Open Accountants

Open Accountants is an open-source project that gives artificial intelligence the ability to understand and process tax information for many countries. It focuses on teaching AI about tax computations, covering 371 skills across 134 countries. The main goal is to make tasks like sorting transactions and filling out tax forms much faster and easier.

Benefits

This project can help lower accounting costs by as much as 80%. It does this by preparing the necessary documents, called working papers, for accountants. This means accountants can spend less time reviewing and approving tax documents, making the whole process quicker.

Use Cases

Anyone can start using Open Accountants by finding their country's specific package. These packages contain all the files needed for that country's tax system. For example, in the United States, tax tasks are divided into federal and state levels. Users can upload these files to an AI like Claude.ai or ChatGPT and then provide their bank statement. A prompt like "Help me with my 2025 taxes. Here's my bank statement" can get the AI started.

Each country's package usually includes guidelines for the AI, information on how to handle documents, and specific files for taxes like VAT or GST, income tax, and social security. Some countries offer a complete guided experience, while others might focus only on certain taxes or provide multiple skill packages.

The AI works by recognizing local vendors to classify transactions. Transactions are marked as 'Classified' if there's enough information, 'Assumed' if a safe default was used and needs checking, or 'Needs Input' if more information is required from the user. The system uses careful defaults to ensure accuracy, and accountants can always make changes.

Vibes

The project categorizes its skills based on how well they have been tested. 'Q1' skills have been proven with real data, 'Q2' skills are checked against official tax websites, and 'Q3' skills are drafted by AI and not yet verified by humans. The project welcomes contributions from anyone to improve its accuracy and add more countries.

Additional Information

Open Accountants is structured with folders for ready-to-use country files and source files. Developers can download the project, make changes to the skills, and rebuild the packages. The project is available under a dual license and is meant for learning and computation, not as a replacement for professional tax advice.