A normal Wednesday morning: accountants at their desks with dual monitors showing Excel and Exact Online, while the office manager sorts a fresh stack of client folders.

Professional Services and Consulting · Utrecht, the Netherlands

Van der Berg Accountants got 45 hours a week back in 7 days

A 14-person accountancy and bookkeeping firm in Utrecht serving small and medium businesses across construction, hospitality, and professional services. The team handles year-end accounts, payroll, and day-to-day bookkeeping, with a reputation for personal, jargon-free advice.

A normal Wednesday morning: accountants at their desks with dual monitors showing Excel and Exact Online, while the office manager sorts a fresh stack of client folders.

14people on the team

45hback every week

$113,900value per year at $55/h

4 weeksto earn back the $7,700

ⓘWe use fictive names for privacy reasons. Van der Berg Accountants and everyone in this story are fictive; the plan shows how a typical 7-day engagement runs in this industry.

The business

Precision bookkeeping and tax advice for Dutch SMEs

Customers: SMEs in construction, hospitality, and professional services, typically 5-50 employees.
Team: 14 people
Location: Utrecht, the Netherlands

Tools before we started

Exact OnlineMicrosoft 365 (Excel, Outlook, Teams, Word)MailchimpTimeChimpAdobe AcrobatWhatsApp (client messaging)

What they sell, share of revenue

Bookkeeping and monthly reports40%

Annual accounts and tax returns35%

Payroll processing15%

Business advisory10%

The team

14 people, and what their AI now does for them

Managing PartnerTaught Copilot to draft client emails, summarise meetings, and pull key metrics from Excel reports for client calls.1

Senior AccountantSet up Copilot in Excel to generate complex analyses from trial balance data and write first drafts of advisory notes in Word.2

AccountantConfigured Copilot to reconcile bank statement CSV files with Exact Online exports and flag missing transactions.4

BookkeeperSet up Copilot to extract vendor, amount and date from scanned receipts and enter them into a shared Excel workbook.4

Payroll SpecialistTaught Copilot to cross-check payroll calculations against statutory rates and draft the monthly payslip summary email.1

Office ManagerSet up Copilot to categorise client emails, schedule team meetings from chat threads, and generate onboarding checklists.1

Administrative AssistantSet up Copilot to assemble engagement letters and privacy forms by filling in client details from a brief prompt.1

The questionnaire

What Jan van der Berg told us before we started

Jan van der Berg, Managing Partner, filled in the same questionnaire you can fill in today.

Biggest time drain

Manually categorising bank transactions and chasing client documents.

The goal

Reduce time spent on low-value tasks so we can serve more clients without hiring, and improve work-life balance.

Worries about AI

AI might make errors in tax filings · Losing the personal touch with clients · Team resistance to new technology

Keep human

Personal client advisory conversations
Finding tax optimisation opportunities
Mentoring team members

Take it off our plate

Data entry
Reconciling discrepancies in spreadsheets
Following up on missing receipts
Filling in repetitive forms for tax authorities

Our advice

Microsoft 365 Copilot, and the three things to automate first

Your team already works in Outlook, Teams, Excel and Word every day. Copilot integrates directly with these tools and can connect to your Exact Online data via Excel, so you automate without switching environments.

Your tools today

Exact OnlineMicrosoft 365 (Excel, Outlook, Teams, Word)MailchimpTimeChimpAdobe AcrobatWhatsApp (client messaging)

We advise

Microsoft 365 CopilotFit 10/10Set up for 14 people, connected to your tools

AI takes over

Bank transaction reconciliation
Client onboarding document pack
Scanned receipt data extraction
Weekly team report compilation

Stays human, AI only supports

Tax optimisation adviceComplex advisory conversations with clientsFinal review of all filings

How each platform fit this business

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chosen10/10

Google Gemini for Workspace5/10

ChatGPT Business4/10

Claude Team3/10

What we advised to automate first

Reconciling bank transactions with bookkeeping entries
Drafting standard client communications and meeting summaries
Extracting data from scanned receipts into Excel

Their 7 days

One Zoom session a day, from kick-off to AI-ready

Day1
AI readiness audit and team kick-off
Entire team
We met on Zoom to map current workflows, identify the highest-effort manual tasks, and agree on priority automation targets. The whole team joined to voice their pains and ideas.
Day2
Individual AI setup sessions
All 14 team members, one-on-one
Each team member spent 30 minutes on a one-on-one Zoom call with screen sharing, configuring their Copilot, crafting custom instructions for their most repetitive work, and testing first prompts.
Day3
Reconciliation and receipt automations
4 accountants, 4 bookkeepers
On Zoom, accountants and bookkeepers built a bank statement matching automation in Excel and a receipt data extractor from scanned images, then tested them with real client files.
Day4
Client communication automation
Managing Partner, Office Manager
On Zoom, the managing partner and office manager set up Copilot to draft engagement letters, onboarding packs and standard update emails from simple prompts.
Day5
Advanced Excel and reporting automations
2 Senior Accountants
On Zoom, senior accountants created natural-language queries to generate monthly management reports and first drafts of advisory meeting notes, cutting report preparation time by more than half.
Day6
Live team training session
Entire team and consultant
The entire team practised daily AI habits together on Zoom from their own meeting room, built a mini-automation for weekly progress reporting, and walked through each role's new documentation.
Day7
Review, documentation handover and retainer discussion
Managing Partner
We reviewed metrics from the week on Zoom, handed over custom training videos and standard operating procedures, and agreed on a monthly retainer for ongoing improvements.

Training day on Zoom: the client's team is at their own workplace on a Zoom call, with two accountants building a reconciliation automation in Copilot on a large screen while colleagues take notes on laptops, and the consultant visible on a video screen.

Training

A live Zoom session, 5 custom videos and a plan per person

Live training on Zoom

A 2-hour interactive workshop on Zoom with the whole team joining from their own meeting room, practising daily AI tasks and building a weekly report automation together.

Custom training videos

▶ Setting up your Copilot for personalised email replies8 min
▶ Using Copilot in Excel to categorise and match bank transactions12 min
▶ Drafting tax return notes and engagement letters in Word6 min
▶ Automating meeting notes and follow-ups in Teams5 min
▶ Connecting Copilot to Exact Online exports for monthly reports10 min

Online training plan, per role

Managing Partner: Prioritising advisory conversations over administrative follow-ups
Senior Accountant: Using natural language to query financial data in Excel
Accountant: Building and refining reconciliation prompts
Bookkeeper: Correcting AI extraction errors efficiently
Payroll Specialist: Verifying AI-generated compliance checks
Office Manager: Automating repetitive Outlook and Teams tasks
Administrative Assistant: Using Copilot in Word for document assembly

Automations built

4 automations that now run every day

Bank transaction reconciliation

3.5hper week

BeforeOne accountant spent 8 hours per week manually matching bank CSV lines to Exact Online entries and digging into differences.NowCopilot in Excel suggests matches and flags discrepancies. The accountant reviews and finalises in 3 hours per week.

Client onboarding document pack

3hper week

BeforeOffice manager and admin spent 6 hours per week copying, pasting and personalising engagement letters, privacy forms and welcome emails.NowOne prompt with client name and service type generates the full pack in Word and Outlook. Review takes 2 hours per week total.

Scanned receipt data extraction

3hper week

BeforeBookkeepers typed vendor, amount and date from each scanned receipt into Excel, taking 5 hours per week.NowDrag an image into an Excel sheet and Copilot extracts the fields. Bookkeepers verify and correct in 1 hour per week.

Weekly team report compilation

1.5hper week

BeforeThe administrative assistant spent 3 hours per week gathering updates from email, Teams chats and meetings to create a status report.NowCopilot in Teams pulls together a summary from conversations and shared files. The assistant reviews and sends it in 1 hour.

The result

45 hours a week back, worth $113,900 a year

34 hours come from everyone using their own AI every day, 11 from the automations. The team now handles 3 more clients without overtime, and error rates on initial bookkeeping entries dropped noticeably. The managing partner spends Fridays working from home for the first time in years.

Where the hours come from, per week

Accountant4 × 3h daily AI12h

Bookkeeper4 × 2h daily AI9h

Senior Accountant2 × 3h daily AI6h

Bank transaction reconciliationautomation3.5h

Client onboarding document packautomation3h

Scanned receipt data extractionautomation3h

Managing Partner1 × 2h daily AI2h

Everyone else (4 more)daily AI and smaller automations6.5h

Paid back in week 4

At $55 an hour, the time saved earns back the $7,700 in 4 weeks. Every week after that is profit.

Week 1Week 13Week 26

2,070h

back per year

$113,900

value per year

Retainer: monthly. Monthly retainer covers Copilot license updates, ongoing prompt tuning, and building a new automation for quarterly VAT return preparation.

I was sceptical, but within a week my team stopped dreading the monthly bank reconciliation. We now get it done in under two hours instead of two days. Complete AI Business really understood our specific accounting workflows.

Jan van der Berg, Managing Partner, Van der Berg Accountants. Fictive example.

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