Dext has launched AI Connector, an MCP connector that lets accounting practices query their Dext data through Claude, ChatGPT, and Copilot.
Dext, a provider of AI-powered bookkeeping automation and part of IRIS Software Group since 2024, has introduced AI Connector, a Model Context Protocol (MCP) connector that gives accounting and bookkeeping practices access to their practice data through Claude, ChatGPT, and Copilot. The feature is available at no additional cost to Dext Advanced partners in the UK, Canada, the US, Australia, and New Zealand.
Grounding answers in practice data
According to Dext’s research in the UK, Canada, France, and Australia, general-purpose chatbots lack a business’s actual financial context, leaving practices to correct the results. AI Connector instead grounds answers in a practice’s own Dext data. Partners can ask questions in plain language from the AI tool they already use, such as which clients have the lowest health scores, which clients took the most hours in the previous month, what a client’s live cash position looks like before a call, or which clients lack a dividends account ahead of year end. The connector draws on models that Dext has trained on more than 2 billion receipts and invoices over 16 years.
Sabby Gill, CEO of Dext, stated that general-purpose AI is already part of how many practices work, but does not know a practice’s real figures. According to Gill, AI Connector puts the Dext data users already rely on into the AI tools they already use, so that answers are based on their own practice data rather than guesswork. He described the launch as an early step that Dext plans to build on.
Read-only and permission-aware access
Partners connect once by authenticating through their Dext account. AI Connector is listed in the Claude directory and ChatGPT’s plugins and also works with Copilot. The connector is read-only and permission-aware, surfacing only data a user can already access in Dext, without elevated access or the ability to make changes. Only the data needed to answer a specific question is retrieved, and the response is processed by the AI provider the partner has connected, whether OpenAI, Anthropic, or Microsoft, so that provider’s data policies also apply. Dext recommends that partners review their provider’s enterprise data policies, many of which offer options to exclude data from model training.
Stephen Edginton, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Dext, stated that AI Connector is designed to retrieve information rather than make decisions, leaving every judgement with the practice. Dext serves more than 12,000 accounting and bookkeeping firms and 700,000 businesses, processing more than 350 million documents a year. Because answers are processed by external AI providers, the launch also places part of the responsibility for data handling with the practice’s choice of provider and its settings.
