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Docyt Adds ‘AI Bookkeeper’ to Small Business Financial Management Platform

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Docyt Adds ‘AI Bookkeeper’ to Small Business Financial Management Platform

Docyt has added an “AI bookkeeper” called GARY to its digital back-office solutions for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

GARY is built on the Docyt AI software-as-a-service (SaaS) financial management platform that integrates expense management, revenue accounting, industry vertical reporting and financial reporting of key performance indicators (KPIs), the company said in a Tuesday (July 16) press release.

“Through GARY, businesses can now get real-time financials through continuous reconciliation — KPI tracking is also performed daily in real time,” Sid Saxena, co-founder and CEO of Docyt, said in the release.

The AI bookkeeper is now available as a closed beta to Docyt customers, according to the release. A public beta will be launched after updates are made to it through the second quarter.

GARY provides real-time assistance with account management, key insights into financials, and assistance in finding documents and understanding procedures, using natural language and AI-driven assistance, according to the release.

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The AI bookkeeper also integrates with QuickBooks so that SMBs can use AI without abandoning their existing workflow, the release said.

“Equipping accountants with modern tools like Docyt’s new AI bookkeeper will breathe new life into the accounting profession by helping them perform their jobs more efficiently and deliver greater strategic value to their clients,” the company said in the release.

Docyt formed as a FinTech solution designed to not only provide mechanisms to move money but also to lay atop existing portals to aggregate data from those movements of funds, Saxena told PYMNTS in an interview posted in 2021.

“What we’re seeing is the volume of digital transactions has grown exponentially, but the paper and documentation supporting it has equally grown in similar terms,” Saxena said at the time. “Businesses are still receiving paper invoices, collecting paper receipts, and ultimately for compliance and audit purposes, these documents have to be managed.”

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz said in June that as large language models (LLMs) improve, accounting firms are eager to leverage AI for enhanced efficiency and to manage increasing workloads.

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By automating repetitive tasks like bookkeeping and tax preparation, generative AI can free up accountants for more valuable activities.


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Amid financial crisis, Holyoke’s auditor gives her notice, will exit job on Nov. 28

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Amid financial crisis, Holyoke’s auditor gives her notice, will exit job on Nov. 28

HOLYOKE — Amid a financial crisis in Holyoke, city Auditor Tanya Wdowiak gave her two weeks’ notice to the mayor and City Council president on Thursday.

Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia said Thursday that he received Wdowiak’s email resignation but hasn’t had a chance to talk with her.

Garcia said he came into the office to an email that requested he accept her formal resignation, effective Nov. 28.

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From food to financing, Alaska Native organizations feel the shutdown’s pinch

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From food to financing, Alaska Native organizations feel the shutdown’s pinch

WASHINGTON — The government shutdown is creating a lot of uncertainty and disruption for Alaska Native communities, and for tribal organizations that administer federal programs.

These include SNAP, for food assistance, and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which subsidizes energy bills.

Ben Mallott, president of the Alaska Federation of Natives, said the prospect that both of those programs would run out of money, just as winter begins, puts some Alaskans in a life-threatening bind.

“Without LIHEAP, without SNAP, our communities, our tribal citizens will have to decide between fuel and food,” he testified to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee Wednesday.

During the pandemic, the Federal Subsistence Board allowed emergency hunting to improve food security. Now, with the government shutdown, Mallott said the Subsistence Board can’t even meet to consider it.

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Since the second Trump administration began, advocates for Native American and Alaska Native people have stressed that programs that help them aren’t D.E.I. initiatives but the result of promises, treaties and laws. Now, between the administration’s cuts to government services and the shutdown, they say the government is dodging its responsibilities.

Hearing witnesses said tribal Head Start programs will run low on money if the shutdown extends into November, and that many agency experts tribes normally turn to have lost their jobs.

Pete Upton testified about the Trump administration’s plan to abolish a fund at the Treasury Department called the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. Upton runs the Native CDFI Network, whose Alaska members include the Cook Inlet Lending Center. He said tribal communities are often in banking deserts.

“Native CDFIs are typically the only financial institutions serving these communities, providing access to capital, credit and financial education where no alternative exists,” he said.

Early in the shutdown, the Treasury Department fired the entire staff of the CDFI Fund. With no one at the federal office to certify the CDFIs, Upton said it’s hard for the community finance organizations to attract private-sector and philanthropic investment.

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Certification is “a stamp for investors to say that ‘you are investable,’” Upton said. With it, “we bring in private capital at a rate of eight to one.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, chair of the Indian Affairs Committee, said tribes face enormous uncertainty as the stalemate in Congress nears the one-month mark.

“We can’t figure out the path forward right now on our spending bills, although I am a little bit more optimistic on that today,” she said.

She didn’t elaborate but said earlier this week that senators are engaged in productive talks.

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Stamford rep blasts Board of Finance for delaying creation of new police officer positions

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Stamford rep blasts Board of Finance for delaying creation of new police officer positions

Police cruisers parked in the Stamford Police Department parking lot photographed on August 7, 2024.

Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media

STAMFORD — A member of the Stamford Board of Representatives said he was “disgusted” by the city’s Board of Finance’s decision to delay a potential increase in budgeted officers for the city’s police department. 

“I’m angry,” said Sean Boeger, D-15, during the Board of Representatives’ Fiscal Committee meeting Monday. 

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Boeger is also a sergeant in the Stamford Police Department. The increase, which was on the committee’s agenda, would have created 13 more officer positions in the department. A grant would help pay for six of the 13 new positions.

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It would’ve brought the total number of officers in the patrol division from 217 to 230, resulting in a 300-person force when all other ranks are considered. In the early 2000s, the department had 314 budgeted sworn officers, according to Chief of Police Timothy Shaw.

Lou DeRubeis, Stamford’s director of public safety, health and welfare, said the proposed increase was the first “in quite a number of years.” 

The Board of Finance, however, during its Oct. 9 meeting, voted to hold the increase and asked the police department to provide more information, such as where the officers would be used and the total cost of hiring them outside of wages, such as health insurance and overtime. 

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Boeger said during Monday’s fiscal committee meeting that he believed there were four officers assigned to traffic enforcement because “patrol demand is so high.” He said the department should be able to double the number of officers for traffic enforcement, which he said was “the top gripe of our citizenry.”

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He also said the department was “lucky if we could cover the high schools when it’s busy.” 

“If we want to be responsible and we want to have the nice things that a nice city like Stamford should have…we have to do something about this,” Boeger said. 

Boeger said the department had opened up testing for new positions and that the department can’t send people to police academies, whether the city’s own or others, until the new positions are approved.

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“We’re gambling with open positions based on academy availability,” Boeger said. 

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Amiel Goldberg, D-13, said he wanted members of the committee to reach out to the Board of Finance to “let them know how deeply disappointed and frustrated our committee is.”

There had been an attempt to add the 13 police officer positions during the most recent budget process, but the Board of Finance cut the funding for those jobs. 

At that time, members of the board said to come back with the request once the department filled out the rest of their 287 budgeted officer positions. The department will reach that goal by December, Bridget Fox, chief of staff of the mayor’s office, said during the Oct. 9 meeting. 

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Shaw, in an interview before the fiscal committee meeting, said getting more people for the department would mean less people have to work overtime and because of that, less people would burn out and leave the force. Half the budgeted overtime, he said, is for the patrol division. 

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During the Oct. 9 meeting, the chief said the 13-person increase could result in a $500,000 reduction in overtime costs. 

Laura Burwick, a member of the Board of Finance, said during the Oct. 9 meeting the request of $743,941 for the new positions was “a huge additional expense to the budget” and that she wanted to “see a little bit of the analysis that went into this.”

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Geoff Alswanger, a member of the finance board, said during that meeting that there have been “many sessions” where the board had “angst at the management” of the city’s pension funds and that the board “can’t ignore that as part of this equation.” 

Boeger, however, during Monday’s meeting, said the department “has no power or control over that.” 

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