Melio Agent Mel

Agent Mel is a question-and-answer layer over accounts payable data a practice already holds in Melio. That is a modest job, and Melio describes it honestly, which is more than most launches in this category manage.

What it does well. The scope is narrow and clear. Ask which bills are overdue, what a vendor has been paid this year or which recurring payments went out, and the answer comes from live data without exporting to a spreadsheet. It sits inside the dashboard with no setup, and it is offered on the Accountants Dashboard, so it was built with bookkeepers in mind. Melio's QuickBooks, Xero and NetSuite syncs are long established, so the data it reads should match the ledger. The beta label, the instruction to double-check answers and the statement that queries are not used for model training are welcome candour.

Where it falls short. It covers payables only, so receivables and anything outside Melio are out of reach. An accountant's clients cannot use it, which limits any self-service benefit. It answers questions rather than doing work: it will not code a bill, chase an approval or schedule a payment run. Melio's own terms say it may be changed, restricted or withdrawn at any time, so do not build a process around it. Melio itself runs on US payment rails with US pricing, from a free Go plan to $80 a month for Unlimited plus per-payment fees, so it is not a practical option for UK firms paying UK suppliers.

Best for. US bookkeepers and small accounting firms that already run client bill payments through Melio. Paid plans are free for the first 90 days, which is enough to test it against a client with messy vendor names and partial payments, since that is where conversational answers tend to go wrong. If you want automated invoice capture and coding rather than answers, Stampli or Vic.ai in this directory do more of the actual work.

Verdict. A useful convenience for existing Melio users at no extra charge, but not a reason to move a client's payables onto Melio, and of limited relevance to UK practices.