Today: a fiduciary is more than software and accountants
Look at an ordinary fiduciary from the inside. It buys its software from one firm. Its computers, network, server, backups, printers and scanners are installed and repaired by another — an IT company. Ten years of paper archive sit in the basement. And the accountants spend most of the day on routine: posting a bank statement, filing a document, retyping figures from one program into another.
A fiduciary has no IT person of its own, and cannot have one: it is not its business. So IT is outsourced, and that is expensive (a subscription plus a bill for every call-out), a hassle (every small thing becomes a ticket: call, explain, wait) and unreliable (a computer stops and the accountant sits idle; an update goes in and something no longer opens). Above all, the IT company answers for the hardware, not for the result. To them the bookkeeping is somebody else's program they never look into.
None of this appears on the price list of any accounting software. But the fiduciary pays for all of it.
Tomorrow: technically, a fiduciary has only one thing — the AWC
I see a fiduciary that needs none of this:
- no computers or servers of its own,
- no separate software — accounting, office or archive,
- no IT company,
- no folders of paper documents,
- no basement to store them in.
It has an AWC (ABM Working Computer) — a working computer that we put on its accountant's desk and keep in order. It is already connected to everything the work needs:
- ABM (Arvut Business Management) — our bookkeeping platform: books, bank, documents, receivables and payables, VAT, annual accounts;
- AI agents — they do the routine and ask when they are not sure;
- a complete office — e-mail, calendar, contacts, documents, spreadsheets, presentations — on the fiduciary's own domain;
- ABM Courier — documents arrive by themselves from the client's computer;
- one channel — to us and to the machine: notifications, questions, support.
Everything else at the fiduciary is people: clients, the tax office, social security, insurers, auditors. A bookkeeping specialist — accountant, CFO, the person in charge of receivables and payables — an AWC and a phone. And a room by the hour for meeting in person. Or a coffee at the client's office.
What AI really changes
AI does not replace the accountant. It changes the division of labour.
The production of the books — receiving documents, posting entries, reconciling with the bank, VAT — is done by the machine. The person checks, corrects and signs. The machine tells them itself: this client has uploaded documents; these are missing; these are unreadable; these are processed and booked — please review. And every correction becomes a rule, so the machine does not repeat the mistake.
This is not a promise. What runs today on real mandates, what we are building and what stays with a person — item by item: arvut.ch/automation.
Why a computer, and not another website
Everyone offers the accountant «the cloud» — one more website in the browser. But the real work of AI does not happen in the browser or in a chat. It happens on the computer: that is where the tools, skills and rules live with which the AI works on the books, the files, the e-mail and the bank. And we update those skills almost every day.
So the accountant does not need another program, but a workplace that someone keeps in order. The AWC belongs to us and stands with you; the updates are ours; the mandates are yours.
I have always liked models in which people get the result without owning the machine: Nespresso, the shared washing machines in the basements of Swiss apartment buildings, copiers with a service contract, car sharing. The AWC is a bookkeeping machine on subscription. In detail: arvut.ch/awc.
The office, if you want one — not because you need one
The same AWC notebook: a villa above Lugano, a café by the sea, an old town, the terrace of a mountain chalet (the pictures on the AWC page). What do they say? What tied the accountant to the office were the folders and the archive. Now it is all in ABM.
The accountant works wherever suits them, and the books reconcile with the bank every morning. The office becomes a choice, not a necessity.
How to look after a thousand computers
You have seen drone shows: thousands of lights forming figures in the sky. It is not a thousand pilots flying them, it is one program.
That is how we look after the workplaces: not each one by hand, but with one system — updates, skills, settings, health checks on every machine at once. And experience flows both ways: what the AI learns on one AWC — rules, skills, typical corrections, never client data — every other AWC receives. That is why connecting a new AWC is configuration for us, not development.
What stays with the person
The most valuable part:
- clients — finding them, understanding them, keeping them;
- advice and decisions;
- the tax office, social security, insurers, auditors;
- doubtful cases — the system does not post what it is unsure of, it comes back with a question;
- control and signature — under your own name.
Accountants do not lose their work. They find the use for their knowledge that they studied for.
Our role
SAP engineers and IT companies built an environment in which the accountant keeps the clients' books by themselves. We are building an environment in which the fiduciary works with AI — on its own desk, under its own brand, with its own clients.
That is why we are not a software company. We are a service company: the provider of the fiduciary's entire infrastructure. Not only bookkeeping, but also CFO services, management services, digital document handling. The fiduciary does what only it can do. The rest is our job.
Where we are now
The AWC is in pilot: the computer, ABM, AI agents, a complete office on the fiduciary's domain, notifications and a support channel. On the pilot we are assembling the kit we then install at every following fiduciary.
How to start
One day and one mandate. We bring an AWC, put it next to your accountant and keep one of your mandates in parallel with your books — nothing changes for the client. If you like it, the computer stays.