The best AI for Exact Online in 2026: five options compared

A note on transparency: AgentsLab provides AI coworkers for Exact Online. Below we also describe the options for which you do not need us, because for a good share of questions that is the honest answer.

The five options in one table

1. Exact's own AI features

Exact is adding AI to Exact Online itself, mainly around bookkeeping: recognising purchase invoices and suggesting postings. The big advantage is that it is simply there, with no connection or extra vendor. The limitation is scope: the features work within the screens and processes Exact designed, not across your mailbox, your customer agreements and your own exceptions.

Start here. Switch on what is available and see what it delivers. What remains after that is the work you need to look further for.

2. ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini or Claude

A chat assistant is strong at anything to do with understanding. Paste an export of your open items or general ledger into a chat window and you get a summary, an analysis of outliers or a draft reminder. Which model you choose matters less than you might think; they are all good enough to read an order confirmation.

What a chat assistant does not do is post in Exact Online. For that it has to talk to your books through the API, with its own permissions, and know when to stop rather than guess. That is not something a chat window gives you.

3. Zapier or Make

Both Zapier and Make have an Exact Online connection. Zapier offers triggers such as new or updated accounts. On Make, the Exact Online app is built by a partner and lets you create, update and look up accounts, contacts, invoices and more. Both combine that with their own AI steps.

That is fine for light automation: a signal on a new customer, a task for a large invoice, passing data on to your CRM. For invoices, payments, VAT and final postings we advise against it without extra safeguards: you want validation up front, protection against duplicate postings, logging, limited retries and an error queue. In no-code tools you largely have to build those yourself.

4. Your own connection to the Exact Online API

With your own app registration and OAuth, the Exact Online REST API lets you do almost anything: read and write accounts, items, quotations, sales orders, invoices and postings. You can put any model on top, Claude or GPT included, for example through a custom MCP server (Model Context Protocol) that exposes the API to the model.

The work lies in everything around it: refreshing tokens, the limits on API calls, business rules, exception handling, logging and maintenance whenever Exact or your own process changes. If you have a development team willing to carry that, this is a serious option.

5. An AI coworker in Exact Online

An AgentsLab AI coworker works through the Exact Online API inside your own administration, but you do not have to build or maintain it yourself. It reads orders, purchase invoices and tickets from your mailbox, matches accounts and items, checks prices and agreements and creates the sales order or posting. Whatever it is unsure about goes to a colleague with an explanation.

A good fit when dozens to hundreds of documents arrive every day that someone currently retypes. An AI coworker is typically live within eight weeks, and it works in Exact Globe as well.

Which option should you choose?

• Want to understand your figures better? A chat assistant with exports.
• Want to speed up standard bookkeeping? Exact's own AI features.
• Want signals and tasks between systems? Zapier or Make.
• Have your own development team and a specific idea? A custom API connection.
• Want to hand over a volume process such as orders or purchase invoices? An AI coworker.

Frequently asked questions

Getting started

Not sure which option fits your administration? In a Quick Scan we look at your real document flow in Exact Online and tell you honestly which route delivers the most. Plan your go-live whenever it suits you.