Emerging tech co-op data and AI solutions - ON-1134

Project type: Innovation
Desired discipline(s): Engineering - computer / electrical, Engineering, Computer science, Mathematical Sciences, Operations research
Company: Orbit Accountants
Project Length: 4 to 6 months
Preferred start date: 01/05/2026
Language requirement: English
Location(s): Toronto, ON, Canada
No. of positions: 1
Desired education level: Undergraduate/Bachelor
Open to applicants registered at an institution outside of Canada: No

About the company: 

Orbit Accountants is a high-growth, tech-forward finance partner for SMBs across North America. We deliver full-stack accounting through a modern, human-led model: ongoing bookkeeping, catch-up cleanups, payroll management, tax compliance and year-end, plus fractional CFO support for strategic planning and cash-flow insight. Clients get a dedicated team, audit-ready financials, and a seamless onboarding experience backed by transparent pricing, no surprises, just clear scope and consistent service.

Beyond monthly reporting, we provide visual dashboards and practical guidance that turn numbers into decisions. As cloud accountants, we work with leading platforms such as Xero and QuickBooks, and integrate the tools you already use. Whether you’re a startup getting books in order, a nonprofit leveling up controls, or an established company expanding across borders, Orbit puts reliable systems and responsive experts within easy reach.

We’re actively building AI automation into our services, streamlining invoice capture, reconciliations, anomaly detection, cash-flow forecasting, and proactive tax reminders. Our plan is to contribute to our clients business through practical AI automation tech that saves time, reduces risk, and amplifies effeciency.

Describe the project.: 

AI Capacity Planner, Ticketing Automation & Knowledge Base for Accounting.

The project requires designing and evaluating a suite of AI- and data-driven tools that turn fragmented operational data into reliable, auditable workflows for planning, service delivery, and client support.

A. Retool:

1. Capacity Planner. A single BigQuery-backed app schedules every task by client/SKU/difficulty/SLA/tier. It uses country-aware business-day calendars, reverse-math start dates, and VIP-first logic to pull work forward when capacity is free. It assigns by skill and weekly capacity (baseline hours × 0.9 minus holidays/PTO). Managers adjust dates in Kanbanchi; staff execute/log in Keeper. Two-way sync, audit trails, and live heat/risk views keep plan ↔ actuals aligned.

2. Profitability Dashboard. Combines Keeper time actuals with Xero (and Stripe) billing to show profit and variance by client/SKU/period, tying budgeted hours & price to actual hours and realized revenue for clean margin and over/under insights.

3. Efficiency Dashboard. A Looker Studio view optimized for day-to-day operations: weekly utilization heatmap by person/difficulty, upcoming SLA risk windows (7/14/30 days), and tier-aware prioritization so leaders can rebalance load and answer “who’s overloaded next week?” fast. Visuals are grounded in the assignments plan and weekly capacity baselines.

In addition to the above, other tasks will include:

B. Ticketing Response. To build an automation tool—with reusable code and data prompts—to draft accurate, policy-aligned responses to day-to-day client tickets. Target throughput increases from a human baseline of ~30–45/day to 200+ with the tool finalized.

C. Meeting Call Recordings → Knowledge. Sales calls generate FAQs, update the website chatbot, and feed relevant blogposts. Fractional CFO calls yield learnings and blogposts on finance topics. Onboarding calls (client and HR) populate a Q&A knowledge base.

D. Automation Town / Ideas. Structured exploration sprints to prototype additional internal tools that raise organization-wide efficiency.

Required expertise/skills: 

Hands-on with Retool, BigQuery (SQL), and basic data modeling; ability to connect HubSpot (ticketing), Xero/Stripe (billing), and Keeper/Kanbanchi via APIs/ETL. Comfortable in Python or TypeScript, Git/GitHub, and writing clear LLM prompts; bonus for Looker Studio and Power BI.

Nice-to-haves: calendar/business-day logic, SLA tracking, scheduling/optimization concepts, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). You’ll read docs, test integrations, and iterate quickly with users; strong communication to demo partial work and request targeted feedback.

Assets: GitHub Actions CI, lovable.dev, and building audit trails/alerts.