Muse Ember: What Ledgerline's accountancy practices want built next

Scorecard

The analysis

Findings

1. Do not tell the board the survey backs building AI categorisation next: its unweighted first-place plurality is narrow, polarised and reversed on mean rank.

   High confidenceBase 548

   AI first 37.8% vs more reliable bank feeds 34.9% on base 548, a 2.9pp gap within the 95% margin for the AI share of about 4.06pp; mean rank (1=best) is bank feeds 1.99 vs AI 2.57; AI ranked last by 42.2% vs bank feeds last by 7.5% (base 548).

2. Paid practices, who bring in all revenue, reverse the headline result: they want bank feeds first and AI last.

   High confidenceBase 296

   Paid base 296: bank feeds first 48.3%, mean rank 1.76; AI first 10.1%, last 65.5%, mean rank 3.35. Free base 252: AI first 70.2%, mean rank 1.66, bank feeds first 19.0%. Population accounts are free 85% and paid 15% of 8,200, so the unweighted total is not a revenue-weighted result.

3. More reliable bank feeds is the broad-consensus improvement, not a niche one.

   High confidenceBase 548

   On base 548, bank feeds are ranked 1st or 2nd by 73.8% (34.9%+38.9%) and last by only 7.5%; AI categorisation is ranked 1st or 2nd by 47.3% (37.8%+9.5%) and last by 42.2%.

4. AI demand is concentrated in solo and free practices, not in larger practices.

   Medium confidenceBase 278

   AI ranked first: just me 60.9% (base 258), 2-9 people 20.3% (base 172), 10-19 people 14.2% (base 106), 20 or more 0.0% (base 12). The 2-9 vs 10-19 gap is 6.1pp and is not statistically significant at 95% (base 278 combined).

5. AI add-on revenue at £8 per user per month cannot be estimated from this survey, and stated willingness to pay among paid practices is low.

   High confidenceBase 296

   Paid base 296: yes 16.9%, no 57.4%, not sure 25.7% would pay £8. Applying 16.9% to 1,230 paid practices gives about 208 practices saying yes hypothetically, but the survey has no Ledgerline paid-seat count per practice (practice headcount is not seats), no actual purchase behaviour, and free-plan yes responses (40.5%, base 252) are not current revenue.

6. The client portal is not shown to be the priority for winning larger firms.

   Low confidenceBase 12

   20 or more people ranked the portal first at 100% but on base 12 only; 10-19 people ranked it first at only 6.6% (base 106), below 2-9 people at 14.0% (base 172); paid overall ranked it first at 15.2% (base 296), below bank feeds 48.3% and bulk MTD 26.4%.

7. Open-text pain reports corroborate bank feeds as the largest pain and manual categorisation as second, but only among self-selected responders.

   Medium confidenceBase 186

   Of 186 open-text answers, 74 mention bank feeds breaking, disconnecting, arriving late or missing, 57 mention manual categorisation or hand-coding, 25 mention one-by-one MTD submissions, 15 mention chasing clients for documents (10 of them paid-plan), and 26 mention slow performance (base 186).

8. Bulk MTD submissions are the clear second paid priority and are concentrated in larger paid practices.

   Medium confidenceBase 296

   Paid base 296: bulk MTD first 26.4%, mean rank 2.23. By size: 10-19 people first 30.2% (base 106), 2-9 people 22.7% (base 172), just me 5.8% (base 258). About 325 of 1,230 paid practices would rank it first if paid respondents were representative (26.4% x 1,230).

9. The sample is not representative of the 8,200 accounts in plan or frequency of use, so unweighted totals cannot be projected to the account base.

   High confidenceBase 548

   Sample paid 54.0% vs population paid 15%; sample using Ledgerline 5 or more days 41.2% vs population 18%, and less than weekly 12.0% vs population 35% (base 548 completes). Response was 548 of 8,200 accounts, 6.68%; 69% of completes came via the in-app banner, whose users were more frequent users than email respondents.

10. Slow app performance is an omitted potential priority that none of the four options covers.

    Low confidenceBase 186

    26 of 186 open-text answers mention slow page loads, search, reports or general lag, especially at peak times. Because frequent users are overrepresented in the sample, prevalence cannot be projected, but the theme needs telemetry before the roadmap is locked.

Open-text themes it coded

Bank feeds breaking, disconnecting, arriving late or missing 74Manual categorisation or hand-coding of bank transactions 57Chasing clients for documents, records or paperwork 15MTD submissions one client at a time, no bulk filing 25Slow app performance, page loading, search or reports 26Nothing slows us down or satisfied 25

The survey it planned

5 screening questions and 8 questions, as the model wrote them.

1. S1

   Where is your practice based?

   One answer
   • United Kingdom
   • Outside the United Kingdom
   • Don't know

   Continues if United Kingdom

2. S2

   Which best describes your practice?

   One answer
   • Accountancy practice
   • Bookkeeping practice
   • Other

   Continues if Accountancy practice; Bookkeeping practice

3. S3

   Does your practice use Ledgerline?

   One answer
   • Yes
   • No
   • Don't know

   Continues if Yes

4. S4

   Do you make or influence decisions about the software your practice uses?

   One answer
   • Yes - I make the decision
   • Yes - I influence the decision
   • No

   Continues if Yes - I make the decision; Yes - I influence the decision

5. S5

   Has anyone else from your practice already completed this survey?

   One answer
   • No
   • Yes
   • Don't know

   Continues if No

6. Q1

   If only one of the following improvements can be built in the next six months, please rank them from 1 = most important to your practice to 4 = least important. Please rank all four.

   Ranking
   • More reliable bank feeds
   • AI categorisation of bank transactions
   • Client portal for requesting documents
   • Bulk Making Tax Digital (MTD) submissions
7. Q2

   Which of the following slow down your work using Ledgerline most? Select up to three.

   Any that apply
   • Bank feed connections breaking or needing to be reconnected
   • Manually categorising bank transactions
   • Chasing clients for documents
   • Preparing or submitting Making Tax Digital returns
   • Tracking deadlines
   • Finding or updating client records
   • Other (please specify)
8. Q3

   Please describe the other issue that slows you down most.

   Open text

   Routing Shown only if Q2 is: Other (please specify)

9. Q4

   In the past three months, how often has a bank feed in Ledgerline disconnected or needed to be reconnected?

   One answer
   • Never
   • Once
   • 2 to 3 times
   • 4 or more times
   • Don't know
10. Q5

    How many staff work in your practice, including you?

    One answer
    • 1 (sole practitioner)
    • 2 to 9
    • 10 or more
11. Q6

    In a typical week, how often does your practice use Ledgerline?

    One answer
    • Every day
    • Several days a week
    • About once a week
    • Less than once a week
12. Q7

    If AI categorisation of bank transactions were offered as an optional add-on that your practice would pay extra for, how likely is your practice to pay for it?

    Scale

    Scale 1-5: Very unlikely to Very likely

13. Q8

    To help us check that responses have been read carefully, please select Strongly agree.

    Scale

    Scale 1-5: Strongly disagree to Strongly agree