How Smartbooks AI built a Compliance strategy with Anove
By Anove
June 19, 2025
For small but ambitious companies operating in the financial tech sector, compliance is no longer something you can postpone. Customers are asking for proof of trust. Regulators are tightening requirements. And what used to be reserved for big banks is now expected from lean startups too.
Smartbooks AI, , automates financial month-end closing, consolidation and management reporting, found itself at this exact crossroads. As the company gained traction, it faced the growing demand to meet enterprise-level compliance standards without the luxury of a large compliance team.
We spoke with Katja Melkert, who oversees HR, Legal, and Finance at Smartbooks, AI about how they approached compliance, what it’s like building trust as a small business, and how Anove helped bring structure and focus to the process.
Enterprise Expectations
Smartbooks AI is much more than just an online reporting platform. We help companies transform their entire monthly financial process—making it faster, smarter, and more reliable. Our platform seamlessly connects with widely used general ledger systems like Exact Online, Exact Globe, Quickbooks and AFAS. “These systems are typically optimized for bookkeeping,” Katja says. “And they are not setup to support the business controller or CFO in their monthly financial process.”
Smartbooks AI will streamline your monthly financial process with:
· AI-powered support for financial checks during the month-end close, making the process more efficient and reducing errors.
· Fully automated consolidation—no more manual work or spreadsheets, even for complex group structures.
· Deep business analysis, helping you not only report the numbers, but also explain the developments behind them.
· Automated reporting, giving you dependable, high-quality management information at the click of a button.
· Smarter budgeting and planning, so you can make better decisions with less effort.
Our mission is to enable finance teams to focus on what matters most: providing real business value, not just producing reports. That’s why leading companies choose Smartbooks to optimize, automate, and elevate their financial processes.
As demand grew, so did the pressure to demonstrate that their internal processes were just as solid as their software.
Compliance as a necessary discipline
For Katja and her team, compliance isn’t the most exciting part of the business, but it is undeniably important.
“Compliance is one of those things that’s necessary but not always fun,” she says. “You do it because it gives your company a solid structure. But it’s a lot of work.”
Smartbooks AI decided to pursue ISAE 3402 certification, a well-recognized assurance standard that demonstrates operational reliability. This was especially important because their clients often handle sensitive financial data.
Some requirements, however, felt like they were designed for much larger organizations. Katja described a common issue among startups and small businesses.
“You’re expected to have all these roles filled: privacy officer, security officer, data protection officer. But when you’re small, you simply don’t have the people.”
Finding the right fit with Anove
That is where Anove came in.
The Anove platform gave Smartbooks AI a centralized control framework that they could collaborate on internally. This structure helped distribute responsibilities in a way that matched the team’s skills and availability.
“We split the work across three people: the CEO, our lead software developer, and myself,” Katja explains. “I don’t know anything about secure code, but I know GDPR. Our CEO focuses on company management. The platform let us divide tasks in a way that made sense.”
She found Anove’s collaborative design to be particularly helpful.
“One of the features I liked most was that you can bring colleagues into the platform. Everyone sees their role, and nothing falls through the cracks.”
Even though Smartbooks AI is a relatively small company, Katja sees how Anove’s framework could scale with them. This is especially relevant as they consider entering the US market in the future, which would involve additional certifications.
“With Anove, we can keep evolving our control framework in one place,” she says. “We can update the controls, improve them, and stay ready for whatever comes next.”
A Clear path to growth
Smartbooks AI continues to grow steadily, bringing in new clients every week. As of this writing, they are waiting for the results of their audit, and early feedback has been promising.
Katja sees this process not just as a box-checking exercise, but as a genuine way to improve internal processes.
“That’s what you see with audits. They don’t just tell you if you pass or fail. They show you what would help improve the quality of your controls. Then you know what to work on.”
Looking forward, the biggest challenge is not compliance. It is maintaining a balanced, high-performing company as they scale.
“Our challenge is to keep the company in a good balance. With growth, and new employees coming in, we need to make sure we don’t lose sight of our structure. Compliance helps with that.”