FYI is where a practice keeps its documents, email and jobs. DeskMate is an assistant that does work across the ledger, the practice manager and FYI itself. DeskMate connects to FYI: it reads documents, jobs and clients, and it can file a document or open a job once a person has approved it. For most FYI practices the real question is whether to add DeskMate, not which of the two to choose.
If email is still filed by hand or jobs run from a spreadsheet, start with FYI: auto-filing from Outlook, the document cabinet, jobs and workflows, with time and billing on Elite. DeskMate does not do that, and does not try to.
FYI AI works inside FYI’s own automations. DeskMate reads the Xero or MYOB ledger, XPM, the ATO record and FYI together, and does the reconciliation, BAS preparation and client follow-up across all of them.
DeskMate’s FYI connector reads documents, jobs and clients, and files or opens a job once a person approves it. FYI stays your system of record.
| DeskMate | FYI | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | An AI assistant for accounting practices. It runs the practice’s recurring work across the systems it is connected to, in chat, on a schedule or behind an approval. | Cloud document and practice management built for accounting firms. |
| The job it does | Bank reconciliation, BAS preparation, deadline watch, invoice chasing, inbox triage, client onboarding, month-end packs and practice reporting. Your team teaches it the steps once. | Filing email automatically, managing documents, jobs, workflows and automations. Elite adds time and billing, reporting and capacity planning. |
| How it is priced | Per seat. $149 a seat a month on Starter (2 to 15 seats), $189 on Growth, from $229 on Enterprise. The skill library is an add-on. No setup fee. 21-day trial, no card. | Per user a month: $30 Intermediate, $50 Pro, $70 Elite, rising to $55 Pro and $75 Elite from 1 November 2026. Minimum 5 users. FYI AI is included in Elite under a fair-use policy, and an extra, not yet priced add-on for Pro. Onboarding from $990, or from $3,000 assisted. Storage past 50 GB a user costs extra. |
| AI | OpenAI models through an Australian endpoint. Nothing is retained after a response and nothing is used for training. | FYI AI (in beta) drafts email replies, files documents to the right client and job, summarises documents and meetings, and creates tasks. It is included in Elite and a paid add-on for Pro. It runs on Anthropic’s Claude models through AWS Bedrock. |
| Connects to | Reads and writes Xero, Xero Practice Manager, MYOB, QuickBooks, FYI, Karbon, BGL and Microsoft 365. Reads the ATO’s record of what is due and what has been lodged. It never lodges. | Xero, XPM, MYOB, Microsoft 365, the ATO, BGL, NowInfinity, FuseSign, Annature, GovReports, Ignition and others. |
| Approvals | Every write to the ledger and every client message waits for a person. The step cannot be moved or switched off. | Documents are reviewed and approved through FYI Workflows. |
| The record it keeps | Each run records what it read, what it produced, who approved it and when. Kept 6 months on Starter; 18 months on Growth and above, where it can be exported as a file. | A Practice Activity page for admins. We found no published description of a per-action audit trail. |
| Where data is held | Sydney: the application, database, storage and model endpoint, all in Google Cloud australia-southeast1. No offshore processing. | AWS in Sydney and London. Forms data sits temporarily in Microsoft Azure Australia. |
| Certification | Xero security self-assessment and ATO Operational Security Framework assessment complete. ISO 27001 in progress. | ISO 27001:2022 and a registered ATO Digital Service Provider. |
Prices exclude GST unless stated. FYI prices are in AUD from FYI’s pricing, price-update and onboarding pages, read 23 September 2026.
Not for the job FYI does. FYI is a filing cabinet and a job engine. Email filed from Outlook, a document cabinet for each client, templates, jobs, and on Elite, time and billing. DeskMate has none of that and relies on FYI, or whatever system a practice already uses, to hold the documents.
Where they come closer is the AI layer. FYI AI and DeskMate can both draft a reply to an email or summarise a document. The difference is reach. FYI AI works inside FYI’s automations, on what FYI holds. DeskMate works on the ledger in Xero or MYOB, the jobs in XPM or Karbon, the ATO’s record of what is due and what has been lodged, and FYI’s documents, all in one run.
Through its FYI connector, DeskMate can list and read documents, jobs, clients and contacts. It can upload a document and open or move a job. The reads just happen. Anything that files, creates or changes something in FYI waits for a person to approve it first, like every other write DeskMate makes.
A typical example is client onboarding. DeskMate collects the documents a new client sends, files them to the right FYI cabinet and opens the downstream jobs. A person approves the filing before it lands.
Both keep data onshore by default for Australian practices, and both say the AI provider does not retain or train on it. FYI AI runs on Anthropic’s Claude models through AWS Bedrock in the practice’s AWS region. DeskMate runs on OpenAI models through an Australian endpoint, inside the same Sydney region as the rest of the application.
FYI is further along on certification: it holds ISO 27001:2022 and is a registered ATO Digital Service Provider. DeskMate has completed the ATO’s Operational Security Framework assessment and is working towards ISO 27001. The listing is the ATO’s to grant. Our security page says where each one stands.
FYI AI’s meeting features take transcripts from Microsoft Copilot, so the meeting owner needs a Copilot licence for those.
FYI is priced per user, with a five-user minimum, and its prices rise on 1 November 2026: Pro from $50 to $55 and Elite from $70 to $75, its first increase. FYI AI is included in Elite under a fair-use policy whose terms are not yet published, and it is a paid add-on for Pro at a price still to be announced. Its meeting features also need a Microsoft Copilot licence for the meeting owner.
There are one-off costs too. Onboarding starts at $990 for QuickStart, without document migration, and at $3,000 for the assisted service. Storage beyond 50 GB a user is $5 a user a month for each further 50 GB.
A worked example, from those published rates: a 10-person practice on Elite from November pays $750 a month, $9,000 a year, plus $990 to $3,000 or more to get started, so $9,990 to $12,000 or more in the first year. On Pro it is $550 a month plus the AI add-on once it is priced. That is our arithmetic, not an FYI quote.
DeskMate is $149 a seat a month on Starter, where a seat is anyone who can run or approve a skill, with no setup fee, and runs are part of the plan. Since most practices would run both, the useful sum is FYI plus DeskMate for the people doing the work. It is not one or the other.
Everything said about FYI comes from its maker’s own pages, Xero’s announcements or the press reporting them, read on 23 September 2026. Products change; if something here has gone out of date, tell us and we will correct it and say what changed.
Copilot knows your mail and documents. DeskMate knows your ledger, and it runs inside Teams.
CompareDeskMate runs on OpenAI models too. The difference is everything around the model: Sydney, the ledger, the approval.
CompareClaude is a capable general assistant with a Xero connector. DeskMate is narrower: practice work, onshore, approved.
CompareDext gets receipts and bills into the ledger. DeskMate does the practice work after that. Most firms keep both.
Compare21 days, no card. Connect FYI and the ledger, and let DeskMate do the work between them.
