There's a group of companies that keeps falling between two stools in the AI conversation. Too big for the stories about the freelancer automating invoices, too small for the enterprise stories about Microsoft, SAP and Oracle. Companies with ten to a few hundred people, who have been investing seriously in software for years.

In the Netherlands, that group has a recognisable feature: they run on AFAS, on Exact, or on one of the Visma brands. And that changes the question. Not "should I do something with AI", but "what do I actually still need on top of this".

01 / the starting pointWhat makes this group different?

The most important decision has already been made. There's a system in place where the bookkeeping, invoices, hours, often also payroll and customer data are structured and recorded. That's exactly what most companies without an ERP don't have, and it's the hardest layer to build afterwards.

The scale is bigger than you'd guess. Exact writes that Exact Online works for more than 675,000 companies. AFAS reports more than 14,000 organisations and 3.8 million workers who receive their payslip via that software every month. Visma isn't a single system but a group that has acquired Dutch brands, including AccountView, Raet and Yuki.

The question isn't whether you need a system. You already have one. The question is what falls outside it.

One note on the term itself: "SME+" isn't an official category. Statistics Netherlands (CBS) doesn't recognise it and there's no threshold above which you fall into it. It's market jargon for companies that have already taken the step towards real systems. Useful as a description, unsuitable as proof.

02 / what you already getDo AFAS and Exact build AI themselves?

Yes, both of them, and that's the most important fact in this whole piece. Anyone who brings in an external party without first checking what's already in their own licence may end up paying twice for the same thing.

AFAS bundles its AI functions under the name Jonas. It fills in fields in workflows, converts speech to text, translates documents, analyses purchase quotes and matches CVs with vacancies. Anything AI has filled in gets a recognisable icon, and an organisation can decide per function whether Jonas is active there.

Exact has the Exact AI Assistant in Exact Online. It helps with navigation, flags anomalies in the bookkeeping and open invoices, answers how-do-I-do-that questions, and pulls up information to prepare for a conversation.

Read those two lists slowly. If your specific annoyance is on there, the honest conclusion is that you need to talk to your vendor, not to us. That's cheaper, better supported, and it won't break with the next update.

03 / the boundaryWhere does your ERP stop?

At everything that never gets entered. An ERP records what's finished: the invoice that's been sent, the order that's been placed, the contract that's been signed, the hours that've been logged. That's not a shortcoming but a design choice. The system is a register.

What's not in it is the work around it. The phone call where a customer explained why they were hesitant. The reason this customer got that discount and the next one didn't. The way you build a quote, which lives in the heads of two people. The email exchange where the agreement was actually made. An AI assistant inside your ERP can't reach that, because it's not in there.

Rows 2 and 3 are the only place where an extra layer adds anything. Anyone who buys an AI system to unlock row 1 better is effectively buying reporting. That's a legitimate wish, but then you're looking for BI tooling or a consultant to set up your ERP better, and that's a different conversation with a different price.

How to determine which source leaks the most in your case is set out in your tools don't talk to each other.

04 / the technologyCan such a layer even reach my ERP data?

Yes, via the official connections, and those are deliberately limited. That's good news and also where projects run into trouble.

With AFAS it runs via Get and UpdateConnectors. You create an App connector with a token, and you decide yourself which connectors that token may use. That means the boundary of what an external party sees and may change sits with you, not with that party's supplier. Always ask for that list before agreeing to anything.

With Exact it runs via the REST API, with an App Centre where external apps are published. There's a practical brake on this: there's a limit per administration per minute, sixty calls at the time of writing, plus a daily limit that Exact has adjusted over the years. Check the current limits before anyone builds anything for you.

Why this matters: a system that checks your bookkeeping live for every question hits that limit as soon as more than a handful of people use it. The solution is a copy that updates periodically, and that gives you two versions of the truth. Then there needs to be an agreement about which one leads and how often it syncs. Anyone who doesn't make that explicit before building runs into it after delivery.

05 / the riskWhat if my vendor does this themselves next year?

Then you've paid for nothing, and that risk is real. Jonas and the Exact AI Assistant didn't exist a few years ago. Both vendors have hundreds of developers and a direct interest in pulling functionality inward.

The rule of thumb that follows: the closer a solution sits to the core of the ERP, the greater the chance the vendor catches up with it. Smarter invoice recognition, better search, flagging anomalies. That's their territory, and there the party that owns the data ultimately wins.

What gets caught up less quickly is the part that's about your company rather than the software: how you write, what you agree, why customers do or don't sign. No vendor builds that, because it's different for every customer. If you're going to buy something, buy on that side. More on where that line runs is in what an AI system doesn't do for you.

06 / the testHow do you decide this without a quote?

With four questions you can answer yourself in an afternoon. They work against any provider, including us.

• Is the answer already in my ERP? If so, call your vendor or implementation partner. Start there and nowhere else.
• Is my annoyance on the list for Jonas or the Exact Assistant? If so, it might already be in your licence. Check before comparing anything.
• Which connectors or endpoints does an external party need? A concrete list. Anyone who can't provide that doesn't yet know what they're going to build.
• Where does the copy live and who is the processor? If you copy ERP data to an external environment, you need a data processing agreement. That's not a formality but a legal requirement.

Two more things we'd rather say upfront than afterwards. If your offering isn't settled yet, or your way of working changes every quarter, you're locking in a moving target and waiting is cheaper. And if there's no one internally who takes ownership of the connection, it becomes nobody's job after delivery and falls apart within six months. That's not down to the technology.

What else you should ask any provider is in four questions to ask every AI provider, and the ownership question is worked out separately in who owns it once it works.

This text was produced with AI assistance and checked and approved by a human before publication.