?

The HelloBooks Partner Program is free to join with no upfront fee. Partners resell standard Pro and Business plans to clients and earn a wholesale discount that grows with status, from Bronze at 5% to Platinum at 20%, with unlimited clients on one practice dashboard, bulk AI operations across clients, a certified advisor badge and a free directory listing. It is a different commercial model from a per-client software subscription — you earn margin rather than paying per client.

What are the common complaints about Dext?

Beyond pricing, the recurring G2 themes as of July 2026 are: the mobile app lacking features present on desktop, statement extraction from UK banks being "hit and miss", support taking up to 48 hours to reply, and OCR being inconsistent on low-quality receipts or complex invoices. Software Advice notes some reviewers feel Dext is not essential if your accounting software already has decent receipt scanning — which is precisely the argument for capture living in the ledger.

How accurate is HelloBooks OCR?

We publish 95%+ auto-match and auto-categorization accuracy rather than a 99% capture claim, and we think the more important number is that every AI action is reviewable before it posts. A misread line surfaces as a suggestion with a confidence score, not as a silently created journal entry. Dext AI Assist takes a similar approach with reviewable suggestions and visible reasoning, which is the right design in both products.

Can I capture documents on WhatsApp?

Both products support it. Dext lists WhatsApp among its capture channels. HelloBooks goes further in India specifically — Munimji is a full bookkeeping agent on the official WhatsApp Business API in Hindi, English and Hinglish, supporting voice notes, with India data residency. That is conversational bookkeeping rather than document submission.

Can I migrate my documents out of Dext?

Yes, and Dext handles this well. You can export items as CSV, PDF or ZIP from the Costs and Sales inbox or the Archive via Tools > Export, and administrators can define custom CSV export formats under Business settings > Exports. Source documents themselves download as PDFs. HelloBooks imports chart of accounts, customers, vendors, items, invoices and bills from CSV with AI mapping that retains your account numbers, with a dry-run preview and one-click rollback.

Does HelloBooks handle supplier statement reconciliation?

Supplier statement extraction as a discrete quota-metered feature is a Dext strength we do not match one-for-one. HelloBooks approaches the same problem through AP aging, three-way matching against purchase orders and goods-receipt notes, and the Clean Up module which surfaces old unreconciled items and bank-versus-books drift as fixable checks. If line-by-line supplier statement matching is central to your close, evaluate that specifically rather than taking our word for it.

What does HelloBooks include that a capture tool structurally cannot?

The whole ledger: general ledger, trial balance, P&L, balance sheet, cash flow, aged receivables and payables, cash-flow forecasting over 4, 12 and 26 weeks with base, best and worst scenarios, multi-entity consolidation, inventory with BOM and multiple valuation methods, warehouse, POS, manufacturing, fixed assets with automatic depreciation, and statutory tax filing across India, the US, the UK and the UAE. None of that is a criticism of Dext — it is simply a different product category.

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 claim 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.

Is there a free HelloBooks plan?

Yes — free forever, no credit card. Unlimited invoices, bills, quotes and purchase orders, AP and AR aging, P&L, balance sheet and cash flow, one bank and one card via Plaid, the full iOS and Android app, up to two users and 2,500 AI credits per month. Push a month of real receipts through it and compare the extraction quality directly against Dext.

What is Dext genuinely better at?

Pure capture depth and practice workflow. Fetch, which automatically pulls invoices from suppliers rather than waiting for them to arrive, has no direct equivalent here. Supplier statement extraction is a mature, dedicated feature. And with 36-plus accounting integrations, Dext works with whatever ledger you already run — which is the whole point of a specialist tool, and something a ledger with built-in capture can never offer.

Migrating from Dext?

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.