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 cleanup proposals, and writes summary reports as files you read alongside the originals. QuickBooks is read-only today, so nothing the AI does touches your live company file. It proposes, you review. Publish-back is on the roadmap. Scratch is the companion app to Whalesync: Whalesync keeps your tools in sync, and Scratch is where you audit and plan the cleanup first.
What Scratch pulls from QuickBooks
- Customers, vendors, employees
- Invoices, bills, payments, estimates
- Items, accounts, journal entries
- 23 entity types in total
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. This is read-only. Nothing touches your live company file.
- Your AI reviews and proposes cleanup over the files. Open the folder in the agent you already use. It reads every record, audits the books, and writes cleanup proposals, audits, and summary reports.
- You read the AI's output as files alongside the originals. Each proposal sits next to the record it came from, so you can read what the AI found and decide what to do with it. Publish-back to QuickBooks is on the roadmap. Today this is the read side of the loop.
What teams use it for
- Run end-of-quarter reviews across every entity type at once.
- Draft cleanup proposals before an audit, so you walk in with the messy records already flagged.
- Reconcile customer and vendor records that drifted out of sync.
- Surface invoices, bills, and estimates that need attention before close.
- 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. The AI reasons over a copy. Your books stay exactly as they were.
What's safe
Nothing writes back. QuickBooks is read-only today, so the AI never touches your live accounting system. 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 proposal is tracked. Publish-back to QuickBooks is coming. Scratch is SOC 2 compliant.
Questions QuickBooks users ask
Can Scratch change my QuickBooks data?
No. QuickBooks is read-only today. Scratch pulls your records down to local files, and your AI reads and proposes cleanup over those files. Nothing writes back to your live company file. Publish-back is on the roadmap, but today this is the read side of the loop.
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 without ever touching the live company file.
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. Because nothing writes back today, the AI can never alter your live QuickBooks company file.
See it on your own QuickBooks
Pull your QuickBooks records into files and let your AI audit them, then read the proposals alongside the originals.