AI for small business finance
You are the whole finance function, so bank reconciliations, the cash forecast and the board pack all land on your desk. Ultramarine Work builds each one from the QuickBooks exports, payroll registers and billing files in your folder.
Jun-deferred-revenue.xlsxExample| Line | Amount | Source | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Balance, May 31 | 1,284,600 | TB 2400 | This agrees to the May 31 trial balance. |
| June billings | 486,200 | Billing export | These are annual and quarterly subscription invoices issued in June. |
| Recognized in June | −412,750 | Rev schedule | This agrees to subscription revenue in account 4000. |
| Refunds and credits | −18,400 | Billing export | These are credit notes on periods not yet recognized. |
| Rolled-forward balance | 1,339,650 | This is the balance the billing data supports at June 30. | |
| Per trial balance, 2400 | 1,346,150 | TB 2400 | The ledger is $6,500 higher than the rollforward. |
NoteA $6,500 June invoice voided in billing is still open in the ledger, so reverse it to bring 2400 to $1,339,650.
Ask it for
“Reconcile the four bank accounts and the Amex card to the April 30 statements and the trial balance, and flag reconciling items more than two closes old.”
Apr30-cash-reconciliations.xlsx“Roll the deferred revenue schedule to June 30 from the Stripe billing export and prove the movement to recognized revenue on the trial balance.”
Jun-deferred-revenue.xlsx“Add the Denver warehouse lease, five years starting June 1, to the schedule and prepare the June ROU asset and liability entries.”
842-lease-schedule.xlsx“Update the 13-week cash forecast with the June payroll run dates, the two customers who slipped to 60-day terms and the $3.2M Series A tranche.”
13-week-cash-forecast.xlsx“Build the June board pack: budget versus actual P&L, ARR bridge, cash and runway, hiring plan, and commentary on lines over $15,000 and 10% off plan.”
June-board-pack.pptx“Draft the memo on whether implementation and support in the new customer contracts are separate performance obligations under ASC 606.”
606-performance-obligations-memo.docx
Inside the Small-Organization Finance mode
Month-end close and reconciliations
Prepares the accrual, prepaid and cutoff entries with support attached, and reconciliations that list aged items instead of plugging the difference.
Fixed asset and lease accounting
Records the ROU asset and lease liability when a lease starts and remeasures both on a modification, with book and tax depreciation separated in the register.
Revenue and contract cost schedules
Rolls the deferred revenue and contract asset schedules from the billing export at every close, with ASC 340-40 commission amortization on its own tab.
Equity and stock comp accounting
Builds the stock comp expense schedule grant by grant and ties vesting back to the cap table. You see the EPS impact before you record anything.
Financial statement preparation
Drafts the balance sheet, income statement and indirect cash flow with footnotes, each line tied to the trial balance, for the bank, the board or the auditors.
Technical accounting memo
Writes the position memo when a contract, a lease or a convertible note needs a US GAAP conclusion, with every ASC citation marked for you to verify.
Audit PBC and evidence requests
Answers the requests the auditors send: system reports with completeness support, sample documentation and proposed adjustments weighed against materiality.
Close variance and forecasting
Explains the budget versus actual flux by account and assembles the monthly management pack from a rolling forecast it keeps current.
Long-range plan and capital raise
Links the three-year model so the statements balance and cash ties, and stress-tests the raise case against your covenant levels.
Cash forecasting
Starts the 13-week cash flow from payroll run dates, tax dates and named customer collections, and tracks each week against actuals.
Operating metrics and reviews
Computes the ARR bridge, net revenue retention, gross margin and burn multiple the same way every month, so the figures compare across periods.
Headcount and workforce plan
A hiring ask comes with its numbers, because every role is priced at fully loaded cost, including employer tax wage-base caps, benefits and partial-year starts.
Business case and capital allocation
Puts an NPV and a build-versus-buy case behind a large purchase, and writes each assumption where a director can question it.
Deal desk review
Works out a ramped or discounted multiyear deal’s effective price over its term, tests it against the approval policy and flags the ASC 606 effects.
Credit underwriting and covenants
Calculates fixed charge coverage and leverage the way the credit agreement defines them, and shows headroom before the bank asks.
Bank account management and fees
Reviews the account analysis against AFP service codes and flags any month positive pay or an ACH debit block stops appearing.
Payables processing and controls
Flags duplicate bills and three-way match exceptions before the payment run, and marks vendor bank-detail changes for out-of-band verification.
Expense reports and audit
Checks reports for business purpose, receipts at $75 or more and duplicates, then sizes the taxable part of anything the accountable plan will not cover.
Collections worklist and dunning
Ages the past-due list by customer and drafts the reminder sequence, from friendly notes through final notice, within the rules that govern collections.
Payroll calculations and pay run review
Runs the pre-release check on every pay run: gross to net, retro true-ups, terminations, garnishments and overtime where a bonus moves the regular rate.
Sales and use tax
Compares shipments and transaction counts to each state’s nexus thresholds, flags missing and expired exemption certificates and builds the use tax accrual.
1099 preparation
Pulls the 1099 population from the vendor ledger and flags missing W-9s and failed TIN matches, including the attorneys who break the corporate exemption.
Cap table and term sheets
Turns the SAFEs and the new money into a pro forma cap table and shows the dilution under each term sheet, with the 83(b) dates kept on record.
- Office skills
- Excel, Word, PowerPoint, PDF
- Tools
- Read, edit and write files, Search files, Run code, Search and read the web, View images
- Connectors
- SharePoint, Google Drive, Gmail, and additional custom connectors
- House style
- Your fonts, layouts and rules, on every file
How it works
- 1
Start with what you already keep
Put the trial balance and GL export from QuickBooks, bank and card statements, the payroll register, the Stripe billing export, vendor bills, customer contracts and last year’s audit schedules in your close folder.
- 2
Ask for the piece of work
Reconcile an account, roll a schedule, test a covenant or draft a memo. What comes back is a finished file with live formulas. Every number carries a source note, and the exceptions sit on their own tab.
- 3
Trace it, then decide
Each figure cites the file and tab it came from, so review means ticking support instead of rebuilding it. You post the entries and sign the certificate yourself, and the covenant call is yours to make.
Who it’s for
The finance lead who is the whole finance function, or nearly, at a startup, small company or small nonprofit: heads of finance, finance managers, controller-CFOs and fractional CFOs.
Questions
Where does our financial data go when we use it?
Ultramarine Work changes files only in the project’s folder. When a request needs it, it can read files elsewhere on your computer, never passwords, keys or app data, and you can turn that off in settings. The model runs on Paper Instruments’ servers, so the content it works on is sent there to be processed. Paper Instruments is SOC 2 Type II, and our security and compliance details are on our compliance page.
Will the auditor accept workpapers it prepared?
Yes, as long as they pass the same tests as workpapers you build yourself. Auditors test evidence, not the software that produced it, and every number in those workpapers points to a source file and tab. You review each file it touched before the PBC list goes out.
What stops it inventing numbers or Codification quotes?
Nothing removes the risk, so treat its output like a first draft from an intern who did the reading. Its instructions tell it to cite a source file for every figure and to note anything it could not reconcile instead of guessing, and the review step decides what survives.
Does it know ASC 606, 842 and 718?
Yes, this mode has skills for revenue schedules, leases and stock compensation. It builds the roll-forwards and the expense schedules from your files, and technical memos name the ASC guidance they rely on. The conclusion and the signature are yours.