Launching a Xero killer is ambitious but doable. Launching some new bookkeeping software (or...service? what even are they doing?) seemingly without being aware of Xero seems...deeply myopic. Xero is big, their product is solid, and they're able to move a lot quicker than the legacy vendors. And this:
> When a company starts working with Pilot, the actual core experience on the customer side doesn’t really change all that much: they still work with a human on the other end. But the bookkeeper from Pilot is working with the internal tools they have built to bring in the data from the company, organize it and structure it, and produce a set of books that are more accurate than someone might have produced than just doing it by hand.
That's a bizarrely accurate description of how stuff works today. That's not new, that's standard. I'm not sure if the article is terrible or the product is terrible, but something is clearly not coming through.
Similarly, all the stuff about categorization of expenses? Again, that's just a core feature in modern bookkeeping software; Xero allows you to configure very detailed rules. And then since the rules can't be 100% accurate in all cases, your actual bookkeeper (the one who uses the software) is going to ask you about the ambiguous ones.
I'm just mystified as to what the value prop is. "Bookkeeping firm raises $15m to provide the same services everyone else does"? How is this tech news? Or even news? (Caveat: My experience is outside the US, maybe this is less common/standard in the US?)