The books drift over a quarter. Customer and vendor records go inconsistent, invoices and bills accumulate, and by the time an audit looms you are clicking through entities one screen at a time to figure out what needs fixing. An AI could read all of it and tell you, but pointing one straight at QuickBooks means handing a model live API access to your accounting system, and even then it sees a few records at a time, never the whole ledger.
Scratch takes the other path. It pulls your QuickBooks Online records down to files on your computer, all 23 entity types, and your AI reads and reasons over every one of them there. It audits the books, drafts the cleanup, and rewrites the records that need fixing, in the copy, never the live company file. Every change comes back as a word-level diff next to the original, and nothing writes back until you approve it, per record. Scratch is the companion app to Whalesync: Whalesync keeps your tools in sync, and Scratch is where you clean the books up first.
What Scratch edits in QuickBooks
- Customers, vendors, and employees
- Invoices, bills, payments, and estimates
- Purchase orders, credit memos, deposits, and journal entries
- Items, accounts, payment methods, and terms
23 entity types in total. Tax codes and tax rates come down read-only, so the tables your filings depend on never move, and company info can be updated but never created or deleted.
How it works
- Scratch pulls your QuickBooks records into local files. Customers, vendors, employees, invoices, bills, payments, estimates, items, accounts, journal entries, 23 entity types in total, all come down to a folder on your computer, one file per record. Nothing in QuickBooks changes at this step.
- Your AI audits the books and fixes the records. Open the folder in the agent you already use. It reads every record, flags what drifted, and rewrites the records you point it at. It edits the files, never the live company file.
- You review every diff and write back. Each changed field shows next to the original, word by word. Approve what is right, and Scratch writes only those records, and only the changed fields on them, back to QuickBooks.
What teams use it for
- Run end-of-quarter reviews across every entity type at once.
- Reconcile customer and vendor records that drifted out of sync, and fix them in one reviewed pass.
- Clean up item names and account descriptions so the ledger reads one way.
- Surface invoices, bills, and estimates that need attention before close, and correct the ones that are wrong.
- Audit accounts and journal entries for inconsistencies.
- Feed accounting context into AI workflows without giving the AI direct API access.
Why pull it into files at all?
Because it gives the AI full context over every record without handing it direct API access to your accounting system. The AI reads all 23 entity types at once, not a sample it paged through over an API, so it can reason across the whole ledger instead of a handful of records. The analysis runs against local files, so it is fast, about 10x faster than the same AI working over an API. And your live company file is never touched until you approve a write-back: the AI reasons over a copy, and only the changes you approve reach the books.
What's safe
Nothing writes back until you approve it, and Scratch writes back only the fields that actually changed on the records you approved. Tax codes and tax rates stay read-only, and QuickBooks applies its own validation to every write, so the books get a vote too. You bring your own AI: Scratch holds no AI credentials and runs no model, so you sign into Claude, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot, Cline, or Windsurf the way you already do. The whole workspace is git-backed, so every pull and every change is tracked, and every published record is reversible per record. Scratch is SOC 2 compliant.
Questions QuickBooks users ask
Can Scratch change my QuickBooks data?
Yes, with your approval, and only then. The AI edits local files, Scratch shows you each change as a diff, and only the records you approve write back, changed fields only. Nothing reaches your live company file without you reading it first.
How is this different from giving an AI direct QuickBooks API access?
Direct API access hands a model live access to your accounting system and still only lets it read a few records at a time. Scratch pulls all 23 entity types into files first, so the AI reasons over the whole ledger at once, faster, and with no path to the live company file. When it is time to write, you approve each record and Scratch sends only the changed fields.
Which AI does it use?
Whichever one you already use. Scratch holds no AI credentials and runs no model. You bring Claude, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot, Cline, or Windsurf, and it reads the local files.
Is my accounting data safe?
Yes. The files live on your computer, the workspace is git-backed, and Scratch is SOC 2 compliant. Nothing writes back without your approval, tax tables stay read-only, and every published record is reversible per record.
See it on your own QuickBooks
Pull your QuickBooks records into files, let your AI audit them, and approve the first fixes yourself.