Pilot is a bookkeeping and tax service built for startups and high-growth companies. Founded in 2017, Pilot has become one of the most recognized names in outsourced finance for venture-backed businesses. They handle monthly bookkeeping, annual tax filing, and CFO-level financial reporting through a combination of in-house accountants and proprietary software.
Pilot is designed for founders who want their books handled by a dedicated team without hiring full-time finance staff. Most Pilot clients are technology startups in the seed-to-Series B range, though they also serve e-commerce, agencies, and other high-growth businesses that need reliable books and investor-ready financials.
Pilot's core services include:
Pilot operates as a fully remote team and uses its own software platform to manage client books. Clients get a dedicated team and can access real-time dashboards for cash, burn, and runway metrics.
Pilot positions itself as a modern alternative to traditional accounting firms, with a focus on technology startups and high-growth businesses. They combine dedicated human accountants with proprietary software, which means you get the reliability of a service provider with the speed and transparency of a SaaS tool.
What sets Pilot apart is their deep specialization in venture-backed companies. They understand startup finance milestones — from first funding round to preparing for due diligence — and their teams are trained to handle the specific reporting and compliance needs of VC-backed businesses.
Key strengths include:
Both Omniga and Pilot sit in the finance stack for growing companies, but they take fundamentally different approaches to how finance work gets done and who controls the underlying system.
| Axis | Omniga | Pilot |
|---|---|---|
| Orchestration vs Delivery | Orchestration layer + workflow hub across clients and tools | Done-for-you bookkeeping, tax, and CFO services delivered by dedicated team |
| Platform-First vs Firm-First | Platform-first: infrastructure for management accounting your team controls | Firm-first: Pilot's team delivers tax-ready books and investor reporting through proprietary system |
| Platform + FDaaS vs Service-Only | SaaS platform + full hands-off bookkeeping and finance services: use it yourself, with fractional partners, or let Omniga's team handle everything | Service-only: dedicated team manages books in their proprietary system; you interact through their client dashboard, not the internal workflow platform |
| Quiet AI vs Automation Visibility | Quiet AI™ in visible review queue: suggests entries, flags anomalies, humans control posting | Blend of human bookkeepers and proprietary software, managed end-to-end by Pilot team |
| Who It's Built For | Firms, fractional CFOs, and operators managing multiple clients/entities; complex team setups | Individual startup or high-growth company wanting full-service team for single business |
| Ledger-Agnostic Architecture | Shadow Journal above QBO, designed to support multiple ledgers over time | Books maintained in Pilot's proprietary system with data synced to QBO or exports |
| Collaborative Workspace | Multi-team collaborative workspace: granular access for internal staff, fractionals, providers | Primary relationship with assigned Pilot team, limited external collaboration |
In practice, Omniga makes sense when you want books built for investor reporting AND operational decisions, delivered hands-off by Omniga's team or managed with your own staff/fractional partners on a platform that scales across entities. Pilot is a strong fit when you want a dedicated full-service team to own your startup's books end-to-end in their proprietary system, with minimal involvement from your side.
Pilot Accounting appears in 3 articles