"We are building the technology inside the tac advisory, not alongside it" — Interview with Chris Dansard, CTO of Limetax

Chris, you are building your own technology platform for tax advisory. Why?

There is a huge gap between what AI can do today and what actually arrives in daily tax advisory & accounting firm life. Many tax advisory & accounting firms try to close this gap with external software: collecting tools, defining best practices, rolled out in the tax advisory & accounting firm. This brings a sense of relief, but it does not solve the actual problem. In the end, you have a client portal here, task management there, and an AI tool for document processing as well. Each works on its own, but nothing speaks to one another. The employee jumps back and forth between five interfaces and loses exactly the time that the tools were supposed to save. In addition, the AI lacks important context.

External software will therefore not close the gap between the capabilities of AI and what arrives in daily tax advisory & accounting firm life. This requires direct access to data, processes and employees. That is why we are building our own platform in the tax advisory & accounting firm.

How is the architecture structured?

We work with three layers: as a basis, DATEV remains the "System of Record". Completed bookings lie in Kanzlei-Rechnungswesen, tax returns go out via DATEV, client master data lies in DATEV. We do not touch this. Over 90 percent of German tax advisory & accounting firms work with it, the entire regulatory infrastructure is aligned with it. Clients are also largely stably connected to DATEV Unternehmen Online.

Above this lies LimetaxOS. This is our data layer, which connects everything: DATEV data, tax advisory & accounting firm information, client history. LimetaxOS aggregates this data in real time and makes it usable for our applications. Without this layer, every AI application lacks context. A language model that has no access to the client history cannot make good booking suggestions. LimetaxOS solves this problem.

At the very top sits the Limetax App. This is the working level that the tax advisory & accounting firm employee opens every day. Chat and research, tools for specific tasks and AI agents that automate workflows. Everything in one application, no switching between programs. This is our "System of Action".

What changes specifically in bookkeeping?

Document processing is the area where AI makes the biggest measurable difference today. We use Large Language Models to semantically understand documents. This goes beyond OCR recognition; it is actual reading and interpreting. And it goes beyond what DATEV automation services provide today, which are based exclusively on historical pattern matching.

The difference becomes apparent in complex cases: reverse charge procedures, distinguishing an advance payment invoice from a final invoice, correctly categorizing an unusual payment reference on the bank statement, recognizing that a transaction is to be treated differently for tax purposes than it appears at first glance. This is difficult to solve with pure pattern matching. With semantic understanding and the context from LimetaxOS, i.e. the client history, previous bookings, and the industry, it becomes possible.

But fully automated bookings are just the beginning. After that come the questions that cannot be answered deterministically: Is the cost structure plausible? Should a provision be set up? Has the tax treatment of a transaction changed due to a current BMF decree? This requires professional judgment. AI can prepare the work, flag anomalies, point out deviations. But the decision is made by the human.

What can the chat do, and who is it designed for?

The chat is intended for everyone in the tax advisory & accounting firm, from the clerk to the professional practitioner. It is our interface for the technical questions that constantly arise in day-to-day business. What is the current status of the property tax reform? How do I treat a certain transaction for VAT purposes? What has changed with the last BMF decree?

Today, employees google such questions, read through specialist articles, ask a colleague or look them up in LEXinform. This costs five to fifteen minutes per question. Our chat answers these questions instantly, with source citations and in the context of the tax advisory & accounting firm work. It accesses the technical knowledge base via LimetaxOS and knows the tax advisory & accounting firm context.

And the agents?

Agents go one step further. Chat answers questions. Agents complete tasks. One agent can check an assessment note and flag discrepancies. Another can compile a briefing before a client meeting, with current figures, open points, and relevant developments.

The crucial point is: the final decision is always up to the human. Agents automate workflows, not decisions. Clearance is given by the clerk or professional practitioner.

Before Limetax, you worked in regulated Fintech environments. What are you bringing with you from there?

At an asset manager and a bank, you learn how to build software that factors in regulatory requirements right from the start. Tax advisory is similar in this respect: professional secrecy, reserved tasks, privacy policy. Client data does not leave our infrastructure. AI models work on data whose processing is covered by professional regulations. And we can track which data flowed where and when for every process. 

How do you ensure that the employees in the tax advisory & accounting firms adopt this?

Tax advisors and assistant tax consultants have been promised a lot in recent years. Tools that were supposed to make everything better and then only generated additional work. That is why one of our most important principles is: minimally invasive. 

We do not introduce a completely new system and expect everyone to relearn everything immediately. The Limetax App is introduced alongside the existing DATEV workstation, step by step. When someone notices that a research question is answered in seconds instead of ten minutes, or that a briefing is ready in finished form instead of having to be compiled manually, acceptance comes naturally.

We build with the tax advisory & accounting firms, alongside the employees. The best feature ideas come from assistants who know exactly where time is lost in the process.

When you look three years ahead: What changes?

An assistant opens the Limetax App in the morning and sees their clients, prioritized by urgency. The day's documents are pre-processed by agents, booking suggestions are ready. They check, correct where necessary, and approve. Inquiries to clients go out automatically. The advisor has an AI-generated briefing before every meeting. The team leadership sees in real time where bottlenecks arise.

This might not sound spectacular. But the difference to today is enormous. Today, a tax advisory & accounting firm employee spends a significant portion of their time searching, querying, and gathering information. If we reduce this to a minimum, the team can focus on what actually generates value: professional review, tax advisory, and client care.

That is what we are building LimetaxOS and the Limetax App for. A product that is already running in our tax advisory & accounting firms today and is getting better every day.