The 17 things your practice chases clients for, and which an AI actually closes

A typical 20-staff Irish accounting practice in 2026 chases its clients across roughly seventeen different items in a normal year. Receipts that didn't come in. Bank statements before the next VAT3 (the Irish quarterly VAT return) close. AML (anti-money laundering) refreshes when a client's risk rating changes. ROS (Revenue Online Service) agent-link approvals since the rules shifted in March 2025. The B1 confirmations forty-two days before the Annual Return Date. Each one needs a different artefact, a different signature, a different deadline.

AI vendors pitch every line on that list as solved. They are oversold on about half of them. Pattern-matching, OCR (optical character recognition), and reminder orchestration the model handles cleanly. Allowability calls under Section 81 TCA (Taxes Consolidation Act 1997), AML sign-off, and the client's ROS digital certificate it does not. This post is the honest split, with the 2026 Revenue references each call rests on, and what a practice owner should brief their team to expect.

The chase list, as it actually runs in 2026

A practice with 250 clients and 20 staff runs the chase list as a background process: half the work happens before VAT3 quarters, the other half stretches across CT1 (corporation tax return) season, statutory audit cycles, and the AML refresh window. Below is the working inventory. Every regulatory hook is linked to its primary source on revenue.ie, irishstatutebook.ie, rbo.gov.ie, or the equivalent official site.

#	Item	What the chase looks like today	Regulatory hook or deadline	Current-software stop-gap
1	Receipts	Email chase for missing receipts before month-end close	Operational; supports the Section 81 TCA allowability test at filing	Dext, AutoEntry capture
2	Supplier invoices	Inbox fetch and code into Surf or Xero	Operational; supports Section 81 / 840 TCA tests	Dext, AutoEntry, Hubdoc until 8 May 2026
3	Bank statements	Chase client to send PDF or grant feed access before VAT3 close	Revenue VAT3 quarterly deadline	AutoEntry bank-statement OCR
4	AML / KYC refreshes	Chase passport, proof of address, source of funds on a risk-score change	CJ (MLTF) Acts 2010-2021 + CCAB-I supervision guidance	id-pal, Mitek, vendor KYC tools
5	ROS agent-link approval	Chase client to log in to ROS and approve the e-linking request	Revenue agent e-linking (live end-March 2025)	None: the click happens on the client side
6	CT1 sign-off	Email PDF, chase signature, file via ROS	CT1 filing deadline (Revenue)	DocuSign, Adobe Sign
7	B1 confirmations	Chase B1 supporting info 42 days before the Annual Return Date	CRO Annual Return Date rules	CRO online portal
8	RBO beneficial-ownership data	Refresh beneficial-ownership info within 14 days of any change	RBO Annual Report 2024: strike-off from 3 December 2024	RBO online portal
9	RCT (Relevant Contracts Tax) evidence	Chase passport, driving licence, tax-registration proof before e-RCT	Revenue RCT subcontractor obligations	None: principal must hold the evidence
10	VAT3 inputs	Chase missing invoices, FX rates, intra-community supplies before VAT3 close	Revenue VAT3 cells T1, T2, E1, E2, ES1, ES2, PA1	AutoEntry, Dext, Xero VAT module
11	Engagement letter	Email letter, chase signature, file the executed copy	Companies Act 2014, s.59 CJ T&F 2001-2021, s.1079 TCA 1997, MLTF 2010-2021	DocuSign, AI-drafted templates
12	Payroll inputs (PMOD)	Chase pay-period changes, leavers, BIK adjustments before pay date	PAYE Modernisation: on-or-before pay date, statement deemed accepted on the 14th	BrightPay, Sage Payroll
13	DAC6 disclosures	Chase advisers and clients for hallmark indicators within 30 days	DAC6 30-day reporting clock	Specialist tax-tech vendors
14	Year-end docs assembly	Chase trial-balance reconciliations, fixed-asset register, stock count	Companies Act 2014 audit and abridged-accounts rules	Surf Accounts, Xero, manual workpapers
15	Section 81 TCA allowability	Chase business purpose for borderline expenses	Section 81 TCA 1997 "wholly and exclusively"	None: requires practitioner judgement
16	Section 840 TCA entertainment	Chase context for entertainment and director-lunch claims	Section 840 TCA 1997 business-entertainment disallowance	None: requires practitioner judgement
17	ROS digital cert renewal	Chase client to re-issue and re-link the P12.BAC cert (~2-year validity)	Revenue ROS digital cert validity	None: only the client can re-issue

Seventeen items, seventeen different artefacts, seventeen different signatures. A vendor pitching "AI replaces your chase" is collapsing all of them into one promise. The work below is in unpacking which calls really do compress and which do not.

The two questions that split the list

Almost every "AI can't close this" line traces back to one of two tests. Run a candidate item through both and the answer falls out.

Question one: who is the regulated decision-maker? The 17 items split three ways. Some decisions are the practitioner's, bound by CCAB-I (Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies, Ireland) professional standards. Some belong to the client (the company director, the AML Officer, the named submitter on ROS). And some belong to the AI itself only on operational steps like OCR, categorisation, and reminder orchestration. If a regulated person owns the call, an AI can prepare the workings; it cannot be the signatory.

Question two: does the output need a signature from a human bound by professional standards? AML sign-off does. CT1 sign-off does. Statutory audit work does. The B1 confirmation does. A receipt code suggestion does not. The signature test is the cleanest filter we have: if the output ends in a wet or digital signature from an accountant, partner, or director, you are looking at a line that AI shapes rather than closes.

The mistake we see in vendor demos is to elide both questions. A polished UI lets the model click "approve" inside the SaaS and the demo tells you the loop is closed in the workflow sense. In the legal sense, with an audit, a Revenue queryletter, or a Central Bank inspection on the other end, the loop only closes at the named human signatory.

The six lines where AI clearly closes the loop today

Six of the seventeen items genuinely compress under current tooling. They share two properties: the artefact is a document, and the regulated signatory does not need to read every line.

Receipts and supplier invoices. Dext ships AI Assist categorisation and reconciliation against 11,500 bank-connection feeds. AutoEntry handles receipts, invoices, statements, and bank statements on a credits model. Vendor-published OCR accuracy headlines sit in the high nineties on clean documents and routinely fall into the high seventies to low nineties on real-world supplier invoices, photographed phone receipts, and faxed scans. At a typical 250-client practice this single line is the biggest reduction in chase volume.

Bank statement OCR. Same shape. AutoEntry handles bank-statement extraction natively, Dext via its statement-import flow. The work moves from re-typing PDFs to verifying line categorisation, which is hours saved every VAT3 quarter.

Reminder orchestration. Drafting and sending the chase emails on a cadence, escalating to a partner-signed reminder at the right point, and logging the trail. A model handles the cadence, the templating, and the response triage without a regulated signature anywhere in the loop.

Categorisation suggestions, with the practitioner signing off. AI proposes a GL (general ledger) code; the practitioner accepts or overrides. The "accept" click is the regulated act, and the proposal is the operational compression. This is the line where most modern practice software is already useful.

VAT3 line-item pre-population. "AI can pre-populate VAT3 cells T1, T2, E1, E2, ES1, ES2 and PA1 from the ledger, but it can't decide whether your director's Christmas lunch with a customer is allowable. Section 840 TCA 1997 disallows business-entertainment deductions under Schedule D, and that is a practitioner's call, not a model's." The pre-population is the line that closes; the entertainment judgement is the line that does not.

Engagement-letter and KYC-request drafting. A model drafts the letter and the supporting KYC chase emails from a template. The partner reviews and signs. Same shape as a junior drafting it manually, with the cycle time measured in minutes rather than days.

The seven lines where the human still owns the decision

These are the lines where the chase email is cheap and the sign-off is not.

AML and KYC sign-off. A practice's AML Officer is supervised by the Institute under the CCAB-I AML guidance hub, with member-level guidance from the Irish Tax Institute, November 2024. Software-driven document collection and risk scoring support the Officer; the Officer is the regulated signatory regardless.

Allowability under Section 81 TCA 1997. "AI can OCR your director's expense claim, but it can't apply Section 81(2)(a), the 'wholly and exclusively laid out or expended for the purposes of the trade or profession' test, to decide whether the spend is deductible at all." This is the call a partner makes after looking at the supplier, the spend pattern, and the trade.

Business entertainment under Section 840 TCA 1997. Section 840 disallows entertainment deductions under Schedule D. A model can tag candidate entries by supplier and amount. A partner has to apply the disallowance.

ROS agent-link approval. "From end-March 2025 the new ROS agent e-linking flow puts the approval in the client's hands, not yours. We can chase the approval. We can't sign it for them." Same answer for ROS digital certificate renewals, which only the client can re-issue from their own ROS profile.

CT1 sign-off. The named submitter on ROS is the director or authorised signatory. The CT1 supporting workings are draftable by AI. The submission is the client's signature.

Statutory audit. IAASA's 2024 Annual Audit Programme records 1,083 approved audit firms in Ireland as at 31 December 2024. Audit work is statutorily reserved. AI does workpaper assembly; the audit opinion does not move.

DAC6 reportable-arrangement judgement. Flagging a candidate hallmark is something a model does competently. Deciding reportability inside the 30-day clock is a practitioner's call.

The four lines AI shapes but doesn't close

Four items sit awkwardly between the two columns. AI does heavy lifting, but the loop ends at a human signature anyway.

B1 data preparation. A model can pre-populate the B1 from CRO records and historical filings. The directors, secretary, and share allocations still need to be verified and signed by a human authorised to do so. "Beneficial-ownership compliance is now enforced at the strike-off level: since 3 December 2024 the Registrar of Companies can strike off a company for failing to file required RBO information. An AI can prepare the filing. The AML Officer has to verify it and the directors have to sign it."

RCT subcontractor registration. AI can prep the contract notification. The principal contractor must hold passport, driving-licence, or tax-registration evidence before e-RCT issues a confirmation. Software shapes the chase; the principal owns the evidence.

Year-end docs assembly. Trial-balance reconciliations, fixed-asset register, accruals workings. A model does the assembly. The partner reviews, queries, and signs.

Payroll inputs (PMOD) and CT1 workings. "Under PAYE Modernisation, payroll submissions are on or before pay date and Revenue's statement is deemed accepted on the 14th if no amendments. AI can chase the inputs from the client and pre-validate them. It can't be the named submitter on ROS." Same logic for CT1 supporting workings: drafted by AI, reviewed by the practitioner, submitted under the director's name on ROS.

The Hubdoc cliff, 8 May 2026

One specific change is going to bite practices that automated through Hubdoc. Xero is retiring Hubdoc on 8 May 2026 and replacing it with Xero Files. The successor product, per the vendor-published change notes, does not auto-fetch documents from supplier portals and does not extract line items. Any practice that built its chase reduction on Hubdoc's fetch-and-extract loop loses both capabilities on the same day.

The practical response is to migrate to AutoEntry, Dext, or a comparable capture tool well before the cutoff, run the new flow in parallel for one VAT3 cycle, and only then turn Hubdoc off. Assuming Xero Files will plug the gap is the failure mode the published feature set already warns against. Surf Accounts (from Bright / Relate Software) is the CPA-Ireland-listed alternative for practices already considering a wider tooling change.

The decision tree, in one table

The seventeen items, summarised against the two questions in section two: what AI closes, what the human still does, and which regulated person signs.

Line item	What AI closes	What the human still does	Who signs
Receipts, supplier invoices	OCR, line extraction, code suggestion	Approves the GL code on borderline items	Practice partner (Section 81 test)
Bank statements	OCR, reconciliation suggestion	Decides on cleared items, signs off month-end	Practice partner
AML / KYC refresh	Document collection, expiry alerts, drafted refresh emails	Risk rating and continued-engagement sign-off	AML Officer (CCAB-I supervised)
ROS agent-link approval	Drafts the request, chases the reminder	Cannot do the click	Client (in ROS or myAccount)
CT1 sign-off	Drafts CT1 supporting workings	Reviews and signs as named submitter	Director / authorised signatory
B1 confirmations	Pre-populates from CRO records	Verifies directors, secretary, share allocations	Director / company secretary
RBO beneficial-ownership	Drafts the filing	Verifies and signs the declaration	AML Officer + director
RCT subcontractor	Drafts the contract notification	Holds the proof-of-ID evidence	Principal contractor
VAT3 inputs	Pre-populates cells T1, T2, E1, E2, ES1, ES2, PA1	Decides borderline allowability and final filing	Practice partner
Engagement letter	Drafts the letter, chases signature	Approves scope of work	Partner + client
PMOD submission	Pre-validates the payroll file	Submits via ROS as named operator	Named operator on ROS
DAC6 disclosure	Flags candidate hallmarks	Decides reportability inside 30 days	Practitioner
Year-end docs assembly	Collates TB, fixed-asset register, drafts workings	Reviews and signs	Practice partner
Section 81 / 840 TCA judgements	Tags candidate entries	Decides allowability	Practice partner
ROS digital cert renewal	Reminder cadence	Cannot do the renewal	Client

Related framings on this site

The same volume-and-complexity test, applied to accounts payable rather than the chase loop, is in our companion piece on the AP invoice automation decision tree. The broader mid-market AI framing, on which workflows actually free up headcount you would otherwise have hired, is in Redesigning the boring middle.

If you are running a high-risk AI deployment inside the practice (a CV-screen for staff hires, for example), our walkthrough of the EU AI Act SME carve-out and Ireland's 15 sectoral regulators is the primer. The Act's high-risk obligations under Annex III become enforceable on 2 August 2026, the third inflection point in the calendar below.

What to brief your team

Three lines to wrap with software this quarter

Receipts and supplier-invoice capture (Dext or AutoEntry); bank-statement OCR for VAT3 quarters; reminder orchestration for the recurring chase emails. None of these requires a regulated signature in the loop and all three return time inside one quarter.

Four lines that stay on the partner desk

AML sign-off; Section 81 and Section 840 TCA judgements; CT1 sign-off and statutory audit work; DAC6 reportability calls. A model can prepare workings for every one of them. The signature stays human.

Three regulatory inflection points

• March 2025: ROS agent e-linking flow live. Approvals now sit with the client.
• 8 May 2026: Hubdoc shut down. Xero Files does not fetch or extract.
• 2 August 2026: EU AI Act Annex III high-risk obligations enforceable. Ireland's 15 sectoral regulators already designated.

Where Appify fits

Appify builds AI into existing practice software rather than reselling the SaaS layer. When a capture-and-reminder integration into the existing Surf or Xero stack does the work of a full SaaS subscription at your volume, we build it. When the volume earns a Dext or AutoEntry subscription on top, we will say so.

If you are an owner or partner of an Irish practice with 5+ staff and the chase list above looks like your week, book a call. Bring your client count, the ERP and payroll stack you run today, and a couple of examples of the chase-work that keeps the partner desk full on Friday evenings. We will walk the decision tree with you in 45 minutes and tell you which three lines we would automate first.