Finsider Launches Automated Quality of Earnings, Valuation, and M&A Software Built by CPA

The Platform Connects to QuickBooks Online or Any Accounting Software, Normalizes the Entire Chart of Accounts, Tests 100% of General Ledger Transactions and Computes Every Figure With Deterministic Code Rather Than Generative AI

PORTLAND, ME / ACCESS Newswire / October 1, 2026 / Finsider, the world's first agentic financial due diligence platform, today announced its public launch. Finsider automates Quality of Earnings (QofE), valuation, LBO modeling, and more. The software integrates with a company's accounting and bank software in one click, reconciling all raw financials into one consistent structure, tests every general ledger transaction, and produces the financial statements, proposed adjustments, automated proof of cash, Quality of Earnings report, valuation and deal model instantly. What would traditionally take an associate weeks to build by hand, Finsider does in one click.

Finsider was founded by Mitch Petracca, CPA (CEO) and Daniel Edgar (CTO). The software has been used for the previous six months at Forward Firm, a CPA and M&A advisory firm founded by Petracca which runs about 40 Quality of Earnings engagements a year on the platform and has seen engagement time drop about 60%. Petracca spent 8 years in transaction advisory, starting at PwC, and has personally executed more than 150 Quality of Earnings engagements.

Unlike general-purpose AI tools, Finsider computes every figure with deterministic code. Generative AI reads documents and writes commentary about numbers the code already produced, and a validator re-checks every figure an AI answer cites against the underlying data and flags anything off by more than one cent.

"Our name goes on the deliverable. Nobody's signing generative output," said Petracca. "The blocker for AI in accounting isn't productivity, it's signability, and that's what we built Finsider around."

What Finsider does

• Connects to QuickBooks Online read-only and to bank accounts through Plaid, or accepts a general ledger export from any accounting system as CSV or Excel.
• Maps every account into one standard structure, so two companies on different charts of accounts compare line for line. Tests 100% of transactions for duplicates, out-of-period entries, related-party names, statistical outliers against the company's own history, diligence keywords, and accounts that historically carry adjustments.
• Proposes Quality of Earnings adjustments for a reviewer to accept, reject or edit, and books each one as an overlay so the client's original ledger never changes.
• Runs an automated proof of cash and checks the books against filed tax returns.
• Produces the Quality of Earnings report with the adjusted EBITDA bridge, net working capital and customer concentration, and exports the full diligence package to Excel.
• Values the company against Damodaran market multiples and BizMiner industry benchmarks, and builds the three-statement forecast, LBO model with debt covenants, and opening balance sheet from the same reviewed numbers.
• Consolidates multiple entities with intercompany eliminations.

How a typical engagement works

• Connect QuickBooks Online or upload a general ledger export, and the first sync runs in minutes.
• Upload bank statements, tax returns, payroll registers and the CIM into the Data Room, where every file is versioned, summarized and searchable by question.
• Check the tie-out pages, which show whether the books tie to the source before any analysis starts.
• Work the diligence queue, accepting, rejecting or editing each proposed adjustment.
• Review the proof of cash and the tax return comparison, then send management the generated question list.
• Run the valuation and the deal model on the adjusted figures, deliver the Quality of Earnings report, and export the Excel workbook, with sign-off always staying with a person.

Built for SBA lenders and the new QofE requirement

The launch lands as SBA SOP 50 10 8.1 takes effect on October 1, 2026. According to SBA Information Notice 5000-880695, 7(a) loans for initial acquisitions and business expansions at $3 million or more in enterprise value now need an independent QofE report engaged by the lender, with every add-back documented and cash tied to bank statements for the trailing twelve months and the two most recent fiscal years.

Frequently asked questions

Is automated Quality of Earnings reliable?

Automated Quality of Earnings is reliable when every number is computed by code and traces back to the books. In Finsider, the transaction tests, the proof of cash and every total run as deterministic code, the original figures sit next to every adjustment, and a CPA or QofE reviewer accepts each adjustment and signs the report.

What is an automated proof of cash?

An automated proof of cash reconciles what the general ledger says happened to what actually moved through the bank, period by period, and reports the unexplained difference. In a manual diligence engagement, a proof of cash is a $5,000 line item that takes an associate 8 to 15 hours to build.

How does Finsider use generative AI?

Stock OpenAI models read PDF bank statements and payroll registers, place accounts the accounting system leaves unclassified into a fixed list, summarize Data Room documents, and write commentary about numbers. No model computes a figure, and no custom-trained or fine-tuned model runs anywhere in the product.

Does automated QofE software replace a CPA firm?

No. The software does the population-level work of mapping, testing, reconciling and building the workpaper and the models, and the QofE provider applies judgment to the adjustments and signs the report.

A common layer between accounting systems and AI

Petracca's view is that AI analysis will keep getting better and cheaper, and that the value sits in what the analysis runs on. "You get ten QofEs, you tend to get ten different answers. Same with valuations," he said. "The fix isn't a smarter model reading a messier ledger. It's one common system that every company's books go through first, so the numbers stay consistent over time and comparable across companies, and the people and the AI agents working on a deal read from the same record."

Finsider sits between the accounting system and whoever analyzes the company next, whether that is a reviewer, a lender or an AI model. It normalizes the records into a common structure, connects each conclusion to its supporting evidence, and keeps the review decisions with the work, so the next person or model builds on what is already known instead of rebuilding it.

Security and availability

Finsider holds SOC 2 Type I controls, encrypts data in transit and at rest, and walls off each company's data on the server. They are actively undergoing testing for SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001, as well as other security framerowks.

Finsider is available now at app.finsider.ai/sign-up, and users can navigate the platform for free with a sandbox, or try a free QofE scan through it's Addback tool.

About Finsider

Finsider turns unstructured raw company data into a clear, consistent financial picture people can explain, share and build on in the tools they already use. The shared financial workspace covers Quality of Earnings, financial due diligence, M&A valuation, LBO modeling and CFO reporting, and is based in Portland, Maine. It was founded by Mitch Petracca, CPA, Managing Partner of Forward Firm.

Media Contact
Mitch Petracca, CPA
[email protected]
207-854-8797

SOURCE: Finsider