Getting Started With Prosaic

Prosaic is an AI-powered accounting platform built specifically for accountants and bookkeepers. It combines the structure of a traditional double-entry general ledger with modern automation, giving you speed, accuracy, and a far more efficient workflow.

This guide will take you through the essentials of getting started — adding clients, setting up entities, importing bank data, bulk-coding transactions, and preparing GST returns.

What Prosaic Does

Prosaic is a next-generation accounting system centred on automation with control. It streamlines your compliance workflow while keeping you firmly in charge of the final output.

With Prosaic, you can:

• Invite and onboard clients through your branded sign-up portal, allowing them to securely connect their bank accounts and share historical transactions with you.
• Build and reuse flexible chart templates, including balance sheet accounts and mapped codes for external ledgers or tax/reporting systems.
• Work across multiple entities efficiently using AI-powered bulk reconciliation, allowing you to code common transactions across clients in just a few clicks.
• Automatically generate and schedule GST returns, with clear visibility of reconciled and unreconciled items for quick client follow-up.

By combining automation with professional judgement, Prosaic helps you deliver faster, more consistent work across all your clients — without sacrificing accuracy or control.

1. Dashboard & Demo Clients

When you first sign in (via Microsoft, Google, or email code), you’ll land on the Dashboard — the central hub for your practice.

Key features

• Getting Started checklist to guide your setup
• Help icon to contact the Prosaic team anytime
• Practice logo uploader (shows on client emails and reports)
• Team management, where you can invite staff with Adviser or Admin roles

Demo clients

Every new workspace includes demo clients so you can explore the product without real data. Demo clients are useful for learning how:

• client profiles appear once set up
• entities behave with or without bank connections
• bank balances and ledger balances are displayed
• coding and GST reports look once transactions are reconciled

Entities overview

Open any demo client → switch to Entities to see:

• entity details (name, type, GST status)
• chart template in use
• bank accounts (connected or manual)
• statement balance vs ledger balance
• how conversion dates hide earlier transactions

This is the best place to familiarise yourself with Prosaic’s workflow before bringing in real clients.

2. Client Onboarding & Bank Connections

Prosaic supports two ways of adding real clients: client-initiated onboarding and manual creation.

A. Client-initiated onboarding (recommended)

Your practice has a branded client sign-up portal with your logo.

You can:

• copy the link into an email
• use the prewritten Outlook invite template
• include it in bulk onboarding campaigns (Mailchimp, Content Snare, etc.)

Client onboarding flow

1. Client receives your branded invite

2. Enters their email and verifies it

   Provides basic details (optional to skip)

   Connects bank accounts using Akahu

   • Supports most major NZ banks
   • Allows personal, rental and business accounts
   • Supports historical data import
3. Confirms connected accounts and shares them with you

Once completed, the client’s bank accounts appear in the Prosaic dashboard ready to assign to an entity.

Learn more about how to add or invite clients in this article and the information we collect from clients during onboarding in this article

B. Manual client creation + manual bank statement import

If you want to work immediately with real data:

1. Add a client via Clients → Add Client
2. Skip sending the invite
3. Create an entity for that client
4. Under Bank Accounts, choose Import Bank Transactions

You can then upload CSV files. Prosaic will:

• auto-map fields for major NZ banks
• let you adjust mappings as needed
• preview transactions before import
• let you assign the imported account as an asset of the entity

This approach is ideal for catch-up work or preparing historic GST periods.

3. Chart Templates & Conversion Balances

Prosaic provides a flexible, template-based chart of accounts system designed for consistency across clients.

Chart templates

Go to Chart Templates to:

• review the default NZ business template
• show/hide system-defined accounts
• add subcodes (e.g. Interest – Loans / Interest – Overdraft)
• override descriptions or GST rates
• set mapped codes for external ledgers (Xero, iFirm, APS)
• duplicate or create templates from scratch
• use predefined templates (Company, Sole Trader, Partnership)

Client-level customisation

Within an entity you can:

• rename accounts
• add client-specific subcodes
• override descriptions

These changes apply to that entity only, while preserving template consistency across the rest of your practice.

Conversion balances (manual journals)

Before coding current-year transactions, bring in opening balances:

1. Go to Journals → New Journal
2. Title it “Conversion Balance FYXX”
3. Set the date (usually 31 March)
4. Select the entity
5. Click Import Lines
6. Upload a CSV/Excel trial balance from your previous system

If your chart template has mapped codes:

• Prosaic automatically matches the TB lines
• All accounts populate correctly
• You can assign the bank account to set the opening statement balance

Post the journal and the entity is ready for coding.

4. Bulk Bank Reconciliation & Manual Journals

Prosaic’s bank reconciliation is designed to be fast, accurate, and highly scalable — whether you’re coding one client or fifty.

Single-client reconciliation

In Transactions, you’ll see:

• statement balance vs ledger balance
• AI-powered suggested coding (with confidence scores)
• merchant-level category predictions
• hotkeys for rapid navigation

You can:

• code individual transactions
• attach receipts
• edit descriptions
• split transactions (e.g. 50/50 entertainment deductible vs non-deductible)
• undo any reconciled transactions immediately

Bulk coding

Sort unreconciled transactions by:

• description
• amount
• AI category
• GST rate

Then you can:

• select multiple items
• hit Command + Enter to bulk accept
• split multiple transactions at once
• code multiple clients at once if they share the same chart template

Multi-client coding example

If several clients are plumbers and all buy from Bunnings:

• search “Bunnings”
• see all the Bunnings transactions across multiple clients
• bulk code in a single action
• GST rates will be correct per-client (GST vs non-GST entities)

This makes it possible to clear hundreds of transactions in minutes.

Manual journals

Use Journals for:

• conversion balances
• adjustments
• end-of-year journals
• non-bank transactions
• inter-entity movements

Journals automatically update the ledger and flow through to all reports.

5. GST, Reporting & Trial Balance Export

GST Returns

Access GST via:

• Dashboard shortcuts, or
• Reports → GST Returns

Each GST return shows:

• summary of Boxes 5, 11, 13, etc.
• reconciled transactions
• unreconciled transactions
• quick links to return to coding

Export options

You can export:

• summary only
• full report
• uncoded transactions (for client clarification)

Finalising a GST period:

• locks that period
• automatically tracks late claims into the next return

Profit & Loss

Under Reports → Profit & Loss, you can view:

• current year
• prior periods
• GL-integrated totals

This is perfect for basic year-to-date reporting.

Trial Balance & Movement Report

The Trial Balance Movement report shows:

• opening balance
• debits
• credits
• closing balance

Export to external ledgers

Export the TB to:

• Xero (CSV journal)
• CCH iFirm
• Other NZ formats
• Another Prosaic ledger (for home-office or personal splitting workflows)

Mapped codes ensure journals import cleanly into Xero or iFirm with minimal adjustment.

Need Help?

Our team is always available through the in-app help icon 💬 or help@prosaic.works

Reach out anytime if you have questions or want help onboarding multiple clients.