Frequently asked questions◆

Meridian’s default operating model completes production work before human review rather than requiring click-by-click approval for every routine entry. The firm approves the completed work before client delivery, but does not necessarily pre-approve every posting. Firms can define materiality, exception, role, and review controls and should discuss any hard pre-posting requirement during implementation. Exact support depends on the ledger action and workflow.

Yes. Meridian is designed to avoid a black-box close: reviewers see what work was completed, the important decisions and changes, supporting evidence, and exceptions requiring judgment. They can inspect the ledger and related schedules and ask Meridian to refine the result. The output should be sufficient to review the accounting conclusion, while sensitive internal model traces are not the same thing as professional workpaper evidence.

The reviewer can identify the desired correction, and Meridian can make supported ledger and schedule changes, rerun affected checks, and summarize the result. Durable feedback can update client context, mappings, policies, or recurring checklist logic so the issue is less likely to repeat. Firms should distinguish a one-time correction from a controlled change to firm-wide policy and assign governance accordingly.

Meridian records the work performed, source evidence, entries or changes, checks, exceptions, and review state. Every decision is logged for review, while the underlying books remain in the client’s ledger. The appropriate level of explanation can vary between a routine deterministic step and a judgment-sensitive item. Firms with formal retention requirements should confirm exportability, timestamps, attribution, and immutable-history behavior.

Credentials are encrypted in transit and at rest, access is controlled by role and business need, and application access is logged. Meridian does not accept credentials that can move money from client bank accounts. Internal systems use SSO with mandatory MFA and limited session lengths; customer passwords are salted and hashed, and authentication actions are logged. Firms should prefer delegated OAuth connections where available and review connection-specific scopes and revocation.

Meridian combines AI reasoning with deterministic accounting processes and controls. It gathers and interprets source data, executes recurring close steps, categorizes transactions in context, reconciles accounts, updates schedules, investigates exceptions, prepares reports, and completes ad hoc projects through Meridian AI. It records its work and presents the result to accountants for review. Meridian is a platform for accounting firms; it does not replace the firm’s professional judgment, accountability, or client relationship.

The underlying books remain intact and portable in the firm-controlled general ledger because Meridian operates on top of it rather than replacing it with a proprietary ledger. Separate questions apply to Meridian-held files, credentials, logs, backups, schedules, and derived data; firms should confirm revocation, export, retention, and deletion timelines in the contract and offboarding plan.

Depending on the task and permission, Meridian uses the client’s ledger, chart of accounts, transaction and vendor history, source-system metadata, bank or card statements, invoices, receipts, contracts, prior entries, reconciliations, supporting schedules, firm-wide policy, client-specific overrides, materiality rules, and recorded client answers. Meridian distinguishes evidence from inference and asks when a material fact is missing. The reviewer can inspect the resulting entry, schedule, support, and decision summary.

Yes. The Stripe balance in QuickBooks is reconciled to Stripe's reported month-end balance, and payouts are tick-and-tied to the bank. Revenue, deferred revenue, and cash agree by the time your team reviews.

Meridian can incorporate bills and vendor credits from the ledger or supported AP systems, check completeness, apply payments to open items, and review aging and stale balances. A cash transaction that represents a bill payment is matched to the payable rather than booked as a second expense. Direct integration depth varies by AP platform; when the source cannot be queried directly, exports and ledger records can still support the workflow. Approval policy and payment execution remain with the firm and its AP system unless explicitly included in the implementation.

Meridian uses invoices, payments, credits, deposits, and processor activity to keep receivables and cash application aligned. It can review aging, investigate old or unusual items, and maintain receivable support as part of the close. Where cash arrives net of processor fees or in batches, Meridian can use settlement evidence to separate revenue, fees, refunds, and receivable clearing. Collection decisions and customer communication remain with the firm or its billing system, while Meridian prepares accurate books and surfaces exceptions.

Meridian records accruals from the available operational evidence and the client’s accounting policy, links them to the appropriate liability or receivable, and can create the related reversal when that is the firm’s policy. In later periods it looks for invoices, payments, or other activity that should clear the accrual, reducing the risk of duplicating expense or leaving stale balances. The accrual history and open items remain visible in supporting schedules and review output. Material or ambiguous estimates are escalated for accountant judgment.

The reviewer can describe the desired accounting outcome, and Meridian can make the corresponding ledger and schedule changes, re-run affected checks, and report what it changed. That avoids the common problem of fixing a journal entry while forgetting the prepaid, fixed-asset, receivable, or reconciliation support behind it. Adjustments remain visible in the work record, and the final package reflects the updated books. Firms can reserve sensitive entries for manual approval or execution.

Meridian compares ledger activity with source-of-truth bank data or statements, identifies missing, duplicated, or incorrectly dated activity, and resolves supported differences before presenting the reconciliation for review. It can work from connected institutions and from uploaded PDF or CSV statements when a dependable feed is unavailable. The reviewer sees the account, statement period, ending balance, reconciling items, changes made, and any unresolved exception. Meridian’s goal is a tied account with evidence—not a green check based only on the ledger’s own bank feed.

Cleanup and catch-up work belongs in Meridian AI when it is a one-off project and in a checklist when it becomes repeatable. Teams can provide the ledger, statements, exports, and files, then describe the desired end state. Meridian investigates history, reconciles periods, categorizes transactions against the client’s own chart and policies, repairs schedules, and summarizes the result for review. It can process multi-year books and large sets of mixed-currency receipts asynchronously. Scope and review points should be agreed before changes begin.

Meridian respects ledger permissions and period controls. If a requested correction falls in a closed or locked period, Meridian surfaces the constraint and follows the firm’s policy, such as posting a current-period adjustment, requesting that an authorized person reopen the period, or documenting that no change was made. The exact behavior depends on the ledger and the firm’s close policy, so period-lock rules are configured and tested during implementation.

Meridian can prepare repeatable consolidation workflows: gather entity financials, normalize mappings, identify intercompany balances, post or propose eliminations, convert currencies under the firm’s policy, and produce review support. The source ledgers remain the systems of record, while the consolidation output may live in a designated ledger, spreadsheet, or reporting system. Because consolidation complexity varies widely, firms should validate ownership changes, noncontrolling interests, translation, and custom eliminations during implementation rather than assume a one-size-fits-all workflow.

Meridian reconciles credit cards against card statements or direct card-platform data, with awareness of statement periods, payments, credits, refunds, employee-card detail, and charges that post near the cutoff. It matches payments to the correct liability account and checks that card activity is complete before the close advances. Where a platform supplies richer metadata, such as cardholder, merchant, receipt, memo, department, or category, Meridian can use it to improve booking and review. If the feed is incomplete, the workflow falls back to statement-based reconciliation and surfaces gaps.

Meridian can turn contracts, invoices, billing data, or client-provided schedules into a deferred-revenue roll-forward, post periodic recognition, and tie the schedule to the balance sheet. The firm defines the recognition policy and any performance-obligation judgments; Meridian applies that policy consistently and flags missing or inconsistent inputs. Changes, catch-up adjustments, and restatements can be delegated through Meridian AI, which can update the books and related schedules together. Specialized revenue systems may remain the operational subledger for highly complex arrangements.

Meridian applies the client’s capitalization policy, records qualifying purchases in the correct fixed-asset account, maintains asset and depreciation support, and posts depreciation over the selected life and convention. Disposals, impairments, unusual additions, and differences between a schedule and the ledger are surfaced for review. Ledger-native subledgers also matter: supporting a platform such as Xero means understanding how its fixed-asset records interact with the GL, not merely importing a trial balance. Firms should validate the exact subledger workflow for their ledger during evaluation.

Meridian can compare periods, accounts, vendors, dimensions, and expected patterns to identify meaningful changes and generate review insights. Because it has access to the underlying transactions, schedules, and client context, it can investigate a variance rather than merely describe the percentage change. The reviewer receives the likely drivers and supporting detail, with unusual or unexplained movement called out. Firms can define materiality and recurring review expectations; final interpretation and client-facing commentary remain subject to accountant judgment.

Meridian can interpret and book foreign-currency activity using the transaction currency, functional currency, source amount, applicable rate, and the client’s policy. It can extract mixed-currency receipts, convert the activity, and book owner liabilities correctly. For ongoing work, Meridian can also support reconciliations and schedules that distinguish transaction gains and losses from underlying activity. Multi-currency ledger settings, remeasurement, translation, and rate sources vary, so firms should confirm the exact workflow for each ledger and jurisdiction.

Meridian can identify transfers and charges between related entities, book the corresponding due-to and due-from activity, and tick and tie both sides so differences are visible. It uses known entity relationships, account history, and client policy rather than treating each cash movement independently. For firms with multiple ledger instances, the workflow can coordinate entries across entities where the connected ledgers permit it. Consolidation eliminations and complex allocations should be defined explicitly and remain reviewable.

Meridian can execute recurring inventory and COGS entries when the firm supplies a defined method and reliable source data from the inventory, commerce, POS, or ledger system. It can compare roll-forwards, book adjustments, and surface unusual margin or quantity movements. It is not positioned as a replacement for an inventory-management or manufacturing-cost system; those systems should remain the operational source of truth. Firms with landed cost, assemblies, standard costing, or multiple locations should test representative workflows and define where accounting judgment enters the process.

Meridian can prepare and post journal entries as part of a defined close workflow or an ad hoc Meridian AI task. It uses the client’s chart of accounts, accounting policies, period, dimensions, source evidence, and related schedules rather than treating a journal entry as an unstructured debit and credit. The work record captures what was changed and why, and the resulting balances are checked in the broader close. Firms remain responsible for review and can define which entries or thresholds require explicit attention.

Meridian can use agreements, statements, and payment history to separate principal, interest, fees, and current versus long-term balances, then maintain the related roll-forward or amortization support. Payments are matched against the liability rather than treated as ordinary expense, and the ending balance is tied to available lender evidence. New debt, modifications, covenant calculations, imputed interest, or complex instruments remain appropriate review points. Meridian automates the repeatable production work while preserving the accountant’s judgment over policy and presentation.

Meridian reconciles processor settlements by connecting gross sales, fees, refunds, disputes, reserves, and net bank deposits. For supported processors such as Stripe, direct or structured settlement data can provide the detail that a bank memo does not. Meridian books or verifies the components, ties batches to cash, and identifies missing periods or stuck clearing balances. If a direct connection is unavailable, processor exports and ledger data can be combined. The reviewer receives a roll-forward and the specific unmatched items rather than a generic out-of-balance alert.

Meridian checks whether expected statements, feeds, reports, and documents are present before or during execution. It can identify gaps from reconciliation differences, date discontinuities, or a checklist’s required inputs, then block or route the affected step rather than inventing data. The client portal can collect the missing item and preserve its connection to the work that required it. When a direct feed is unavailable, PDF or CSV statements and other exports provide a practical fallback.

Meridian can represent related entities, keep each entity’s ledger and policies distinct, and coordinate work that crosses those boundaries. Recurring checklists can run separately by entity while shared context helps with intercompany balances, owner activity, common vendors, and reporting deadlines. The firm dashboard provides portfolio visibility without collapsing the underlying books into a proprietary ledger. Exact support for cross-entity posting, consolidation, and permissions depends on the ledgers and implementation, so a firm should evaluate Meridian with a representative entity group.

Meridian ingests payroll detail through supported APIs or payroll reports, maps earnings, employer taxes, benefits, deductions, reimbursements, and liabilities to the client’s accounts and dimensions, and posts the payroll entry. It then ties cash withdrawals and liability clearings to the payroll source. Rich direct integrations, including Gusto, can reduce manual transformation; other providers can be handled from structured reports. Exceptions such as off-cycle runs, new benefit accounts, or uncleared liabilities are surfaced for review instead of buried in a plug.

When a payment should benefit multiple periods, Meridian books it to the appropriate prepaid account, creates or updates the supporting schedule, calculates recognition under the client’s policy, and posts the periodic amortization. It also checks the schedule against the ledger and rolls it forward with the close. That matters because a categorization tool might identify the vendor correctly while still expensing an annual payment immediately. Meridian connects the transaction, schedule, monthly entries, and final review into one workflow.

Recurring entries belong in Meridian’s checklist system. The firm defines the trigger, calculation, accounts, dimensions, support, timing, reversal behavior, and review rule once; the client configuration can override those defaults. Each period, Meridian recomputes the entry from current inputs instead of blindly copying last month, posts it when the evidence is complete, and verifies the result. Changes in amount, missing support, or an unexpected balance can be routed to a reviewer rather than silently rolled forward.

Meridian runs the month-end close as an end-to-end workflow rather than a collection of isolated automations. It gathers and imports source data, reconciles bank and card accounts, categorizes activity in context, processes payroll and other source-system data, updates supporting schedules, prepares financial statements, and checks the result. The firm’s process and each client’s policies shape the checklist. Accountants begin with completed books, a summary of decisions, and surfaced exceptions; they apply judgment and approve before anything is delivered to the client. That review-first operating model is the key difference between Meridian and tools that merely suggest categories or dispatch tasks.

Meridian treats categorization as accrual-basis accounting, not vendor-to-expense mapping. It uses the client’s business model, entity type, chart of accounts, prior treatment, vendor history, surrounding transactions, firm preferences, and supporting schedules. A payment may be an expense, bill payment, prepaid, fixed asset, accrual settlement, owner distribution, intercompany transfer, or clearing-account item. Meridian routes it to the appropriate accounting workflow and updates the related schedule or liability instead of forcing every transaction onto the P&L. Routine patterns can be completed automatically; ambiguous or material items are surfaced for review.

When the available evidence is insufficient, Meridian can generate a focused client request tied to the specific transaction or workflow. The client can supply an answer, file, or approval through the portal, and the response stays connected to the accounting work rather than disappearing into an email thread. Meridian then uses that information to complete or revise the treatment, with the result available for firm review. Firms control wording, materiality, escalation, and whether a request should be bundled with other close questions.

Meridian compares activity with client history, firm policy, materiality rules, ledger state, and supporting evidence. Routine work continues through the checklist; an unusual, ambiguous, or policy-sensitive item is documented and surfaced to the appropriate reviewer. Depending on the issue, Meridian may ask a clarifying question, propose a treatment, or stop the affected step. The purpose is not to eliminate human judgment but to concentrate it on the small number of decisions that actually require it.

Supporting schedules are part of Meridian’s accounting system, not attachments that accountants must repeatedly re-upload. Meridian maintains schedules for areas such as bank reconciliations, prepaids and amortization, fixed assets and depreciation, receivables, and balance-sheet tick-and-tie accounts; it checks them against ledger balances and rolls them forward with the close. When Meridian AI changes a prior-period treatment, it can update and re-roll the related schedule too. This longitudinal state is a major reason Meridian can handle accrual-basis books more reliably than a generic task agent.

After the underlying close work is complete, Meridian generates the financial statements and supporting package from the client’s ledger and configured reporting structure. It does not treat report generation as a substitute for closing the books: categorization, reconciliations, schedules, and exceptions are addressed first. The team reviews the resulting P&L, balance sheet, cash flow, supporting schedules, and noteworthy changes before delivery. The ledger remains the source of record, and specialized reporting tools can remain in place when the client needs custom dashboards or statutory formats.

Meridian records the work performed, decisions made, source evidence used, changes posted, checks run, exceptions raised, and review status. The underlying accounting entries remain in the client’s general ledger, while Meridian’s activity and review records explain how the close reached its result. This makes the system inspectable: accountants can see what happened and focus on noteworthy judgment calls. Audit-trail depth varies by connected system, so regulated workflows should confirm retention and export requirements during diligence.

Meridian reads invoice data from the client's existing Stripe account, spreads each invoice's revenue across its service period on an accrual basis, and posts summarized, product-level journal entries into QuickBooks Online. The unearned balance is carried in deferred revenue until it is earned.

Explore Stripe revenue recognition

Meridian can deliver closed books, financial statements, reconciliations, supporting schedules, source documents, open-item explanations, and a record of adjustments in a consistent package. That gives tax or assurance teams a cleaner starting point and reduces time spent reconstructing the bookkeeping. Shared client context can also preserve policy decisions and prior questions across service lines. Meridian does not replace tax-preparation or audit-engagement software; it improves the accounting evidence and workflow that feed those systems.

Meridian sits on top of your clients’ existing general ledger instances. It pulls transaction data, runs the full month-end close, and writes everything back to the general ledger. Your firm’s chart of accounts, client data, and general ledger environment stay exactly where they are. No migration required.

Onboarding timelines vary by firm size and client count. Meridian’s team works with your firm to connect bank feeds and configure client-specific policies. Most firms begin receiving finished books within the first month. Your clients do not need to change anything on their end.

No. Meridian is the AI operating system for accounting firms. It runs the full month-end close for every client on the roster. Stripe revenue recognition is one workflow inside that close, applied to the clients that bill through Stripe.

Meridian books historical recognition in one pass, with a preview to review before anything posts. A new client with a backlog of unrecognized revenue does not need a cleanup project first.

See Stripe catch-up accounting

Your accountants open finished books for each client. Meridian has already completed categorization, reconciliation, exception handling, and financial statement preparation. Your team reviews the completed work, approves or flags items that need judgment, and moves to the next client. The review is faster because the work is already done.

Your books live in the general ledger throughout. Meridian does not replace your ledger or move data into a proprietary system. If you stop using Meridian, the underlying books are in the general ledger and nothing is lost. Full data portability from day one.

Meridian currently supports QuickBooks Online and Xero. Support for NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks Desktop, Rillet, and additional or custom ledgers is in development. Meridian separates ledger-specific connectors from its accounting workflows, which makes it straightforward to add a ledger while preserving the depth required for subledgers, dimensions, schedules, write-back, and review. Firms with mixed portfolios or a priority ledger on this list should talk to Meridian about their requirements and the development roadmap.

Invoice-based activity: subscriptions and invoices with structured service periods, including payments, credit notes, refunds, uncollectible balances, and voided invoices. One-off charges without an invoice, like Payment Links, post to revenue directly and are handled in the close rather than amortized.

Yes. Meridian completes categorization, reconciliation, exception handling, and financial statement preparation, then delivers review-ready books in your general ledger. Your team reviews the finished books instead of producing them. The platform has closed books in production since 2017, across 199K months of books.

Yes. Meridian’s Meridian AI completes categorization, reconciliation, exception handling, and financial statement preparation, then delivers review-ready books in the general ledger. Your accountants review the finished books instead of producing them. The platform has closed books in production since 2017, across 199K months of books.

Meridian is designed as a shared operating layer for recurring and ad hoc accounting work across bookkeeping/CAS, tax, assurance, and advisory. The strongest current use case is the month-end close, which creates clean books, schedules, evidence, and client context that other service lines can reuse. Firms can expand from that foundation as workflows are configured and validated. Specialized tax, audit, ledger, and reporting systems remain in place where they are the appropriate source of record.

Yes, the checklist and accounting-tool model can execute repeatable procedures and produce reviewable evidence. Meridian’s existing reconciliation and schedule capabilities are relevant building blocks. The engagement team must define the purpose, acceptable evidence, tolerance, reviewer, and documentation standard. Audit sampling or specialized methodology should not be implied unless specifically implemented.

Yes. Starting with bookkeeping/CAS or another well-defined recurring workflow lets the firm prove data access, output quality, exception handling, and review. The same client context and checklist model can then support adjacent services. Expansion should be based on validated workflows and practitioner sign-off, not a requirement to replace all systems at launch.

Potentially yes: a shared portal can reduce the number of places a client uploads files or answers questions. Requests can remain associated with different workflows and permissions. Firms should verify service-line branding, restricted documents, approvers, and retention requirements before consolidating every portal.

Yes, subject to permissions. Meridian can preserve client facts, accounting policies, chart changes, schedules, correspondence, and work history so teams do not reconstruct the client independently. A tax adjustment or advisory-driven reporting change can be reflected in the recurring books. Firms should define which information is shared and which remains restricted for independence, confidentiality, or role reasons.

No. Meridian runs the close. Your team shifts from producing books to reviewing them, and moves into the work clients actually pay for: advisory, strategy, and judgment. Firms that deploy Meridian redeploy their staff toward higher-value work, not out the door.

No. Meridian does the close. Your team shifts from producing books to reviewing finished books. The role elevates from transaction processing to oversight, advisory, and client strategy. Firms that deploy Meridian redeploy their staff toward higher-value work, not out the door.

Teams describe the desired accounting outcome and provide the ledger, statements, exports, or files. Meridian AI investigates history, reconciles periods, applies the client’s chart and policies, updates schedules, and summarizes changes. It can complete multi-year catch-up work asynchronously and process hundreds of receipts in hours. The accountant scopes and reviews the task.

Advisory teams can use clean, current books and schedules as inputs to recurring management reporting, cash analysis, KPI packages, and budget-versus-actuals work. Meridian AI can investigate one-off questions, support financing diligence, and prepare custom analyses. The advisor interprets the result and owns the recommendation and client conversation.

A checklist can gather the ledger and operational inputs, refresh schedules or models, run defined calculations and checks, and produce the firm’s reporting package on a monthly or quarterly cadence. Meridian’s financial statements and workpaper capabilities provide a consistent accounting foundation. Highly customized visualization or board reporting may continue in a specialized reporting tool fed by Meridian’s outputs.

A firm can define required documents, due dates, ordered preparation steps, validations, reviewer roles, and outputs as a checklist. Meridian can gather inputs and execute connected data work, while routing technical judgments to tax professionals. The checklist model can support different entity types; firms should confirm which tax workflows are already packaged and which require configuration.

Meridian can refresh actuals, roll forward models, apply defined assumptions, run checks, and coordinate client inputs through a recurring workflow. Meridian AI can handle scenario questions or one-off model changes. A specialized FP&A platform or spreadsheet may remain the authoritative model; Meridian reduces the manual accounting-data preparation and workflow burden around it.

The team can ask Meridian AI to investigate a variance, trace a cash movement, analyze vendor spend, explain a balance, prepare financing support, or answer a batch of diligence questions. Meridian can inspect underlying transactions and schedules rather than relying only on a summary report. The advisor reviews facts, adds business interpretation, and communicates with the client.

Assurance teams can use Meridian to gather evidence, run repeatable checklists, perform ledger forensics, reconcile balances, produce workpapers, and coordinate review. Clean source books and schedules can reduce time spent reconstructing client accounting. Assurance workflows should be configured and reviewed by audit and review practitioners to ensure they meet the firm’s methodology and professional requirements.

CAS teams can delegate the recurring close, AP/AR processing, reconciliations, categorization, payroll entries, schedules, reporting, and client requests. Meridian AI handles onboarding cleanup, catch-up work, restatements, and client questions that fall outside the checklist. Accountants review the finished work, apply judgment, and spend more time on advice and relationships.

The finding can become an adjusting entry, client-context update, policy change, checklist step, required document, or new review control. Meridian can update affected schedules and re-run subsequent work. The firm decides whether the change applies only to one client or becomes a broader standard.

Meridian AI can investigate prior periods, trace transactions and schedules, prepare or post supported adjustments, and explain the result. If a tax conclusion changes book treatment, Meridian can update the related schedule and subsequent periods rather than making an isolated entry. The tax professional approves the technical conclusion and any locked-period approach.

Tax teams can use Meridian to obtain cleaner, timely books; run recurring organizers and deadline checklists; gather documents; investigate ledger questions; and coordinate adjustments with CAS. Tax-only firms may also use Meridian to catch up books that would otherwise delay return preparation. Packaged tax workflows and supported return types vary and should be scoped during evaluation.

The portal requests the specific statement, report, document, transaction explanation, or approval needed by the workflow. Responses stay tied to the client and accounting task and can be used to complete the work. Teams can see what is outstanding and avoid duplicating a request already answered elsewhere.

Each service line (Bookkeeping & CAS, Tax, Advisory, and Assurance) can run recurring work through checklists, delegate one-off investigations through Meridian AI, gather inputs through the client portal, and coordinate status and review through the firm portal. The shared books, schedules, contacts, policies, and audit trail reduce repeated data gathering. The specific checklist, permission, and reviewer can still differ by service line.

Meridian can preserve books, schedules, chart changes, policies, entity relationships, contacts, responses, and work history in a shared client layer. Authorized teams can reuse those facts without copying notes between systems. Sensitive service-line information can remain permissioned, and the firm should govern which decisions become shared client context.

The close produces timely actuals, classifications, schedules, and explanations that advisory workflows can consume. A reporting checklist can begin when the close is approved, refresh the model, and request any additional inputs. Advisory changes to chart or recognition policy can then be incorporated into bookkeeping after review.

The client portal can request documents and focused answers associated with the client and tax workflow, track what is outstanding, and preserve responses for review. Firms can customize the request by entity and engagement. Specialized organizer, e-signature, or secure-delivery systems may remain if the current Meridian portal does not cover a required function.

The portal can request budgets, forecasts, hiring plans, contracts, KPI data, assumptions, or approvals tied to the reporting workflow. Outstanding inputs appear as blockers rather than silent model gaps. Firms can preserve recurring assumptions in client context while requiring fresh confirmation where appropriate.

Meridian’s work record shows recurring blockers, repeated reviewer changes, and one-off tasks that appear more than once. The team can convert a successful resolution into a checklist step, policy, required input, or deterministic check. Over time, the close improves instead of relying on the same heroics every month.

Meridian can close or catch up the books, reconcile accounts, clean stale balances, roll forward fixed-asset and prepaid schedules, document adjustments, and produce a consistent reporting package. That reduces the tax team’s need to become an emergency bookkeeping team before return preparation begins. Final tax adjustments can be coordinated back into the ledger and recurring process.

Role-based access and assignments can separate users, clients, and workflow stages. A bookkeeping preparer, tax reviewer, assurance team, and partner may share selected client context while retaining different actions and approvals. Because independence and segregation requirements can be engagement-specific, firms should test a role matrix and confirm current controls rather than rely on a broad platform claim.

The client portal can request a specific file, schedule, explanation, or confirmation, track status, and keep the response tied to the procedure that required it. The firm portal shows outstanding dependencies. Firms should validate document retention, versioning, sign-off, external confirmation, and permission requirements before replacing an assurance-specific PBC system.

The handoff includes completed books, reconciliations, schedules, reports, source support, policy notes, open questions, and adjustment history. Tax-driven entries can flow back into the ledger and future close logic. This reduces spreadsheet handoffs while preserving separate reviewers and engagement responsibility.

Meridian records work performed, changes, checks, exceptions, and review state, and can route outputs to assigned reviewers. For assurance use, firms should confirm immutable history, preparer/reviewer attribution, timestamps, retention, exports, sign-off, and change controls against professional standards. The general Meridian work record is a foundation, not automatic proof that every assurance requirement is met.

Requests and responses are visible in the shared client history, and recurring facts can be stored as context. Before generating a new request, the workflow can use existing evidence when it is current and sufficient. Firms should still define freshness rules—for example, a prior-year answer may not satisfy a current tax or assurance procedure.

Each client’s checklist gathers inputs, executes ordered accounting work, resolves or surfaces exceptions, updates schedules, prepares statements, and routes the result to review. Meridian can run clients in parallel rather than waiting for one accountant to finish production serially. The firm dashboard shows stage, deadline, blocker, and owner across the portfolio.

Meridian can share authorized client context and outputs while using roles, assignments, and workflow-specific approvals to limit actions. Each service line retains its reviewer and accountability. Firms should validate segregation, independence, restricted-document access, and administrator controls in a cross-service pilot.

Firm templates encode common inputs, controls, outputs, and review expectations. Service-line templates add specialized procedures, and client overrides capture the actual ledger, policies, deadlines, and exceptions. Meridian executes the layered result and shows it in a consistent portfolio model. This creates standardization at the process level without pretending every engagement is the same.

Meridian can combine ledger results with defined operational inputs, compare periods and budgets, identify drivers, and produce repeatable review outputs. Its access to transaction and vendor detail helps explain movements. KPI definitions and nonfinancial source integrations must be configured, and firms should avoid claiming real-time operational analytics where the source is only a monthly export.

The firm can express engagement procedures as inputs, ordered steps, checks, outputs, and approvals, then use Meridian AI for one-off investigation. The ledger and source data can support tie-outs and variance work. Engagement acceptance, methodology, risk assessment, sampling, documentation standards, and report issuance remain governed by the firm and specialized assurance software.

Role-based access and workflow assignments can separate users and actions, but independence remains a firm and engagement responsibility. A rollout should identify prohibited services, restricted client information, preparer-reviewer separation, partner authority, and administrator access. Current controls must be tested with practitioners and security teams before making an assurance-specific claim.

Tax receives closed books, statements, reconciliations, schedules, source documents, policy context, open questions, and an adjustment history instead of disconnected files. The shared context also helps CAS understand and retain tax-driven changes for future closes. Permissions and engagement ownership remain distinct.

Meridian’s team works with your firm to connect bank feeds or upload documents and configure firm-level or client-specific policies. Most firms begin receiving finished books within days. Your clients do not need to change anything on their end.

Our team works with you to connect bank feeds or upload documents, and configures firm-level and client-specific policies. Most firms begin receiving finished books within days. Your clients don’t need to change anything on their end.

Yes. Meridian runs autonomously for firms from around 15 clients. The math works differently at each size. For a small firm, the payoff is usually a mix of time back and room to grow without adding people. The close runs the same way regardless of how many clients you have.

Your books stay in your own general ledger the whole time. Meridian sits on top of the ledger rather than replacing it, so nothing migrates and the underlying data is intact if you stop.

Your books stay in your own general ledger the whole time. Meridian sits on top of the ledger, not instead of it. If you ever stop using Meridian, the underlying data is intact.

Meridian can automate actuals preparation, recurring package production, model roll-forward, defined variance analysis, source gathering, and ad hoc accounting investigation. FP&A systems may remain responsible for collaborative planning, complex modeling, dashboards, and scenario management. Strategic judgment, recommendations, and executive communication remain with the advisory team.

Meridian can automate data gathering, tie-outs, reconciliations, repeatable checklist execution, workpaper production, exception identification, and ad hoc ledger analysis. Audit platforms may remain responsible for methodology, risk and sampling, confirmations, engagement administration, independence, evidence indexing, and report issuance. Professional skepticism and the assurance opinion remain human responsibilities.

Your accountants review finished books for each client. Meridian has already completed categorization, reconciliation, exception handling, and financial statement preparation. Your team reviews, approves or resolves items that need judgment, and moves to the next client. The close is done. The review is faster because the work is already complete.

Your books live in the general ledger throughout. Meridian sits on top of the general ledger, not instead of it. If you stop using Meridian, the underlying books are in the general ledger and nothing is lost. Full data portability from day one.

Your accountants stop producing books and start reviewing them. Meridian has already done categorization, reconciliation, exception handling, and financial statement prep. Your team reviews, approves, and resolves items that need judgment. The close is done. Their hours move to the work only a human can do: advisory, client strategy, and judgment calls.

Your books live in your general ledger throughout. If you stop, the underlying books are already there and nothing is lost.

It’s the layer that runs a firm’s accounting work end to end, not just the recurring monthly tasks but the complex, multi-step work a staff accountant used to do by hand. For Meridian that means the full month-end close across your entire book: categorization, reconciliation, exception handling, workpapers, and financial statements. Your accountants review finished books. Your existing general ledger stays your system of record.

It is the layer that runs a firm’s accounting work end to end, not just the recurring monthly tasks but the complex, multi-step work a staff accountant used to do by hand. For Meridian that means the full month-end close across your entire client portfolio: categorization, reconciliation, exception handling, workpapers, and financial statements. Your accountants review finished books, and your existing general ledger stays your system of record.

Meridian currently supports QuickBooks Online and Xero. Support for NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks Desktop, Rillet, and additional or custom ledgers is in development. Meridian separates ledger-specific connectors from its accounting workflows, which makes it straightforward to add a ledger while preserving the depth required for subledgers, dimensions, schedules, write-back, and review. Firms with mixed portfolios or a priority ledger on this list should talk to Meridian about their requirements and the development roadmap.

Meridian currently supports QuickBooks Online and Xero. Support for NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks Desktop, Rillet, and additional or custom ledgers is in development. Meridian separates ledger-specific connectors from its accounting workflows, which makes it straightforward to add a ledger while preserving the depth required for subledgers, dimensions, schedules, write-back, and review. Firms with mixed portfolios or a priority ledger on this list should talk to Meridian about their requirements and the development roadmap.

Firms carrying 50 to 1000 bookkeeping clients. That is the range where the headcount math stops working: every new client needs another hire, and experienced accountants are slow and expensive to find. Meridian runs the close across the whole portfolio, so the firm takes on more clients without growing the team.

Meridian can automate workflow coordination, document gathering, accounting cleanup, data extraction, tie-outs, repeatable calculations, and review support. Tax-preparation software should remain responsible for jurisdiction-specific forms, diagnostics, e-filing, and other statutory functions unless Meridian has explicitly validated them. Licensed professionals remain responsible for tax positions and sign-off.

Meridian can consolidate close checklists, portions of accounting automation, supporting schedules, client requests, workpaper generation, AI task execution, and portfolio status. The ledger, payroll, AP, expense, banking, tax, and specialized reporting systems can remain the sources of record. CRM, time, billing, and advanced practice-management replacement should be evaluated separately.

Meridian is best for work that benefits from connected accounting data, repeatable execution, cross-system reconciliation, supporting schedules, client inputs, and review. The ledger remains the source of record. Tax calculation and e-filing, audit methodology and engagement administration, money movement, complex inventory operations, and specialized FP&A may remain in purpose-built systems. Meridian can prepare, coordinate, and validate their accounting inputs.

Yes. That composition is central to accurate accounting. Meridian can compare a processor API with ledger entries and bank deposits, use an uploaded contract to drive a deferred-revenue schedule, or reconcile a statement against a connected feed. It then posts supported changes, updates schedules, runs checks, and presents the evidence and exceptions together. The reviewer evaluates one accounting outcome rather than manually joining several disconnected tools.

Yes. Statement-based reconciliation is a first-class fallback. Meridian can extract the account, period, balances, and transactions, compare them with the ledger, and stage supported corrections. CSVs usually provide cleaner structure; PDFs remain useful when no export is available. Firms should verify the statement format and any password-protection workflow during onboarding, and reviewers should inspect low-confidence extraction or unusual statement layouts.

Yes. Meridian AI can use reports, CSVs, PDFs, spreadsheets, and other exported evidence to complete many cleanup, reconciliation, posting, and analysis tasks. Recurring workflows can require those files through a checklist or portal. The limitation is operational: exports may need human delivery and may not support incremental sync, write-back, or real-time exception handling. The firm should define the fallback and ownership explicitly.

Meridian can connect to some Canadian accounts through an aggregator and can work from statements when a direct connection is unavailable. Coverage varies by institution, business-account type, consent flow, and Canadian data-access restrictions. Firms should test the exact RBC, TD, BMO, CIBC, or Scotiabank accounts in scope and confirm the statement fallback, multi-currency handling, and data-residency requirements during evaluation.

The preferred path is a delegated connection or direct institution API that provides accounts, transactions, balances, and where available statements and enriched metadata. Meridian maps each source account to the correct ledger account, monitors connection health, imports activity, and reconciles against source evidence. Meridian does not accept credentials capable of moving money. When a connection is not dependable, firms can upload statements or structured exports.

Meridian can use monthly PDF or CSV statements as the source of truth, import or identify missing ledger activity, and perform the reconciliation from the statement period and ending balance. A checklist can require the statement before work begins, and the client portal can collect it. The reviewer sees any item that could not be matched or safely booked. This fallback preserves close quality even when automation at the bank-connection layer is limited.

Meridian monitors whether expected data is current and can surface a stale or broken connection as a blocker. The workflow can request reconnection, obtain the missing statement, or use a bounded export rather than closing on incomplete data. Once data is restored, Meridian imports the missing period, checks for overlap and duplicates, and resumes reconciliation. Portfolio-level visibility helps the firm address these quick unblockers before they become late closes.

Meridian compares source activity and ledger activity using dates, amounts, descriptions, account, identifiers, and surrounding entries. It distinguishes genuine duplicates from repeated-looking transactions and identifies source items absent from the ledger. Supported corrections can be made with a clear work record; ambiguous items are presented to the reviewer. The reconciliation must still tie after changes, so the system is not relying on a categorization confidence score alone.

Meridian preserves account and transaction currency where the source and ledger expose it, applies the client’s functional-currency policy, and reconciles each account against its own statement. It can distinguish conversion fees and realized or unrealized exchange effects from the underlying transfer. Because feeds and ledgers represent multi-currency data differently, firms should test representative accounts and confirm rate sources, remeasurement, and review output.

Meridian looks for both sides of a transfer across connected accounts and ledger activity, using amount, timing, identifiers, and known account relationships. It books or matches the movement to the appropriate transfer, clearing, or card-payment accounts rather than treating it as income or expense. Timing differences and transfers in transit remain visible until the other side arrives. The reviewer can inspect unmatched items and confirm unusual intercompany or owner transfers.

American Express coverage depends on the account program and connection method. Meridian can use available aggregation or ledger feeds and reconcile against the Amex statement; statement upload provides a fallback when the feed is incomplete. Firms should confirm transaction detail, employee-card attribution, statements, receipts, and connection geography for the Amex products they use. The accounting workflow—complete activity, mapped liability, categorized charges, matched payments, tied statement—remains the same.

Meridian can work with uploaded PDFs, CSVs, spreadsheets, folders, and other files. Direct access to Google Drive, Dropbox, SharePoint, or email varies by deployment. Files can always be provided to Meridian and used in the accounting workflow; where a direct connector is available, it reduces manual collection. The source file and resulting work remain visible for review.

The integration path differs by platform. Meridian has direct, enriched bank-sync workflows for Mercury, Brex, and Ramp, including account and transaction data beyond a basic bank memo. That improves cardholder attribution, categorization, treasury and card reconciliation, and review. Relay and Wise should be evaluated by available connection, ledger feed, or statement/export rather than assumed to have the same depth. For each vendor, firms should confirm which products and metadata are supported and how unsupported accounts fall back to statements.

Meridian can use daily sales or settlement reports to book and reconcile gross sales, tender types, discounts, tips, taxes, fees, gift cards, refunds, and deposits. Toast or Square remains the operational POS; Meridian ensures the accounting and bank settlements agree. Direct access and report formats vary by product and location. A representative close should verify cash-over/short, deferred gift-card balances, delivery platforms, and multi-location dimensions.

Meridian can use AP-platform records to verify that bills, vendor credits, and payments are complete in the ledger and that cash clears the right payable. Dedicated BILL workflows compare source AP activity with QBO and can create supported missing records. Plooto coverage should be confirmed separately; exports and ledger sync provide a fallback. Payment approval and money movement remain in the AP platform unless explicitly scoped.

Meridian can ingest card activity and statements, map cards or cardholders to the correct liability account and dimensions, categorize charges using enriched metadata, match payments and credits, and reconcile the statement. Direct expense-platform connections may provide receipts, memos, users, departments, locations, and merchant data that the raw bank feed lacks. If the direct connection is unavailable, the card statement and ledger remain a workable fallback.

Meridian can use platform or connector exports to reconcile orders, refunds, fees, taxes, gift cards, and payouts to the ledger and bank. Ecommerce platforms remain the operational source for orders; Meridian turns that evidence into the accounting workflow and supporting roll-forward. Direct connector depth varies, especially for Amazon marketplaces and third-party payment gateways, so firms should test each sales channel and define how inventory and sales tax are sourced.

Expense systems are most valuable when Meridian receives enriched evidence—merchant, cardholder, memo, receipt, department, location, trip, reimbursement status, and accounting category—not only the bank settlement. Meridian has deep direct workflows for Ramp and Brex. Expensify, Airbase, and Dext can be handled through their ledger output or structured exports when a direct connector is not available. Meridian reconciles source activity to the ledger and cash, applies the client’s policy, and surfaces missing receipts or mapping exceptions.

Meridian can use inventory reports or API data as accounting evidence for inventory balances, COGS, write-downs, and reconciliations. The operational inventory system remains responsible for units, assemblies, warehouses, and fulfillment. Meridian applies the firm’s accounting policy, posts or proposes the period-end entries, and investigates differences between the subledger, ledger, and physical or third-party reports. Connector and costing-method coverage must be confirmed per system.

For Stripe, Meridian has dedicated reconciliation workflows that can obtain settlement data, back-book missing periods, separate fees and refunds, and tie deposits to the ledger. PayPal and Square can be handled from available connections, ledger activity, and processor reports; exact direct depth should be confirmed. Meridian’s accounting objective is a complete gross-to-net roll-forward, not simply categorizing the net bank deposit. Unmatched payouts, reserves, disputes, and missing reports are surfaced.

Meridian transforms payroll source data into the client’s payroll entry and reconciles cash and payroll liabilities. It has a direct Gusto API integration and established report-driven workflows for several other providers, including structured imports for systems such as Rippling and Deel. ADP, Paychex, Wagepoint, and Dayforce formats should be confirmed for the target geography and product. The fallback is a payroll journal or detail report with documented mappings; off-cycle runs and new deduction accounts go to review.

Meridian can use receipts and documents supplied through its portal, uploaded in bulk, attached in the ledger, or exported from another collection tool. It extracts accounting facts, detects duplicates, links evidence to transactions, and asks for clarification when the document does not support a safe conclusion. Meridian can process large mixed-currency receipt sets and book the resulting expenses through the correct owner liabilities. Direct integration with a specific collection product should be confirmed during evaluation.

Meridian incorporates sales-tax reports into the close, reconciles collected tax and filings or payments to ledger liabilities, and surfaces jurisdictional or period differences. Avalara or TaxJar remains the specialized calculation and filing system. Where a direct integration is unavailable, Meridian uses exports as a practical fallback. Technical taxability and filing conclusions remain with the specialized system and a qualified professional unless that service is explicitly included in the engagement.

Meridian can combine billing exports, invoices, contracts, cash settlements, and ledger data to maintain receivable and deferred-revenue workflows under the firm’s policy. Stripe has established reconciliation support in Pilot; Chargebee, Recurly, and Maxio connector depth should be confirmed. The billing platform remains the operational subledger when appropriate. Meridian’s role is to translate the data into accurate journal entries, roll-forwards, tie-outs, and reviewer-visible exceptions.

Meridian can use direct integrations for selected platforms, aggregated bank connections, the client ledger’s feeds, and uploaded statements. It has direct bank-sync support for Mercury, Brex, and Ramp as well as Plaid-based connections, which can extend coverage to many institutions. Availability depends on institution, account type, country, and consent method. The reliable way to evaluate coverage is to inventory the firm’s top institutions and test checking, savings, credit-card, treasury, and foreign-currency accounts separately.

Yes. Institution APIs, aggregators, ledger features, tax systems, consent rules, and data-residency obligations vary by country. A connection that works for a U.S. commercial account may not cover the same bank’s Canadian business or credit-card product. Meridian documents native access, file-based fallbacks, and any unsupported action for each target geography, giving firms a clear coverage plan for their pilot.

Meridian can execute accounting policies and checklists defined by the firm; it is not a substitute for the professional judgment required to select and apply a reporting framework. US GAAP is the most directly evidenced in Pilot’s operating history. ASPE and IFRS workflows may be configurable, but firms should validate recognition, measurement, presentation, disclosure, and supporting-schedule requirements with qualified practitioners before making a broad support claim. Meridian is strongest when the policy is explicit and the work is repeatable and verifiable.

Meridian can support Canadian accounting workflows when the ledger, financial institutions, currencies, tax configuration, and required reports are available to the platform. Its core method is to connect the existing ledger, gather source evidence, run a configurable checklist, update schedules, and present work for review. Canadian firms should evaluate representative clients, including GST/HST, CAD/USD, and bank-connection edge cases, with Meridian’s team because coverage varies by source system and workflow.

Potentially, but coverage should be scoped by country and workflow. Ledger access may travel well, while bank connections, tax rules, payroll, data residency, currency, and statutory reporting can be country-specific. Meridian is configurable and can use structured exports where a direct connector is unavailable, but that does not make every jurisdiction equivalent. A firm should bring a representative client and verify the full close—from source data through review and reporting—before adopting geography-wide language.

Meridian can preserve source currency, apply the client’s functional-currency and rate policy, reconcile CAD and USD accounts separately, and book exchange differences where the connected ledger and source data support it. It can also use statements and documents when a cross-border feed is incomplete. Firms should validate remeasurement, translation, realized and unrealized gains and losses, and presentation currency on representative clients. Meridian automates the repeatable workflow; the accountant owns the policy conclusion.

Canadian accounts may connect through an aggregator or existing ledger feed, and PDF or CSV statements provide a fallback. Coverage varies by institution, business-account type, authentication method, card program, and currency. Meridian can still perform the accounting workflow—completeness checks, categorization, transfer matching, statement reconciliation, and exception review—once reliable data is available. Firms should test the exact RBC, TD, BMO, CIBC, Scotiabank, Amex, or fintech products in their portfolio.

Meridian uses the client’s ledger tax codes, source reports, and firm-defined workflows to book and reconcile Canadian sales-tax balances, filings, payments, and period activity. The firm or specialized tax system remains responsible for technical taxability and filing conclusions unless that capability is expressly included in the engagement. A Canadian rollout tests registration and place-of-supply assumptions, recoverable input tax credits, mixed supplies, provincial taxes, and the treatment of cross-border activity.

Meridian works with the client’s existing chart and can apply firm mappings, dimensions, and reporting templates. Country-specific account numbering, tax-control accounts, statutory classifications, and financial-statement formats can be encoded in the workflow or supplied by the ledger and reporting system. If a statutory format or electronic filing is not supported, Meridian can still prepare the accounting inputs and review support while the specialized system remains in place.

Meridian can coordinate separate entities or books, CAD and USD accounts, intercompany transactions, foreign-currency conversion, and shared close schedules. It can also preserve country-specific policies and reporting outputs while helping the firm tie transfers and balances across ledgers. Cross-border tax, transfer pricing, withholding, permanent-establishment, and statutory conclusions remain specialist work. Buyers should test a representative structure rather than assume that a multi-currency connection resolves every cross-border requirement.

Each subsidiary can retain its own ledger, chart, currency, policies, close calendar, and access rules. Meridian can run recurring work by entity and coordinate intercompany balances, consolidation inputs, and common review. Local statutory adjustments, tax, and specialized subledgers may remain in local systems. Firms should verify connectors, data residency, translations, eliminations, noncontrolling interests, and sign-off responsibilities for the specific group.

Country and currency coverage depends on the connected ledger, financial institutions, payroll and tax systems, and required reporting framework. Meridian can process foreign-currency transactions and work with multi-currency ledger data, but institutional and tax coverage varies. Firms should evaluate a matrix of entity country, functional and transaction currencies, ledger, bank and card sources, payroll, tax reports, and required financial statements to distinguish native support, file-based support, and gaps.

Yes. Meridian AI can use structured ledger exports, trial balances, transaction detail, PDFs, CSVs, and supporting documents for cleanup, migration, reconciliation, and reporting. This gives firms a practical way to evaluate Meridian and delegate selected work while direct support for their ledger is in development. Meridian clearly shows which work it completed from the supplied data and which final posting or review step remains. Interested firms can talk to Meridian about turning the most valuable file-based workflows into direct integrations.

Yes. Meridian is designed to provide one operating model—inputs, checklist execution, exceptions, review, and portfolio status—across a mixed-ledger firm while preserving ledger-specific accounting. QuickBooks Online and Xero are supported today. Support for NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks Desktop, Rillet, and additional ledgers is in development. Firms with those ledgers should talk to Meridian about their portfolio, required subledgers and dimensions, and the workflows that matter most.

No. Meridian operates on top of the client’s existing general ledger, which remains the system of record. The chart of accounts, transaction history, permissions, and books stay in that ledger; Meridian reads the data, performs the configured accounting work, and writes supported results back. Firms on QuickBooks Online or Xero can adopt Meridian without a ledger migration. Support for additional ledgers is in development, and interested firms can talk to Meridian about a rollout that matches their portfolio and priorities.

Each ledger instance remains distinct, with its own credentials, chart, policies, and review trail. Meridian associates related entities and coordinates their checklists, intercompany entries, deadlines, and reporting while preventing activity from being posted to the wrong company. QuickBooks Online and Xero support this operating model today; support for additional ledgers is in development. Firms with complex multi-instance portfolios should talk to Meridian about entity selection, user access, intercompany balancing, and consolidation handoffs.

Meridian reads and applies the dimensions exposed by supported ledgers, including QBO classes and locations and Xero tracking categories. Firm and client rules determine when dimensions are required, how defaults work, and which exceptions need review. Support for NetSuite custom segments and comparable fields in additional ledgers is in development. Firms with sophisticated dimensional reporting should talk to Meridian about their structure and priority workflows. Meridian AI can also analyze historical activity when a client redesigns departmental reporting, with the reviewer approving the mapping and resulting restatement.

Support for NetSuite is in development. Meridian is being built to keep NetSuite as the system of record while understanding the modules, subsidiaries, books, custom segments, saved searches, approvals, scripts, and posting permissions that make each environment different. Interested firms should talk to Meridian about their NetSuite footprint and the close workflows they want automated. That input helps prioritize deep support for the schedules, subledgers, dimensions, and review experience firms actually need.

Support for QuickBooks Desktop is in development. Desktop editions, hosting models, multi-user environments, and available interfaces create a different integration path from QuickBooks Online. Interested firms should talk to Meridian about the versions and hosting arrangements in their portfolio so the right workflow can be scoped. Meridian AI can use structured exports, statements, and documents for selected analysis and catch-up work while direct support is being developed.

Meridian connects to each client’s existing QuickBooks Online company, reads the chart, transactions, reports, open items, classes, locations, attachments, and other accounting data needed for the workflow, and writes supported entries and changes back to QBO. It can run categorization, reconciliations, bills and invoices work, journal entries, schedules, reporting, and review while QBO remains the source of record. Pilot’s production platform and the free QuickBooks Connector by Meridian also demonstrate broad read/write tooling. Exact permissions and approval rules are configured for the firm.

Support for Sage Intacct is in development. Meridian’s connector architecture makes it straightforward to add Intacct while preserving the accounting depth firms need across dimensions, entity structures, statistical accounts, subledgers, period controls, and write-back. Interested firms should talk to Meridian about their Intacct environment and priority workflows; those conversations help shape the rollout. Meridian AI can also use reports and structured exports for selected analysis and cleanup work while direct support is being developed.

Meridian connects directly to Xero organizations, accounts, tax rates, tracking categories, currencies, bank transactions and transfers, payments, invoices and bills, credit notes, manual journals, contacts, assets, reports, history, and attachments, with supported write actions. Real Xero support goes deeper than those endpoints: Xero’s fixed-asset subledger, tracking model, taxes, and reconciliation behavior must stay consistent with Meridian’s schedules and close controls. Firms should validate those exact workflows with representative Xero clients.

Meridian surfaces the unsupported operation, completes the parts of the workflow it can safely execute, and uses the best available fallback. It can obtain a report or document, perform the calculation, prepare review support, post an alternative supported entry under the firm’s policy, or identify the single bounded step an authorized user needs to complete. Meridian respects ledger controls and records what it completed, what remains, and the evidence needed to finish. This keeps the work moving while also informing deeper connector development.

Meridian currently supports QuickBooks Online and Xero. Support for NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks Desktop, Rillet, and additional or custom ledgers is in development. Meridian separates ledger-specific connectors from its accounting workflows, which makes it straightforward to add a ledger while preserving the depth required for subledgers, dimensions, schedules, write-back, and review. Firms with mixed portfolios or a priority ledger on this list should talk to Meridian about their requirements and the development roadmap.

Yes. Meridian uses a layered model: a firm-wide template establishes the standard sequence and controls, while client configuration supplies overrides for policy, source systems, dimensions, cadence, and review requirements. The dashboard can show each client’s progress in a common operating model even when the underlying accounting differs. This makes standardization practical without pretending every client is identical.

That is the intended operating model. Meridian coordinates work across clients with different charts, policies, institutions, ledgers, close calendars, and levels of complexity while preserving a common review framework. Integration depth is not identical everywhere, so firms should choose a representative pilot set—including edge cases—and document the direct path and fallback for each major source system. A mixed portfolio is a reason to evaluate coverage carefully, not a requirement to standardize every client before starting.

Yes. Firms can define the inputs, steps, checks, expected outputs, review points, and client-specific variations for recurring work. Meridian also comes with accounting primitives and proven close workflows, so customization does not require inventing every procedure from scratch. A good rollout starts with the firm’s real SOPs and representative clients, then codifies durable lessons from review. Exact self-service configuration and implementation support can vary by deployment.

Yes. A subset rollout is the clearest way to validate accounting quality, integration coverage, review time, and client experience before expanding. The cohort should include ordinary clients and deliberate edge cases rather than only the cleanest books. Because the ledger remains the source of record, a phased adoption does not require a firm-wide data migration.

No blanket migration is required. Clients can keep their existing general ledger, and Meridian can use direct connections, ledger data, and uploaded files. Standardizing selected systems may improve automation depth and reduce support variance, but Meridian is designed to meet firms where their portfolios are. The practical diligence question is which workflows are fully connected, which rely on exports, and which merit a future integration.

Meridian considers the transaction amount and date, vendor and description, client business, entity type, prior treatment, capitalization and prepaid thresholds, open bills and liabilities, nearby activity, and available source documents. It then routes the item into the correct accounting workflow: direct expense, supporting schedule, fixed asset, bill payment, or accrual clearing. If evidence is missing or the policy requires judgment, Meridian flags the item instead of manufacturing certainty. That full-balance-sheet context is what distinguishes its categorization from simple vendor mapping.

Routine activity matches expected sources, historical patterns, accounting policy, reconciliations, and checklist conditions. Exceptions include missing inputs, unreconciled balances, unusual amounts or timing, new counterparties, policy conflicts, stale liabilities, unsupported ledger actions, and items above review thresholds. Meridian can continue independent work while routing the exception to the right person. The reviewer sees the issue with context and evidence, not merely a generic failure state.

Meridian handles defined production work and deterministic checks. Clients provide source information, explanations, and approvals through the portal. Staff resolve novel issues and maintain the process; reviewers apply judgment, inspect the evidence, and approve the completed work; partners retain accountability and the relationship. The division is configurable, but the core idea is stable: humans should spend their time on judgment and client value rather than repetitive execution.

Meridian works with the client’s existing chart of accounts in the connected ledger. It reads account type, hierarchy, history, and available dimensions, then applies the firm’s mapping and usage rules. Categorization and journal entries target the client’s accounts rather than a proprietary replacement chart. If the chart is inconsistent or needs redesign, Meridian AI can help analyze and implement a one-off cleanup, subject to review. The original ledger remains the system of record.

The client’s accounting basis is part of its configuration. For accrual books, Meridian connects cash activity with bills, invoices, accruals, prepaids, fixed assets, deferred revenue, and supporting schedules. For cash-basis books, it applies the firm’s policy without introducing unnecessary accrual workflows. Some ledgers and reports also distinguish book basis from reporting basis, so firms should test the exact outputs they need. Meridian’s strength is that the workflow can be customized by client while retaining a common review model.

Meridian can detect changes through new vendors, accounts, revenue streams, entities, dimensions, transaction patterns, contracts, and client responses. A one-off change can be investigated through Meridian AI; if it will recur, the firm can update client context or the checklist so the new treatment becomes part of future closes. Material changes are appropriate review points because they may affect recognition, presentation, tax, or controls. Meridian reduces the mechanical rework while the accountant decides the policy.

Each client can have its own period, due date, cadence, required inputs, checklist variation, and reporting package. The firm dashboard normalizes status—prepare, in progress, review, done—so leaders can manage the portfolio without forcing identical deadlines. Client-specific deliverables can remain in the workflow, while common controls and review standards come from the firm template.

Meridian separates firm defaults from client-level context and overrides. A firm can standardize the close while specifying that one client uses accrual accounting, a different capitalization threshold, a custom revenue policy, or a particular departmental allocation. Those differences travel with the client’s work and are available to recurring checklists and Meridian AI. Reviewers see the result in the client’s own books rather than a generic Meridian chart. This lets a firm scale a consistent operating model without flattening real accounting differences.

Firms can use materiality to control which items Meridian completes routinely, which it highlights in the review summary, and which require explicit human attention. Thresholds can reflect firm standards and client-specific risk, and they can differ by workflow rather than relying on one global dollar amount. Materiality does not excuse a reconciliation difference or broken schedule; deterministic tie-outs still need to hold. It helps focus judgment on economically meaningful activity while preserving a complete work record.

Meridian completes the defined work, runs checks, summarizes decisions, and presents the books and exceptions to the assigned reviewer. The reviewer can approve, request a change, or investigate the underlying evidence. Requested changes can be executed by Meridian and rechecked before final sign-off. Nothing is delivered to the client without the firm’s approval; firms can configure any additional pre-posting controls required by policy.

Human-review rules come from deterministic checks, firm policy, client-level thresholds, permissions, and the model’s assessment that information is ambiguous or incomplete. Meridian is designed to ask rather than guess when an answer would materially affect the books. Accountants also review the completed close before delivery, even when routine production ran autonomously. Firms can make the control environment stricter for sensitive clients or workflows.

During setup, the firm defines its standard close process, chart-of-accounts conventions, cutoffs, materiality rules, review thresholds, and preferred treatment for recurring situations. Meridian combines those firm-level instructions with historical books, schedules, prior decisions, and configured workflows. The goal is not to force the firm into Meridian’s accounting policy; it is to make the firm’s policy executable and reviewable. As reviewers refine the work, durable rules can be added to the recurring process instead of remaining in one person’s memory.

Meridian separates firm users from client users and uses role-based access to financial systems and credentials. Firms can assign responsibilities such as preparer, reviewer, manager, or client contact and control who can see or act on each client. Because permission requirements vary—especially across service lines, entities, and assurance work—firms should include a role matrix and segregation-of-duties test in deployment diligence.

Meridian tracks checklist progress, client stage, blockers, work records, and review status across the portfolio. Firm leaders can see what is preparing, running, awaiting input, ready for review, or done and identify recurring sources of delay. During evaluation, firms should agree on outcome metrics such as days to close, production hours, review hours, exception rate, rework, and revenue capacity. Available dashboard metrics can be scoped during implementation.

Onboarding begins by connecting the ledger and financial sources or collecting statements, understanding the chart and prior books, importing the firm’s process and client policies, and identifying missing or inconsistent history. Meridian can help investigate and clean inherited books through ad hoc work, then establish a clean recurring checklist. Timelines vary with complexity and data quality; depending on scope, firms can begin receiving finished books within days or within the first month.

Firm-wide templates encode the default inputs, sequence, controls, outputs, and review expectations for a recurring workflow. Teams can apply the template across a portfolio and override only what is genuinely client-specific. This lowers process drift and makes improvements reusable: when the firm decides a check should occur every close, it can become part of the standard process rather than a tribal reminder. Governance over template changes should be assigned during implementation.

The firm starts with its existing SOPs, files, schedules, and review standards. Meridian’s team translates recurring work into inputs, steps, checks, and outputs, while one-off cleanup or conversion tasks can be delegated through Meridian AI. Supporting schedules and decisions should be migrated as accounting state, not treated as disposable documentation. A phased transition lets the firm compare outputs and retire tools only after Meridian covers the required workflow.

Meridian uses historical vendors, entries, dimensions, schedules, reconciliations, and documented decisions as evidence of how a client is normally handled. That continuity improves recurring work, but history is not followed blindly: changes in amount, cadence, contract, business model, or account structure can turn a familiar transaction into an exception. Meridian can surface that deviation and apply the current policy after review. The result is consistency without freezing mistakes into future periods.

Meridian can fit an onshore-only, offshore, or blended delivery model. It gives firms the option to move repeatable production into software while keeping client ownership and review wherever the firm chooses. For teams that continue using offshore capacity, Meridian can standardize inputs, surface blockers, and make handoffs more inspectable. The positioning is optionality—not a prescription about staffing—and the best design depends on the firm’s service model and control environment.

Deployment time depends on client count, source-system variety, policy complexity, data quality, security review, and rollout design. First closes can be ready in days or within the first month, while a portfolio rollout is usually planned in waves with acceptance criteria. The useful buyer question is not a single calendar promise; it is how quickly representative clients reach review-ready output and how lessons propagate to the next cohort.

The team reviews completed books, resolves the small number of issues requiring judgment, approves delivery, communicates with clients, and improves policies and workflows. Accountants also own novel technical conclusions and services where specialized tax, audit, legal, or advisory expertise is required. Meridian is designed to remove repetitive production, not professional accountability.

Yes. A firm can keep its practice-management system for CRM, billing, time, or broad project tracking while Meridian runs accounting work. During a phased rollout, the firm should define which system owns client identity, deadlines, assignments, and status to avoid duplicate administration. Integration or reporting options should be confirmed for the selected platform.

Meridian can support recurring request and notification workflows, while the firm controls tone, cadence, escalation, and which questions merit a human touch. Reminder automation can be scoped during implementation. Follow-up remains tied to the unresolved accounting dependency and stops when the required input arrives.

It can replace tools used primarily to collect accounting inputs and connect them to Meridian’s work. A firm may retain a broader document-management, signature, billing, CRM, or tax-organizer portal if those capabilities are outside the rollout. Evaluate client experience, permissions, retention, branding, and integrations before consolidating.

It can replace many spreadsheets used solely to track close status, checklist completion, client requests, or schedule roll-forwards that Meridian maintains natively. A firm may retain spreadsheets for custom models, statutory templates, or analysis outside current coverage. The decision should follow an output comparison and control review, not an assumption that every spreadsheet is waste.

Meridian’s checklist system can represent monthly, quarterly, annual, and other recurring work, including monthly close, onboarding, and end-of-year workflows. Event-driven automation depends on whether the triggering system and action are connected, so firms should verify specific triggers rather than assume every workflow can start in real time.

A firm can begin with a subset of clients or with the month-end close, then expand to more workflows and service lines. Existing practice-management, portal, reporting, and specialized systems can coexist during the transition. A phased rollout lets the firm compare quality and review time before retiring any tool. No proprietary-ledger migration is required.

Yes. Existing SOPs are the starting point for identifying inputs, ordered work, controls, and outputs. Meridian’s implementation process can translate them into executable workflows and add accounting primitives that a task list may omit. Firms should also migrate schedule state, mappings, and policy decisions—not just the written task names.

Yes. If a one-off request reveals a durable need, the firm can add its inputs, steps, checks, and output to the client or firm checklist. That turns reviewer feedback into process improvement and reduces the chance that the same exception must be rediscovered next month. Governance should determine which changes become firm-wide defaults.

Yes. A standard workflow can define common requests, while the client’s source systems, policies, cadence, materiality, and contacts determine the actual request. Firms can also decide when a question is unnecessary because existing evidence is sufficient. That reduces repetitive or duplicate client outreach.

No. Your accountants review every piece of work Meridian AI does before it reaches the client. The human is always the driver. Meridian AI frees the firm’s capacity so your team can focus on the work that grows the firm.

Meridian operates with the client’s existing ledger. It reads the books, executes supported work, and writes results back while the ledger retains the chart, history, permissions, and final entries. This avoids a migration and preserves data portability. Ledger-specific coverage still matters, so firms should validate the workflows they need on each platform.

No. Meridian’s only customers are accounting firms. Pilot’s direct business serves startups and SMBs on a separate product and a separate channel. Meridian does not market to firm clients and does not compete for client relationships.

Each response is associated with the relevant request, client, period, transaction, or checklist dependency. Meridian can use it to complete or revise the work, and the reviewer can see the evidence behind the treatment. Durable facts can be captured in client context so the firm does not ask the same question again unnecessarily.

The team identifies the reusable inputs, steps, checks, and output from the Meridian AI task and adds them to a client or firm checklist. The original work and review provide evidence for the design. This converts ad hoc learning into a durable operating asset rather than another undocumented workaround.

The checklist starts recurring work and identifies required inputs. The client portal collects missing evidence. Meridian executes the workflow and routes novel work or review changes through Meridian AI. The firm portal shows progress, blockers, assignments, and finished work. A response or decision can update the client context and recurring process, turning a successful one-off resolution into a durable workflow. Firms can use this end-to-end experience within Meridian, or connect the workflow to existing client portal and firm-management or task-tracking tools.

The firm starts from its SOP and identifies the evidence needed, the work to perform, the conditions that must be true, the artifacts to produce, and the decisions requiring review. Meridian can provide proven accounting primitives and default close logic, then adapt the workflow to the firm. Client-level configuration supplies different sources, policies, dimensions, or deliverables.

Meridian AI can analyze historical ledgers, statements, exports, and documents across many periods, reconcile activity, apply the client’s chart and policy, rebuild schedules, and prepare adjustments. It can complete multi-year catch-up work asynchronously and process months of departmental reallocations in minutes. The firm defines scope, period-lock treatment, and approval before execution.

The accountant states the request in accounting terms and supplies relevant files or points Meridian to the client’s existing context. Meridian investigates the books and source evidence, asks a focused question if something is missing, performs supported changes, updates related schedules, and reports back. The accountant reviews before the result reaches the client.

The reviewer can describe the correction or refinement without specifying every click. Meridian identifies affected transactions, periods, dimensions, schedules, and reports; makes supported changes; reruns checks; and summarizes what moved. This reduces partial fixes, such as changing an entry but leaving the supporting schedule stale.

Assignments and workflow roles determine who owns production oversight, review, client delivery, and escalation. Meridian routes finished work and exceptions to the appropriate role while preserving accountability. Firms should configure their actual responsibility model rather than copy a generic hierarchy.

The standard template supplies the firm’s default process and controls. The client layer overrides the ledger, institutions, chart, accounting basis, materiality, schedules, deadlines, dimensions, and special policies. Meridian executes the resulting workflow with the client’s own history and evidence. This preserves consistency without treating every book identically.

Most "AI accounting" tools are general-purpose models like ChatGPT and Claude with an accounting UI bolted on, built to chat rather than reason through an intercompany transaction or a deferred revenue schedule. Meridian is purpose-built for the work of closing books, trained on millions of judgment calls across 199K months of production since 2017. It sits on top of your existing QuickBooks Online ledger instead of replacing it, so your books stay yours, your firm controls the data, and there's no migration to start or stop.

Meridian gathers the available inputs, calls the appropriate accounting and source-system tools, records changes, runs checks, and advances when dependencies are satisfied. Independent work can proceed in parallel across clients. If an input is missing or a decision is ambiguous, Meridian raises a bounded exception rather than inventing an answer. The team reviews the completed work instead of supervising every step.

Dependencies are explicit. A reconciliation may wait for a statement; a reporting package may wait for categorization and schedules; delivery waits for review. Meridian tracks which conditions are satisfied, which step is responsible for a blocker, and what evidence will unblock it. That prevents downstream tasks from appearing complete when upstream accounting is unresolved.

Meridian can maintain client contacts and access to the portal, with role-based separation from internal firm users. Requirements such as entity-specific access, approvers, executives, and external advisors should be captured in a permission matrix and tested. Do not assume that every complex document-room permission model is available without confirmation.

Role-based access limits which users can view clients, access credentials, execute actions, review, or deliver work. Sensitive workflows can include stronger approval rules. Firms should test segregation of duties, service-line boundaries, entity access, and administrator privileges against their security policy.

The checklist or agent identifies a missing input or ambiguity and generates a bounded request that explains what is needed and which period or transaction it affects. Firms can review or customize wording and thresholds. A focused request is easier for the client to answer and easier for Meridian to connect back to the work.

Meridian uses explicit workflow states such as prepare, in progress, review, and done, with step-level status and blocker reasons. A client can be awaiting a statement, connection, response, or reviewer rather than sitting in a generic open queue. The work record shows what already completed before the blocker appeared.

Clients and workflow stages can have assigned roles and owners. Status and work history persist through PTO, staffing changes, and review handoffs, reducing dependence on private notes. Exact resource-planning and capacity features should be confirmed if the firm expects Meridian to replace a broader practice-management tool.

Exceptions arise from missing inputs, broken connections, failed deterministic checks, unusual activity, policy thresholds, permissions, or AI uncertainty. Meridian presents the client, affected workflow, evidence, and next action. Portfolio views help staff clear high-leverage blockers without searching each ledger manually.

Requests have status and remain associated with the relevant client, close, or task. The firm dashboard can surface work awaiting documents or client response, helping teams distinguish an external blocker from production work still in progress. Resolved responses remain part of the relationship and accounting history.

The dashboard groups clients by stage and exposes checklist progress, deadlines, owners, alerts, and items awaiting documents, connection repair, human input, or review. Leaders can identify recurring bottlenecks and rebalance attention. The underlying ledgers and client details remain separate.

The reviewer receives completed books or artifacts, the checks performed, decision summaries, exceptions, and underlying support. They can approve, investigate, or ask Meridian to make a change. A change can trigger the related entries, schedules, and checks to run again. Client delivery occurs only after the firm’s sign-off.

The team opens the client’s completed close or task, reads the decision and exception summary, inspects entries, reconciliations, schedules, reports, and source support, and then approves or requests changes. Review feedback can be executed by Meridian and incorporated into future process where appropriate.

General AI tools sit outside your books. They can’t make changes to the GL, they don’t have your firm’s context, and they need to be babysat through every step. Meridian AI has full access to the client’s books, the firm’s configurations, and nearly a decade of accounting context. It does the work the way a staff accountant would.

Checklist automation runs work defined in advance on a recurring trigger. Meridian AI handles work that is novel, changing, or not worth encoding yet. Both share the same accounting system and can update the same ledger and schedules. That continuity lets an ad hoc fix become part of the recurring process instead of remaining a disconnected chat transcript.

General chatbots usually sit outside the ledger and rely on users to supply context, manage tools, and verify every step. Meridian AI is purpose-built for accounting, connected to the client’s books and schedules, and able to take supported actions and report what it did. It shares state with the recurring close. Accountants remain in control through permissions, exceptions, and review.

A task list tells a person what to do. Meridian’s checklist directs software to do the accounting work, verify it, and present the output for review. It can interact with ledgers and source systems, maintain schedules, reconcile balances, and produce evidence. Practice-management tools may still handle broader CRM, billing, or time functions.

Since 2017. The same technology that powers Meridian has closed books for over 8,000 businesses. That is 199K months of books in production. Meridian is Pilot’s infrastructure, made available to accounting firms.

Compare the accounting outcome and operating burden. Ask whether work is completed end to end or merely assigned; whether schedules and reconciliations remain consistent; whether client responses connect to the underlying task; whether reviewers see evidence and decisions; and who maintains prompts, integrations, and policies. Meridian’s thesis is that one purpose-built accounting system reduces handoffs and starts the human workflow at review.

Yes. If you’re already on Meridian, your team can use it inside the platform today. If you’re not on Meridian yet, book a demo and we’ll show you how it works.

Meridian currently supports QuickBooks Online and Xero. Support for NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks Desktop, Rillet, and additional or custom ledgers is in development. Meridian separates ledger-specific connectors from its accounting workflows, which makes it straightforward to add a ledger while preserving the depth required for subledgers, dimensions, schedules, write-back, and review. Firms with mixed portfolios or a priority ledger on this list should talk to Meridian about their requirements and the development roadmap.

Meridian is four connected systems. A checklist system runs recurring work from defined inputs, steps, checks, and outputs. Meridian AI handles one-off accounting projects through chat. A client-facing portal gathers files, answers, and approvals. An internal firm-management portal coordinates the portfolio, exceptions, review, and ownership. All four use the same client context, books, schedules, and work history, so the firm does not have to reassemble context for every task. Firms can use the native Meridian client and firm-management portals, or connect Meridian to the client portal and firm-management or task-tracking tools they already use.

It can use the connected books, chart, prior transactions, vendor history, reconciliations, supporting schedules, checklist configuration, firm preferences, client-specific policies, uploaded files, and recorded client responses available within Meridian. Access remains bounded by the user and client permissions. A reviewer should still confirm novel facts that are not present in those sources.

The client sees the firm-branded requests, files, questions, and delivered reporting relevant to their relationship and permissions—not the firm’s internal portfolio or other clients. They can provide information without learning the internal close workflow. Firms should review the exact branded experience and available reports during a demo.

The reviewer receives a summary of the work completed, the changes made, the relevant outputs or files, and any unresolved question. The underlying ledger entries and schedules are available for inspection, and affected checks can be rerun. The goal is review-ready accounting work, not an opaque prose answer.

Examples include bank and card statements, payroll or processor reports, invoices, receipts, contracts, transaction explanations, entity details, categorization answers, and workflow approvals. The exact request can be customized by client and period. Sensitive or unsupported document types should be tested during onboarding.

The books stay in your general ledger. Meridian sits on top of your GL, not instead of it. If a firm stops using Meridian, the underlying data is intact in the general ledger and nothing migrates out. There is no lock-in and no data export process. The ledger is yours.

Meridian pauses or routes the affected work, records the missing input or inconsistency, and surfaces it in the portfolio view. It can request a file or answer through the client portal or ask a firm user for judgment. Unrelated work can continue where safe. Once resolved, Meridian resumes the workflow and preserves the decision in the work record.

It won’t guess. If something’s outside its scope or the data is ambiguous, it flags the gap and asks your team, the way a staff accountant would.

Meridian AI is the super agent for one-off accounting work. A user describes the desired outcome and provides files or context; Meridian uses the same books, history, schedules, firm preferences, and accounting tools that power recurring workflows. It completes the project, asks when material information is missing, and summarizes the result for review. Meridian AI is live inside the platform today.

It is an executable definition of an accounting workflow: the required inputs, ordered steps, controls, expected outputs, dependencies, and review points. Meridian does not simply mark those tasks complete; it uses accounting tools and client context to perform the work. The monthly close is the leading example, but the same model can support other recurring processes.

It is the collaboration surface where a firm gathers the files, explanations, and approvals required to complete accounting work. Requests are tied to clients and workflows rather than scattered across email and spreadsheets. The firm retains the client relationship and reviews the accounting result.

It is the firm’s control surface for client status, assignments, blockers, review, and completed work. It helps leaders and accountants see the portfolio without replacing every function of a full CRM, billing, or time-and-practice-management suite. Its scope is centered on accounting execution and review.

The complex, one-off work that pulls a senior accountant off strategic work for days. Reallocating transactions across departments. Catching up 30+ months of books on a new client. Triaging hundreds of receipts. Restating prior periods. Building supporting schedules.

Examples include onboarding cleanup, catch-up bookkeeping, transaction reallocations, prior-period restatements, chart-of-accounts changes, receipt triage, foreign-currency cleanup, missing processor periods, financing diligence, custom reports, and investigation of unusual balances. The best tasks have a clear accounting outcome and review criteria. Specialized legal, tax, valuation, or audit conclusions still require qualified judgment.

Use a checklist when the work has a recurring trigger and a repeatable definition: month-end close, AP processing, year-end tasks, reporting packages, or deadline-driven compliance steps. Use Meridian AI when the outcome is one-off or exploratory: onboarding cleanup, a restatement, a client request, diligence questions, or a chart-of-accounts redesign. A task can move from AI to the checklist once the firm decides it should recur.

Meridian can consolidate parts of close coordination, accounting automation, workpaper production, client requests, AI task execution, and portfolio status. It may replace spreadsheets or point tools used only for those functions. It is not a universal replacement for the general ledger, tax-preparation software, audit methodology, payroll, payment execution, inventory operations, CRM, time and billing, or specialized FP&A. Buyers should map workflows rather than count logos.

Meridian covers accounting workflow execution, close status, assignments, blockers, client requests, review routing, and work history. Firms can keep specialized systems for CRM, proposals, time tracking, billing, collections, staffing forecasts, or document management where those functions remain important. During evaluation, Meridian maps which practice-management workflows it can consolidate and which systems continue alongside it.

The general ledger remains the accounting source of record; banks, payroll, AP, expense, commerce, tax, and other operational systems can remain the sources for their own activity. Meridian replaces or reduces the manual coordination and production layer between those systems: importing, reconciling, categorizing, scheduling, checking, requesting information, and preparing review. Specialized systems remain where they carry authoritative operational or statutory data.

The firm controls each client’s general ledger instance and data access. Meridian does not store a separate copy of the client’s general ledger. The general ledger is the system of record throughout. The firm’s existing permissions, chart of accounts, and client data stay exactly where they are.