Visma pushes agentic AI to automate accounting across European SMBs
Software giant Visma is deploying hundreds of AI tools to automate SMB accounting across Europe, a shift that will reshape the continent's finance workforce and how small businesses manage their books.
Visma is deploying over 600 AI initiatives across its portfolio of European accounting firms, moving from basic automation to "agentic" AI that handles entire workflows without human intervention. The push targets the small and medium-sized business sector, where manual bookkeeping has long drained resources and limited growth.
The rollout comes as European capital floods into agentic AI startups, which raised €6bn last year and have already secured €4.6bn in 2026. While competitors like Spain's Embat and Milan's JetHR recently raised €30m and €25m respectively, Visma is leveraging acquisitions to dominate the space. The company prioritizes high user adoption and local market fit over immediate profitability when buying startups to integrate into its group.
For small businesses, this technology promises a fundamental upgrade in financial management. Dinero, a Visma portfolio company, has developed a "virtual CFO" that links to bank accounts to handle routine bookkeeping, predict late payments, and flag dangerous supply chain concentrations. “The idea is to give small companies their own virtual CFO to make it easier for them to compete with larger companies,” says Dinero managing director Martin Thorborg.
Deploying AI in regulated finance, however, requires strict boundaries. Dinero restricts generative AI to advisory features, relying on machine learning that cannot hallucinate for core bookkeeping tasks. “We have around 20k tests we go through every time we make an update,” Thorborg says. “Other companies could be more aggressive, but it comes at a price. If the advice you’re getting is wrong because of AI, then it's hard to win people back.”
The practical impact on the labor market is significant. Chaintrust, another Visma-owned firm, uses AI to scan and post invoices, eliminating the repetitive data entry that once kept junior staff at their desks in the evenings. Mikael Gandon, Chaintrust's managing director, notes this allows accounting firms to grow their client portfolios without increasing headcount. “The accountant's value shifts from producing the books to interpreting them,” Gandon says.
Visma’s chief technology officer, T. Alexander Lystad, predicts AI will soon fade from corporate discourse as it becomes a baseline software expectation. As algorithms take over the mechanics of financial compliance, the European accounting profession looks poised to pivot permanently from data entry to strategic advisory. “What remains human is judgment,” Gandon says.
