AccountsDraft, a UK accounting software provider, has published a practitioner guide for UK firms evaluating AI tools - addressing a selection problem that's more constrained than it looks from the outside.
The core tension is that accounting practices operate under compliance requirements that general-purpose AI tools weren't designed for. ChatGPT and Claude work well for a wide range of tasks: drafting client communications, researching tax rules, explaining complex regulations in plain language. The problems start when practices want to use AI for work that involves uploading actual client financial data.
Most consumer-tier AI tools use submitted content to train their underlying models. For accountants bound by client confidentiality obligations and UK GDPR requirements around data processing and storage, that's a real compliance exposure - not a hypothetical one. Enterprise tiers from major AI providers include stricter data handling agreements, but they cost significantly more and require proper contract review before deployment.
The guide separates use cases by risk profile: research and communication tasks, where most AI tools work fine, versus document-intensive work like extracting figures from financial statements, reviewing contracts, or processing receipts - where data handling policies need to be checked before anything gets submitted.
What to Actually Ask Before Deploying
Before adopting any AI tool for client-facing work, UK practices need answers to three questions: Does the provider's data processing agreement comply with UK GDPR? Does the tool train on submitted data in its default configuration? And does the firm's professional indemnity insurance cover AI-assisted decisions?
Most AI tool guides skip the compliance layer entirely because most industries don't need it at this level of detail. Accounting is one of the fields where it isn't optional. A framework built around those constraints is more useful than a ranked features list, and it's what's been missing from most coverage of AI in professional services.