Guidance is the set of rules and logic Dext AI Assist uses to generate suggestions. This article explains how to create, edit, and review guidance - whether you're a practice managing clients or a business using Dext directly.

Admins - including accountants and bookkeepers accessing client accounts - can view, create, edit, and manage guidance, as well as control how suggestions are applied. Standard users can view and apply suggestions to their own items, but cannot edit guidance.

Note: Dext AI Assist takes priority over other automation features, including supplier rules, smart categories, and basic extraction.

Core guidance

Core guidance is a library of pre-configured guidances built by Dext, designed around standard business activities shaped by regional law and compliance standards — for example, HMRC requirements in the UK. It's free of charge, permanently, and read-only. Only Dext can create or modify Core Guidance items.

Important: Core guidance is available for UK, Australia, and France. US and Canada will follow shortly after.

How Core guidance works for practices

Note: Core guidance items are available to all Practice Admins and Client Admins with the Manage the practice's business permission under Practice settings > AI Assist > Core guidance. They don't appear in client accounts until an Admin explicitly activates them and assigns them to clients.

To add a Core Guidance item to your practice:

Go to Practice settings, then select AI Assist.
Select Core guidance from the left-hand navigation.
Find the item you want to enable and select Activate.
Select the Application mode — choose Manual review or Auto-apply.
Select Next to move to the Manage Clients step.
Toggle All clients to apply the guidance to your entire client base, or use Find client to search for and enable it for specific clients individually.
Select Activate guidance to confirm.

Core Guidance list in Practice Settings showing guidance items with Manage and Activate buttons.

Manage Clients modal with All clients toggle, Find client search field, and a list of clients with individual Enabled toggles.

Once confirmed, the item appears in the Shared guidance list tagged as Core. You can change its Application mode or update which clients it applies to, from the Actions drop-down next to the item in the Shared guidance list.

You can also manage an active Core guidance item directly from the Core guidance page:

Select Manage next to the item to go to the Shared guidance list
Then select Actions > Edit to update the Application mode or change which clients the guidance is activated for.

To deactivate a Core guidance item for all clients at once, toggle off the Activated toggle next to the item in the Shared guidance list.

Shared Guidance page in Practice Settings showing Core guidance items with Application mode dropdowns, Activated toggles, and an Actions menu open displaying Edit and Delete options.

Note: If you delete a Core guidance item from the Shared guidance list, it's removed from all client accounts it was enabled for and no longer appears in their Business settings > AI Assist page. The item remains available under Practice settings > AI Assist > Core guidance and can be re-added at any time using Add to practice.

How Core guidance works for clients

When an Admin in the practice account enables a Core guidance item and assigns it to a client, it appears in that client's account under Business settings > AI Assist as a read-only item. Clients don't need an AI Assist subscription or free trial for Core guidance to appear.

Clients can't modify Core guidance. If a client wants a change, they should contact their practice directly. The practice can either disable the Core guidance item for that client, or create a new guidance — either as a Shared guidance item in their Practice settings to apply across clients, or directly in the client's Business settings to apply to that account only.

AI Assist Guidance page in a client's Business Settings showing Core guidance items tagged Core with a tooltip reading "This guidance is managed by your practice. Contact your accountant to request changes."

Shared guidance

Shared guidance is only available to accountants and bookkeepers with a Dext Practice account.

Shared guidance is centrally managed in Practice settings and can be enabled for all or selected clients. Updates apply automatically to all linked clients and apply to new items only.

Note: Access to Dext AI Assist in Practice settings is limited to Practice Admins and Client Admins with the Manage the practice's business permission.

Create and assign shared guidance

To create and assign shared guidance:

Go to Practice settings.
Select AI Assist > Shared guidance.
Select Create guidance.
Enter a Name and Description.
Choose the Application mode (Auto-apply or Manual review).
Select Next and choose the clients to enable it for by switching the toggle to Yes.
Select Create guidance to confirm.

Shared guidance page in Practice settings showing list of guidance rules applied across clients, including names, descriptions, application modes, activated toggles, and actions menu.

Create guidance modal in Practice settings showing fields for name, description, and application mode, with guidance writing tips, warning message about changes applying to new items only, and Next and Cancel buttons.

Manage Clients step in Create guidance modal showing client list with enable toggles, search field, and Create guidance button to assign guidance to selected clients.

Shared guidance is visible in client accounts, but can't be edited there. Clients can use it, but only the practice can manage it.

AI Assist Guidance page in Business settings showing list of guidance rules with names, descriptions, performance metrics, auto-apply settings, activated toggles, and edit and delete actions.

Account-level guidance

Note: This guidance applies to individual accounts only. It can be used in standalone business accounts or in client accounts within a practice, but it is created and managed separately from practice-level guidance.

You can generate, create, and manage guidance in any Dext account from Business settings.

Access guidance

To access guidance in Business settings:

Go to Business settings.
Select AI Assist in the left-hand menu.

AI Assist Guidance page in Business settings showing list of guidance rules with names, descriptions, creators, suggestion metrics, application modes, enabled toggles, and edit and delete actions.

View existing guidance

Existing guidance is displayed as a list of rules. Each rule shows:

Name and description of the guidance
Created by - the user who created the rule
Suggestions triggered, applied, and dismissed - how the rule is performing
Application mode - Manual review or Auto-apply
Enabled status - whether the rule is active

From this view, admins can edit, change the application mode, enable or disable, and delete guidance.

View guidance history

You can view the history of changes made to a guidance rule in Business settings. This helps you track what changed, when it changed, and who made the update.

Note: Guidance history is only available for account-level guidance in Business settings. It is not available for practice-level guidance.

To view guidance history:

Go to Business settings.
Select AI Assist in the left-hand menu.
In the guidance list, find the rule you want to review.
Select the History icon at the start of the guidance row.

AI Assist guidance table with a History icon at the beginning of a guidance row.

Guidance history panel showing a list of changes with timestamps and user names.

Generate guidance

If no guidance exists yet, select Generate to let the agent create guidance automatically based on your current data and workflows.

Note: Generate can only be used once. After the initial set of guidance is created, the button will be greyed out. The ability to regenerate updated guidance is planned for a future update.

Create guidance manually

To create guidance manually:

Select Create guidance.
Review the guidance writing tips at the top of the page.
Enter a Name and Description explaining the logic.
Choose how it should apply: Manual review or Auto-apply.
Select Create guidance to save.

Create guidance modal with name, description, and application mode fields.

Edit guidance

To edit an existing rule:

In the guidance list, select Edit next to the guidance you want to update.
Update the Description or Application mode.
Select Save to apply changes.

Note: Changes to guidance apply to new items only.

Review suggestion performance

You can review how guidance is performing directly from the guidance list in Business settings. Each rule shows counts for suggestions triggered, applied, and dismissed.

To see affected items:

Go to Business settings > AI Assist.
In the guidance list, find the Suggestions triggered, Suggestions applied, or Suggestions dismissed column for the relevant rule.
Select any count to open a preview of the exact items where the guidance was suggested, applied, or dismissed.