Top Non-AI Tech Tools Every New or Small Practice Bookkeeper Needs in 2026. youtu.be/4ysmI0IuVk4?si=JQPK… via @YouTube

2 years ago, I’d never written a line of production code. Beyond some basic HTML, CSS, and rudimentary JavaScript, software engineering was a closed door. In two months' time, I’m shipping my first robust SaaS product: Genvice. I’d spent years as a bookkeeper, both as an employee and running my own practice, lodging BAS, STP and complying with SG requirements. My career was living inside Xero, QuickBooks, and originally MYOB. And while I’d craved these skills since the mid 2000s, what I didn't have was a web or software engineering background. In 2024, that started to change. I closed down my firm to chase the tech skills I'd always secretly wanted. I want to be careful here, because the AI-and-coding discourse is mostly noise. One camp says AI coding is slop. The other says engineers are obsolete. Both are wrong, and both are normally selling something, or just protecting their turf. Here’s my opinion: AI hasn't replaced the need to understand what you're building. It has collapsed the distance between knowing a problem deeply and being able to build the solution. Building with AI is leverage on foundational software engineering knowledge, not a substitute for it. I still have to understand architecture, data integrity, and security. While the AI accelerates my execution, it doesn’t give me a free pass. When I don't know enough, the gaps show up fast, and it’s up to any builder to learn fast and catch up quickly here. But the tough realities aside, what's exciting about the emerging AI-assisted coding era is who this opens the door for… That is, it opens the door for people with deep industry expertise. For these people the barrier was never understanding the problems in their space. It was always the engineering distance to building the fix. And that distance is what is now shrinking. This is the exact bet behind Genvice. We are building an advisory insights platform designed strictly for BAS agents and professional bookkeepers. We layer automated trend and ratio analysis on top of clean accounting data. I’m building this because I lived the problem, not because I read or heard about it. And the same would apply to you. The new, modern AI development tools reward people who know their domain cold. If you've got hard-won expertise and you've wondered whether there’s a possibility for you to build a solution: The answer is yes. If you’re keen to stay on top of what I’m building over the final 9-week sprint to launch, sign up for my weekly newsletter at the genvice(dot)com landing page. #SoloFounder #BuildInPublic #SaaS #AICoding #Bookkeeping #BASagent #Xero #QBO #AusBiz #SmallBusiness

While I’m confident the ATO is conservative, like the TPB, it’s key to realise that the specific AI tool used, how it’s setup, and how the end user calls it, has a HUGE impact on how it performs. And the ATO isn’t going to let any taxpayer use, ‘AI told me so’ as an excuse.