UK tax preparation has long relied on manual processes — spreadsheets, email chains, and hours spent re-keying data from client documents. We built Cleo to change that, and today we want to share how.
The problem accountants know too well
Every tax season, accountants across the UK face the same challenge. Clients send stacks of documents — P45s, P60s, P11Ds, share option letters, overseas income statements — and each one needs to be opened, read, and manually transcribed into a working spreadsheet. It's painstaking work. A single transposition error can cascade through the entire return, and catching mistakes means cross-referencing every figure back to its source.
For firms dealing with complex cases — split-year residency, international income, equity compensation, cryptoassets — the problem multiplies. The documents are more varied, the rules more nuanced, and the stakes higher. Yet the tools available haven't kept pace with the complexity.
A single workspace, not a patchwork
Cleo replaces the fragmented workflow with a single, purpose-built platform. Upload a client document and Cleo's intelligent extraction reads it, identifies the key fields, and presents them alongside the original PDF. Every extracted value is colour-coded and linked back to its exact location on the source document — so the accountant can verify at a glance rather than hunting through pages.
Once reviewed, the data flows automatically into structured tables: earnings summaries, equity compensation breakdowns, income aggregations. No re-keying. No copy-paste errors. Tables include totals, flag unreviewed documents, and can be copied to clipboard or downloaded as CSV with a single click.
Traceability at every step
Tax professionals need to trust their numbers, and trust comes from transparency. In Cleo, every data point maintains a link to its source document and the person who reviewed it. When a manager opens a client file, they can see not just the aggregated figures but exactly where each number came from and whether it's been verified. This traceability isn't an add-on — it's woven into the core of how the platform works.
What's ahead
We're expanding Cleo's capabilities to cover more of the accountant's workflow. Live UK tax regulation lookup will let practitioners check current thresholds, allowances, and rates without leaving the platform. A regulation change tracker will highlight what shifted between tax years — so accountants can quickly spot what affects each client. And a built-in CRM will connect client relationships to the tax preparation workflow, keeping everything in one place.
These features are designed with the same philosophy that guides everything we build: reduce the time spent on data processing so accountants can focus on the advisory work that truly serves their clients.
We're building Cleo for the firms that power UK tax advisory — and we're just getting started. If you'd like to see the platform in action, we'd love to hear from you.
— The Cleo Team