What Pocket Docket is, and what it is not

It is software, not an accountant

Pocket Docket is a software product. It is not an accountancy practice, a tax adviser, a bookkeeper, an auditor, an insolvency practitioner or a financial adviser, and it is not regulated as any of those things. Nothing it shows you or tells you is advice — not accounting advice, not tax advice, not legal advice, and not investment or financial advice.

This matters more now than it used to. Pocket Docket is sold directly to business owners rather than through accountancy practices, which means there may be no professional between the software and a decision you take. So we would rather over-state this boundary than let it be assumed.

What it will not do

It will not prepare or file your accounts, your tax return, your VAT return or anything else with HMRC or Companies House. It will not tell you what you are allowed to claim, how to structure your business, whether to take a dividend, whether to incorporate, or what to do about a debt. It will not value your business or advise on buying or selling one.

It does not act on your behalf. It cannot move money or pay anyone — nothing in the Xero connection permits that. Your reports, contacts and settings are read-only to it. It does hold permission to raise an invoice in your Xero, and where it drafts one, or drafts an email chasing a late payment, that draft sits and waits for you. Nothing leaves your business, and nothing touching money happens, until you have read it and sent it yourself. That is built into the product and is not a setting that can be switched off.

How it behaves when it does not know

The assistant is instructed to refuse rather than invent. If it cannot stand up a tax rate, a threshold or a deadline — particularly one that changes from year to year — it is built to say so and to tell you to ask a qualified accountant, rather than produce a confident-sounding answer.

When a question moves onto accounting standards, it cites the source it is relying on, so that you or your accountant can check it rather than taking it on trust.

Where the figures come from

Every financial figure is calculated by our own software from the data in your Xero, and each calculation is checked against known-correct test cases. Where a figure cannot be calculated reliably, the product is built to show nothing rather than to show a number that might be wrong.

The figures are only ever as good as the bookkeeping underneath them. If your Xero is behind, or a transaction is in the wrong place, Pocket Docket will faithfully reflect that. It does not audit your records and does not check them for errors.

If something looks wrong

Tell us and we will show you exactly where a figure came from. If it is our error we will fix it and say so.

Before you act on anything you see here — and always before you file anything, sign anything, or make a decision that would be expensive to reverse — check it with a qualified accountant who knows your circumstances.

Version 1.0 · in force from 21 August 2026