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Ask Your Bookkeeping Questions in Plain English: Find Any Transaction, Supplier Total or Document

By Di Ma, Project Manager 27 OCT 2026 · 4 MIN READ

"What did we pay FedEx in March?" "How much did we spend on hotels this year?" "Who were our biggest suppliers?" These are simple questions, but answering them usually means exporting the ledger to a spreadsheet, filtering, adding up — or emailing your bookkeeper and waiting.

Certanta clients can now ask them in the client portal, in plain English, and get the answer from their own books in a few seconds. The AI assistant that already answered "how did last month go?" (see Ask your books a question) can now do four more things.

1. Find any transaction

Ask for a payment the way you would describe it: by supplier, by what it was for, by date, by account or by amount.

• "What did we pay FedEx in March?"
• "Show payments over 10,000."
• "When did we last pay the landlord?"

The assistant searches the posted lines in your ledger and answers with the entries it found: dates, amounts, who was paid.

2. Totals by month, account or supplier

• "How much went on travel each month?"
• "Who were our biggest suppliers this year?"
• "How much did we spend on hotels?"

Answers with several figures come back as a small table. Two details make the totals trustworthy:

• The AI doesn't do the adding up. Every total is calculated by the books system, the same one that produces your management accounts, and the assistant reports what it returns.
• Nothing is counted twice. By default, totals look only at income and expense lines. A supplier payment appears in your books twice, once as the expense and once leaving the bank, and only the expense is counted.

If the books don't hold what you asked for under the words you used, the answer says so. Asked about travel, the demo company's answer notes that other trips may be booked under a different description, such as flights or hotels, and offers to check. You don't get a confident-looking number that leaves things out.

3. Read your invoices, receipts and contracts

The assistant can also open the documents filed in your books: invoices, receipts and contracts, as PDFs or photos. It answers from what the document says: the line items, the payment terms, the notice period in a lease.

• "What's on the June invoice from our printer?"
• "What are the payment terms in the supplier contract?"

Each answer cites the document it read, as a link that opens it in a new window, so you can check it yourself. Only your own company's documents can be opened. The assistant can't show you a link to anything else. If no copy is filed against an entry, it tells you, and offers to ask your accountant for it.

4. Ask by voice, on your phone

Next to the question box is a microphone button. Tap it and ask out loud. Your speech is turned into text, and the audio isn't stored. The panel is laid out for phones, so the answer to "what did we pay the contractor last month?" is a few seconds away wherever you are.

What hasn't changed

• It only sees checked entries. The assistant reads entries a bookkeeper has reviewed and posted, never drafts. A receipt you uploaded this morning isn't in the figures until it is posted.
• Every answer is dated. Each figure gives its currency and the date the books are posted through, so you know how current it is.
• It can't change anything. It reads; it doesn't post, reclassify or delete. If something needs your accountant, it drafts a message, shows you the wording, and sends it only after you confirm.
• No tax or legal advice. Questions such as how to treat a transaction, or whether to make a claim, go to your accountant.
• You only see your own companies. The check runs on every question, not once at login.

Why not just use a spreadsheet?

You still can: your statements download to Excel from the portal. But most questions about your books are lookups: one supplier, one month, one figure. A spreadsheet means exporting, filtering, adding up and checking you didn't count the bank side as well. The assistant does that lookup against books a bookkeeper has already checked, and shows you what it read.

What it costs

The assistant is included with Certanta bookkeeping at no extra cost, and it’s switched on by default for bookkeeping clients. It’s most useful on monthly bookkeeping, because its answers are only as fresh as the posted books (see pricing). Anyone can try it now on the demo company: no sign-up, a full year of sample books plus the current year to date.

Frequently asked questions

Figures and screenshots are from the fictional demo company, Harbourfront Trading Ltd, not a real client. This article describes the assistant as it works in October 2026. It is general information, not tax or legal advice.