Meridian is built around a simple idea: accounting firms should be able to delegate work to software the way they delegate work to a capable accountant.
Some of that work is recurring. A month-end close, for example, is a set of inputs, steps, checks, and outputs. In Meridian, firms can articulate that work in a checklist, customize it to their firm-wide process and client-specific needs, and have Meridian execute it autonomously.
But firms do not only run the same checklist every month. Clients change their minds and want their books restated. A close review surfaces an opportunity to refine the chart of accounts and accounting policies. A new client comes in with books that some forensics to understand, clean up, and catch up to present.
There’s often a lot of ad hoc work to support a client, and that is what Meridian AI is for.
Meridian AI is the chat entry point to Meridian. You describe the accounting outcome you want, provide the relevant files or context, and Meridian uses the same tools, history, and accounting understanding that power the rest of the platform to do the work.
The result is a more complete automation experience: recurring work can run from checklists, and ad hoc work can be delegated through chat.
What can Meridian AI do?
Meridian AI is designed to be directed like you would a competent assistant; you do not need to spell out every click or prescribe every implementation detail. Give Meridian AI the objective and the inputs, and it will execute the project. If something is missing or inconsistent, Meridian AI will ask clarifying questions before it makes changes. When it completes the work, it summarizes what it did so your team can review it.
Importantly, Meridian AI is a chat entrypoint to the same underlying system that executes the recurring checklist work, which means it has access to the full client context and history, the thousands of tools Meridian uses under the hood to execute complex close processes, and the supporting schedules, which it will update and re-roll forward as necessary when making changes.
Here are some examples of Meridian AI in action:
Reallocating months of transactions in minutes
“I have a client who keeps changing the way they want to allocate expenses across departments. Before Meridian, I’d have to go back and manually update months of numbers, dig through spreadsheets, re-classify entries, and make sure I didn’t miss anything. It was the kind of work that eats up an entire day.
Now with Meridian AI, the client tells me they’ve changed their mind and I let Meridian AI know. Instead of taking me hours, it reruns the numbers within minutes, which was completely unheard of pre-Meridian.”
— Ashley Schagrin, Chief of Staff
Two years of client onboarding cleanup done overnight
“I onboarded a client that we needed to do their 2024 through May 2026 books. You're dealing with 30+ months of books that you're having to catch up on and thousands of transactions to reconcile. That would usually take me days to go month by month. I put it in Meridian AI, plugged in my computer, and went to sleep. I woke up and it actually did everything. It probably worked most of the night, but the fact that I was able to do all that work while I was asleep is pretty cool.”
— Ben Kocher, Accountant
Processing and categorizing 800 receipts in hours
“A business provided a zip file with a bunch of folders with nearly 800 receipts covering a year of expenses paid from several owners' personal accounts. Manually, the job would have meant extracting data into spreadsheets, finding duplicates, converting foreign-currency transactions, and then booking the reimbursements correctly.
I instead just gave the folders to Meridian AI with the instruction to triage what was in them and book the liabilities appropriately. A few hours later, the system had extracted the receipts, identified a bunch of duplicates, converted the foreign-currency activity, and booked the expenses through liability accounts for the appropriate owners. The books were ready to review.”
— Jessica McKellar, Firm owner/CEO
The full Meridian automation experience
Meridian AI is part of the comprehensive Meridian platform, which includes four connected surfaces:
- A checklist system for recurring work, where firms define the inputs, steps, checks, and expected outputs for workflows like month-end close, customize them by client, and let Meridian execute the work autonomously.
- Meridian AI for ad hoc work, where teams can delegate client requests, review follow-up, cleanup, restatements, and other one-off projects through chat.
- A client-facing portal for gathering the files, answers, and approvals Meridian needs from clients.
- An internal firm management portal for coordinating work across the team, reviewing what Meridian has done, and deciding what should become part of the ongoing process.
The checklist system is generally where recurring work belongs, and then Meridian AI is the chat entry point for work that does not fit neatly into a recurring checklist. Both are powered by the same underlying accounting system, which means ad hoc tasks can use the same client context, firm preferences, schedules, and history that Meridian uses for recurring close work.
Together, those pieces cover the reality of accounting work: the recurring process you can define in advance, the ad hoc work that appears once the real world starts moving, and the collaboration layer that keeps clients and firm teams aligned.
Meridian AI is live today. If you're already using Meridian, your team can access it inside the platform.
If you're not using Meridian yet, talk to our team about how you can get started.