Moonlabs Academy · for accountants

AI for accountants, by builders.

Moonlabs is the operator-led AI Academy in Derby. We run three live companies — Homemove, home.co.uk and homedata.co.uk — and we teach twelve students per cohort to ship a real AI product, sell it to a real customer, and raise on it. Three pillars: Coding, Commercials, Investment. Twelve weeks. £6,000.

Moonlabs is what we are. Two operators — James Freestone and Louis O’Connell-Bristow — who run Homemove, home.co.uk and homedata.co.uk. We have raised £5m+ for our own companies and run finance functions across three live P&Ls every working day — the AI work on this page is the work we actually use to close our own months.

The Academy is what we do. A twelve-week, in-person, twelve-student cohort in Derby. You build a real AI product. You sign a paid pilot on it. You write a deck and a financial model. You leave with a deployed system, a paying customer reference and a live investor pipeline. Coding, Commercials, Investment — the three pillars taught in equal weight every week.

Why this page exists. Accountancy is one of the professions AI is reshaping fastest and one of the worst served by current AI training. Most CPD shows what AI could do; almost none of it teaches you to ship. The Senior Manager who can build AI tooling is being promoted to Director and CFO faster than the one who cannot — the portfolio piece does the talking. Reconciliation agents, audit-trail retrieval, FP&A automation, management-pack drafting — the work your team spends weeknights on, rebuilt the agentic way.

Apply for the next cohort See the Academy

Coding · the accounting-AI engineering brief

Reconciliations, variance analysis, audit-trail retrieval, management-pack drafting. Evals and observability from week one because numbers cannot be wrong and sign-offs need a paper trail. A deployed accounting-AI tool by week twelve — built on the patterns we use to close three live P&Ls.

Commercials · selling AI into a practice or finance team

Pricing against the chargeable hour or the seat licence. Procurement, audit-committee sign-off, partnership cuts, the internal sponsor. A one-page pilot agreement with one team. A paid pilot by week six — for many graduates, sold inside the firm they arrived from.

Investment Â· raising on accounting-AI

Pennylane raised €75m, Vic.ai $115m, Numeric and Puzzle both at scale — vertical finance-AI is a live thesis on every UK fintech investor’s desk. Cap table from week two, ten-slide deck, financial model, term sheets. We make warm introductions. A live investor pipeline by demo day.

FAQ

Common questions.

I have never coded. Is this realistic for an accountant?

Yes. AI tooling has collapsed the on-ramp; we have taken senior non-coding professionals through to a deployed product in twelve weeks. More on that here.

Will the course be aimed at audit, FP&A, tax, or all of them?

All. The general AI engineering — evals, agents, retrieval — is the spine. The project work is shaped around your specific accounting context, whether that is audit, FP&A, tax or management accounting.

Can my firm pay for this?

Often yes — the Apprenticeship Levy and L&D budgets can apply. Several Big-4 and mid-tier accounting firms have explicit AI upskilling programmes. Full funding routes here.

Will I learn enough to evaluate vendor accounting-AI products?

Yes. After twelve weeks of building you can read a vendor demo with operator-grade scepticism. The procurement conversations you have on the other side are fundamentally different.

I am in-house, not in practice. Is the course still right?

Yes — arguably more so. In-house finance professionals who can build internal AI tooling are short and increasingly senior. The Academy graduates are a strong match for the brief.

AI course for career changers

If the AI move involves a wider pivot out of accountancy, this is the wider framing.

Apprenticeship Levy AI course

How firms fund the Academy through L&D budgets, the Apprenticeship Levy, or upskilling allowances.

Other ways in

More Academy entry points.

The Academy is one course with many doors. Each of these pages is a different entry point into the same twelve weeks.

Built for your role

Build it. Sell it. Raise on it. In twelve weeks.

Tell us what your practice or finance function looks like and what accounting workflow you would automate first. James and Louis read every application personally and reply inside the week.

Apply to the Academy Apprenticeship levy funding

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