How to automate bookkeeping in Ireland, step by step

Manual entry is where most errors start, so begin with your bank data. Open-banking connections are read-only: the software sees transactions, never your login.

HelloBooks is rolling out direct Irish bank connections through its open-banking partner, covering banks such as AIB, Bank of Ireland, Permanent TSB, An Post Money, Revolut and N26. Until a connection is live for your bank, upload a statement and the AI reconciles it line by line.

Bring in every account the business uses, including the card you pay online subscriptions with. A missing account is the usual reason a VAT return will not tie up.

Irish VAT has several rates: 23% standard, 13.5%, 9% and 4.8% for livestock. Since 1 July 2026 food service and hairdressing are at 9% rather than 13.5%. Getting the rate right on each line is what makes the VAT3 right.

HelloBooks proposes the ledger account and tax treatment for each transaction and learns from your corrections. Nothing posts until you confirm it, so you only look hard at the lines it flags.

Photograph a receipt or upload a supplier bill and the AI reads the supplier, date, amounts and VAT, then matches it to the payment. Keep the image with the transaction, because a VAT claim needs a document behind it.

When transactions are coded as they arrive, reconciliation becomes a short weekly review instead of a lost weekend before the 23rd. Match payments to invoices, clear what the AI flagged, and the ledger stays current.

Because every line already carries a tax code, the return is a report rather than a project. HelloBooks computes the T1 to T4 figures from the ledger, each one drilling back to the documents behind it. The rate-by-rate totals the annual Return of Trading Details asks for come from the same coded ledger.

What you still do is check the figures and enter them in ROS. HelloBooks prepares the return; it does not file it.

Payroll is the one area to plan separately. Employers report pay to Revenue on each pay date and, under the Enhanced Reporting Requirements, also report small benefits, travel and subsistence and remote-working allowances. HelloBooks does not run Irish payroll yet, and importing payroll journals is coming soon. Use an Irish payroll product or a bureau, and record the payroll totals in the books each pay period.

Automation works best with a fixed rhythm. Set aside half an hour on the same day each week: bring in any statements that are not yet connected, clear the lines the AI flagged, and attach any missing receipts while you still remember what they were for.

At the end of each two-month VAT period, review the VAT3 figures, look at any line coded to an unusual rate, and enter the totals in ROS before the deadline. Once a year, check the rate-by-rate totals against what the Return of Trading Details asks for. If you work with an accountant, give them access so they review the same live ledger rather than a spreadsheet sent at year end.

A quick map of who does what once the set-up above is running.

• Bank activity: statement upload today, direct connections rolling out. You: bring in every account.
• Account and VAT coding: proposed by AI. You: confirm, and fix the flagged lines.
• Bills and receipts: read by AI. You: snap or upload them.
• VAT3 figures: computed from the ledger. You: check and enter them in ROS.
• Payroll: not in HelloBooks yet. You: payroll software or bureau.