For years, the general ledger was like the plumbing of accounting software—essential but invisible. The last real shake-up came nearly 20 years ago when Xero arrived as the first true cloud-native GL. Since then, the category seemed locked down by giants like QuickBooks, NetSuite and Intacct.

Part of the reason? The GL was too well protected. The incumbents had decades of a head start and mountains of data, so the better opportunities were in building tools that plugged into it, not trying to replace it.

But here’s the thing: the GL has always been more than just another module. It’s the source of truth. Every accounting workflow, every report, every system of record hangs off it. Whoever owns that source of truth owns the platform and that’s why GL providers represent some of the largest enterprise values in the entire accounting software ecosystem. Intuit sits near $190 billion. Xero is north of $20 billion. Oracle, with NetSuite in its portfolio, is a $600+ billion company. Stack those numbers against the valuations of bill pay apps, invoicing platforms, workflow products, or tax software, and the pattern is clear: the biggest value has consistently gone to the builder of the general ledger.

And now, that foundation might be shifting. Thanks to AI and modern cloud infrastructure, we’re seeing new entrants like Rillet, Puzzle, Digits, and Campfire all building GLs at lower price points with far more modern architecture.

If the biggest enterprise values in accounting have always clustered around the general ledger, should we expect history to repeat itself with this new wave of AI-native entrants? Is the GL the hot category in accounting tech right now?

Photo: Sunday at the FedEx Cup Tour Championship with Rillet & Brex