Straight answers.

No. Bluequill is an automation partner, not an accountancy practice. We work alongside your accountant or finance team and never act as accountant of record.

Through your client portal. Onboarding, the engagement documents, reports and a live view of each stage sit in one place, so you’re never chasing an update by email.

Not to build it. We design and build every automation on synthetic data shaped like your data but never your data, in our own environment, so the build itself needs none of your records. Testing on real data happens afterwards, inside your own systems and accounts, run by your team alongside your existing process for one full cycle.

Anything with an export or an API — Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, NetSuite, Dynamics, bank feeds, Shopify, HubSpot, payroll platforms, spreadsheets — and regulatory-reporting tools. If it holds numbers, we can usually connect it — and where a system has no usable interface at all, the discovery says so before you commit to a price.

Not entirely, and we'd rather say so than let the name imply it. No accounting platform's public API — Xero included — exposes the bank feed lines still sitting unmatched, waiting to be matched, in the reconcile screen. That part stays something a person, or the platform's own matching screen, does. What we build is what we call a reconciliation control check: it reads what's already coded in your ledger and catches what's wrong with it — duplicate entries, an invoice or bill marked Paid where the amount paid doesn't actually match, things coded but never ticked off — and tells you within days, not at month-end. Where the real problem is a backlog of untouched lines rather than errors in what's coded, we can check against your actual bank statement instead, which does show every line — a short manual export each cycle rather than a live feed, but one that reaches the backlog directly. The discovery tells you which shape you actually need.

Used properly, yes. We use AI for well-defined tasks with a review step, log what it did, and never let it post, pay or file without a human approving — what's sometimes called human-in-the-loop: there's always a point in the process where a person checks the work before it moves. You’ll be able to show your auditor exactly what happened and why. And your records stay with you: during a discovery we take no copies of your files, we don’t record the sessions, and none of your records or personal data goes into any third-party AI tool. We write up from our own notes, which contain no personal data and no financial figures from your records. Where an automation we build for you uses AI, it runs inside your own systems on your own account with that provider — so that relationship, and your data, stays directly between you and them. We name the provider before you sign anything.

No — most of our clients haven't either. We scope AI to specific, well-defined tasks, explain in plain English what it is and isn't doing before we build anything, and keep a human checking the work throughout — what we call human-in-the-loop. You don't need to understand AI to work with us; you just need to tell us where the time is going.

No — and it's worth being precise about why. A job is made up of many tasks, and it's the task we automate, not the job. We take on the repetitive, rules-based parts — matching, flagging, drafting a first pass — and leave the judgement, the exceptions and the sign-off with your team. In practice that usually means the same people spend less time re-keying and more time on the parts of the job that actually need a person.

On your infrastructure, under your own accounts. We do not host your automations, and you do not rent them from us.

We build on n8n. Usually that means n8n’s own hosted service on an account in your name — nothing for anyone to install or keep patched, typically around £20 a month. Where you would rather it ran on your own infrastructure, it can, and some clients prefer that.

You pay the provider directly and it is not included in our fixed price. The discovery report confirms the exact cost for your volume before you commit to a build. We cover your first three months ourselves — a £60 credit off the build price — so you’ve seen it running, and seen it prove itself, before you’ve paid for the platform yourself. If you don’t have an account today, that is the normal case and not a problem — we set it up as part of the build, on an account in your name, and hand you the keys.

Why it works this way: you own what we build, you can see it running, and if we ever parted company you would need someone to look after it but you would not lose it.

Bournemouth, working with clients across the UK. Walkthroughs are held by video call, which is quicker for everyone and keeps the price fixed. If you would rather we came to you, we’ll agree the day rate and travel costs in writing before we travel.

A rule we apply to every engagement, and it is in the engagement letter as well as here: we do not recommend a build unless it either pays back within twelve months on the hours saved, or fixes a specific control or compliance risk that we name in the report. Either way the report shows the arithmetic, so you can check it and disagree with it. The first Automation Discovery we ever completed recommended against a build — on our own company, because the payback came out at twenty-one months, so the answer was no.

It happens, occasionally. You still get the map, the numbers and the recommendations — and you haven’t bought a build you didn’t need.