Private AI for Ontario accounting firms
AI for your client records. Nothing leaves your office.
FirmDocs searches, summarizes, and answers questions about your client files on a machine that sits inside your firm — not in the cloud, not on someone else's servers. Built for Ontario accounting firms of two to twenty CPAs.
Runs entirely in your office No cloud accounts No third party ever sees a file
The problem
Client financials don't
belong in ChatGPT.
Every public AI tool works the same way: whatever you type or upload is sent to servers owned by someone else, usually outside Canada, where it may be stored, logged, or used to train future models. For most businesses that's a footnote. For an accounting firm, it's handing your clients' income, payroll, and shareholder affairs to a third party you've never met and can't audit — so the sensible firms stay away, and busy season stays just as long as it's always been.
How it works
Three steps. We handle the technical part.
1
We set up a dedicated machine in your office
About the size of a hardcover book, and quiet enough to sit on a shelf. It connects to your office network and nothing else — no cloud accounts, no outside services. One visit, usually under two hours.
2
Your team adds client documents
Drag files in the way you'd move them into any folder — returns, financial statements, ledgers, CRA correspondence. FirmDocs reads and organizes them right there on the machine. Word, Excel, PDF, and scanned paper all work.
3
Ask questions, get answers with page references
Type a question in plain English — “Which shareholder loans were outstanding at year-end?” — and the answer cites the exact document and page it came from. Summaries and schedules work the same way: ask, read, verify.
The interface
Sign in. Add files. Ask.
A look at the interface your team works in — sign in, add files, ask, and every answer cites its source.
Who's behind this
A career spent keeping regulated data where it belongs.
I'm Ahsan Zia — a software engineer in Toronto with ten years of production systems behind me: five years building software inside Baycrest Hospital, and five as developer at a Toronto agency.
Different industries, same discipline: sensitive records must be useful to the people entitled to see them, and unreachable by everyone else. That's the standard your firm's documents get.
Questions partners ask
Fair questions, straight answers.
Where does our data live?
On one machine, in your office — the same building as your filing cabinets. Documents are never uploaded anywhere; FirmDocs keeps working even if you unplug the internet. If you ever stop using it, the unit is wiped in front of you, and your original files remain exactly where they always were.
Can it read spreadsheets and scanned slips?
Yes. Excel workbooks, CSV exports from QuickBooks or Sage, Word, PDF, email files, and scanned paper all work — scans are read on the machine itself, so old paper files become searchable too. Ask about a figure and the answer points to the exact page or cell range it came from.
What hardware do we need?
Nothing of your own to buy or run. FirmDocs runs on a dedicated machine set up for your firm — it needs a power outlet and a network connection, nothing more. Your staff use it through a web browser on any office computer; there's nothing to install on their machines beyond a bookmark, and no server room or IT staff required.
What does it cost?
Early pilots are priced per firm, and we work that out together on the call — it depends on the size of your team and how you would use it. No usage meters and no charge per document or per question. The goal of the first conversation is to see whether it is genuinely useful to you before anyone talks about a long-term arrangement.
Does this meet our confidentiality obligations as CPAs?
It was designed around them. Rule 208 of the CPA Ontario Code of Professional Conduct requires you to hold client information in strict confidence, and the usual problem with AI tools is that they hand that information to a third party. FirmDocs doesn't: documents never leave your office or your custody, and nobody at FirmDocs can see them. We're glad to walk through exactly how it works with you, your professional standards advisor, or anyone else you'd like to satisfy — in plain English, and in writing.
What happens if the machine breaks?
Your documents are never at risk. Your originals stay in your own folders, and FirmDocs only ever works from copies it builds out of them — so a replacement machine can rebuild itself from your files and pick up where the last one left off. Support is part of the arrangement, not an extra.
See it in action
We discuss your firm's needs, show you the interface, and answer any questions about how it works.
Book on CalendlyPrefer email? Write to ahsan@firmdocs.ca
Not an accounting firm?
There's a version of FirmDocsbuilt for Ontario law firms.