Cloud accounting software developer Xero announced plans to roll out a new artificial intelligence-based bank reconciliation predictions feature.
The new features predict contact and account codes for company transactions that can’t be tied to specific invoices or bills. Using machine learning, it applies the organization’s bank rules, previous transactions and other data to make the predictions and save data-entry time.
Over 1.7 billion transactions were reconciled on Xero within the past year, giving the software developer’s machine learning algorithms a vast quantity of data to learn from.
“While each small business is unique, there are many patterns we can learn from the reconciliation activity of our millions of subscribers globally. This scale and reach allows us to tap into the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ and reduce toil for small-business owners, while maintaining the security and assurance they expect from our platform,” Kendra Vant, executive general manager of Data at Xero, said in a statement. "With these new bank reconciliation predictions, we can suggest to a user that money spent at an office supply store is likely to belong in Office Expenses, even if it is the first time you've shopped at that store.”
The new predictions feature will roll out in phases to all Xero customers.
Xero noted that this is the third AI-powered enhancement it has launched this year. The other two are a suite of planning and forecasting tools called Analytics Plus, and automatic form-filling within Hubdoc and Xero Expenses.
The company has made leveraging AI and applying it to the vast amount of information that flows through its platform, a major part of its global strategy.
“As we continue to leverage AI to build rich customer experiences, we’ll streamline more and more critical business tasks and processes for our customers, whether it’s reconciling transactions, filing expenses, or forecasting for the future,” Vant said.
