68% of U.S. small businesses now use AI regularly. Up from 48% mid-2024. But only 29% use it for bookkeeping and financial management — which is wild, because bookkeeping is the single most automatable function inside most small businesses.

So if you're reading about AI bookkeeping for small business and trying to figure out whether it's hype or actually worth your time, here's the short answer: it's worth your time, but not in the way most vendor blogs make it sound. We've set this up for clients, used it ourselves, and watched a few of them get burned by skipping the boring setup steps.

This is the honest version. No vendor pitch. No "the future is now" nonsense.…