How Hatched Digital cut bookkeeping from 4 hours to 15 minutes
A fast-growing NZ tech company needed compliant books without the traditional accountant overhead. Ledger's AI made it happen.
93%
AI coding accuracy
15 min
Monthly bookkeeping
$1,650/yr
Saved vs accountant
The company
Hatched Digital is a New Zealand-based tech company building SaaS products for businesses. They're GST-registered, run a small team, and use tools like Stripe, AWS, and Google Workspace daily. Typical startup: fast-moving, lean, and allergic to admin.
The problem
Before Ledger, Hatched Digital was spending 4+ hours per month on bookkeeping. They were using a basic spreadsheet, manually categorising every bank transaction, and dreading GST return day. The options were:
- Hire an accountant ($2,000+/year) — overkill for a startup with simple finances
- Use Xero ($65/mo) — complex, expensive, and still requires manual coding
- Use Hnry (1% of income) — loses control of money routing, gets expensive fast
- Build something better
They chose option 4. Ledger was born.
The solution
Hatched Digital now uses Ledger as their sole accounting system. Here's their workflow:
Monthly CSV upload (2 minutes)
Download CSV from Emerge. Upload to Ledger. AI starts coding immediately.
Review AI suggestions (10 minutes)
AI codes ~93% correctly. Bulk-approve high-confidence. Manually fix the rest.
GST filing (3 minutes)
Check the GST pre-flight. Export. Enter into myIR. Done.
The results
Time saved: From 4 hours/month to 15 minutes. That's 45 hours/year back.
Money saved: $29/mo vs $167/mo (accountant estimate). $1,650/year saved.
Compliance: GST filed on time every period. No IRD penalties. No stress.
Insight: The AI advisor gives real-time advice that used to require an accountant meeting.
“We built Ledger because we needed it. Now we can't imagine going back to manual bookkeeping. The AI gets smarter every month. GST day used to be stressful — now it's a 3-minute task.”