The goal of a finance system is to go from "Credit Card Swipe" to "Investor Report" with as few human touches as possible. The days of manual data entry are over. Here is the minimal tech stack for a streamlined operation.

The Source of Truth: The Bank Feed

Your accounting software (Xero/Quickbooks) must be connected to your bank accounts live.
Rule: Never manually type a transaction. If it’s not in the bank feed, it didn't happen.

The OCR Layer (Optical Character Recognition)

You need a tool that reads receipts. Tools like Dext or Hubdoc sit between your receipt and your accounting software. You take a photo, the AI reads the date, amount, and vendor, and pushes it to the accounting software.

• Human effort: 0 minutes.

• Accuracy: 99%.

Bank Rules

You visit the same coffee shop every week? You pay Google Workspace every month? Set up "Bank Rules" in your software.

• If text contains "Starbucks" -> Categorize as "Meals & Entertainment".

• If text contains "Google" -> Categorize as "Software".

With these rules, 80% of your transactions categorize themselves before you even log in. Your job shifts from "Data Entry" to "Reviewer."