Having worked with top tax preparation and accounting firms over the past year, Accrual’s funding positions it to expand its AI platform.
Accounting firms face competing demands: clients expect faster turnaround and proactive guidance, while regulators and firm leaders require accuracy, traceability, and robust review controls.
Accrual, a new startup, has developed an “AI-native” platform to address these challenges by automating the most time-consuming aspects of tax preparation and review, while maintaining the auditability firms need.
Accrual announced its launch today, securing $75 million in funding led by General Catalyst, with participation from Pruven Capital, Edward Jones Ventures, and several industry executives and founders.
The company will use the capital for product and AI development, team growth, and onboarding additional accounting firms as it expands across the U.S.
A single system for prep and review
Many tax workflows still depend on a mix of tools, including document portals, spreadsheets, emails, manual checklists, and separate systems for preparation and review.
Accrual positions itself as a unified workflow solution that integrates these components.
Instead of viewing accounting as disconnected tasks, the platform uses AI agents that act as preparers by reading and organizing client inputs, identifying missing information, generating follow-up questions, and producing draft returns for professional review.
Accrual also structures data upon entry, allowing preparation and review to build on each other and reducing redundant work.
“Accounting is a deeply interconnected system, yet most software treats it as a collection of disparate tasks,” said Cosmin Nicolaescu, CEO and Co-Founder of Accrual. “We are building core infrastructure from the ground up to unify these workflows into a single system that amplifies judgment and compounds a firm’s expertise over time.”
Early firm deployments and measurable time savings
Over the past year, Accrual has collaborated with firms such as H&R Block, Armanino, Creative Planning, and other Top 100 accounting firms to test whether its AI capabilities can reduce bottlenecks without compromising professional judgment. They have focused on individual returns.
Accrual reports that firms using its platform save thousands of hours each tax season, with preparation time reduced by more than 85% and review time by up to 60%.
It also found that processing every 50 complex returns through its system can add the equivalent capacity of one accountant without increasing headcount, while also improving consistency and accuracy.
Armanino’s National Tax Practice Leader, John Karls, described the change as both faster and safer:
“Returns coming out of Accrual are already at manager-review quality. What used to take hours of staff preparation now processes in minutes. Just as important, Accrual is catching issues that could have led to amended returns and handling documents our existing tools can’t.”
Meeting Industry Needs
By reliably managing document intake, organization, and initial preparation, firms can reallocate experienced staff to higher-margin planning and client strategy.
This would address challenges such as talent shortages, rising complexity, and clients seeking advisory services with their compliance needs.
General Catalyst sees it as a category-level shift. “Accounting is one of the largest and most critical professional services markets in the world, yet its core workflows have remained largely unchanged for decades,” said Marc Bhargava, Managing Director at General Catalyst, adding that Accrual’s founders have experience building software for regulated environments.
What’s next
Accrual is actively onboarding firms and plans to expand beyond individual returns. The company is also hiring engineers, product leaders, and accounting experts to build what it describes as the next generation of accounting infrastructure.
As Accrual’s early time savings are sustained at scale and the platform maintains required controls, it could become a significant entry point into one of the most process-intensive and high-stakes professional services markets.
