We Bought the Bridge | Robots Beat the Humans (?!) | Be in the Loop.

John Toon is joined by guest presenters Billie McLoughlin and Kendrick Hair to work through the month's accounting tech and fintech news, with plenty of disagreement along the way. The headline story is Digits, which published a benchmark claiming its bookkeeping agent hit 97.8% accuracy against 79.1% for outsourced human accountants. Billie is quick to raise an eyebrow at a vendor grading its own homework, while John questions whether firms even have a way to measure their own staff's accuracy. Kendrick reframes it as a capacity and delivery story rather than an AI one, and warns it could be dangerous for the app partners that sit around the ledger. Adfin's new customer agents move payment chasing and collections onto autopilot, though Billie flags the educational gap for firms that are not ready to use them. Starling gets a going over too, after the bank added an accountant partner portal following criticism of its "make bookkeeping a breeze" pitch and Lucy Cohen's response. On the tools that quietly help, Kendrick makes the case for Vinyl's email integration, which drafts client follow-ups straight after a meeting and solves a workflow problem rather than an intelligence one. Billie walks through SuiteFiles' new Outlook add-in, which files emails and attachments to the right client folder without leaving the inbox. Profit and loss filing is back on the agenda for small companies and micro-entities from April 2028, with an opt-out from publishing on the public register. John, a big supporter of the original plan, argues the opt-out defeats the point, while Billie hears small business owners worried about handing rivals their trade secrets. The episode closes on HMRC's move to stop firms sharing sign-in details and using screen-scraping and automation tools to reach agent services accounts. John, who sits on an HMRC advisory panel, calls it a bit of a mess and warns practices relying on these tools for July payment-on-account reminders are first in the firing line. Also covered: Inflo and HubSync's partnership linking digital audit data into tax workflows, Penfold's place in Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 EMEA, and Employment Hero research showing UK full-time employment costs up 10% in a year and the shift towards contractors. This episode is sponsored by Advancetrack, which provides outsourced accounting and tax resourcing for firms, giving practices access to trained teams that integrate with their own workflow. advancetrack.com Chapters 00:00 Intro: The Loop, the Early Adopters Hub and what's new 04:40 Digits says its AI now books better than humans 14:52 Adfin's customer agents for payments and collections 17:52 Starling adds an accountant partner portal 22:50 Vinyl drafts client follow-ups minutes after meetings 25:48 P&L filing returns for small companies in 2028 29:12 SuiteFiles launches an Outlook add-in 32:01 Inflo and HubSync partner on digital audit and tax 33:51 Penfold makes Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 EMEA 36:00 Employment costs up 10% and the contractor shift 39:53 HMRC clamps down on shared logins and screen-scraping 48:47 Wrap-up