The books

Books is the business's own ledger: one set of books for the business, with each location as a column on it, so a profit and loss by location adds up to the whole. The register, online orders, wholesale, stock and production post to it as they happen; you bring in the bank and file what the books cannot know for themselves.

Who sees the books

Owners always do. To give them to someone else (a bookkeeper or a manager), an owner opens Books, Assistant, and under Who Sees the Books switches on Sees the books for them, or invite them as a Bookkeeper from Settings, Team: a bookkeeper's login sees the books and nothing else.

Starting out

1. Open Books. The first time, it asks how much the books assistant should do (below).
2. On Bank, connect the bank, or add each bank account and card by hand.
3. On Assistant, under Starting Balances, set The day the books begin and what each account held that day. Without it, the books only know what has moved since.

Connecting the bank

1. On Bank, choose Connect a bank, then Open my bank's sign-in. Your bank's own sign-in opens in Plaid's window; BookNovi never sees the password.
2. Choose the accounts to share. Each becomes a bank account in the books, or joins the one already here with the same bank and last digits (one you had been bringing files into keeps every line it has). A loan is given a liability account to file its payments against; an investment account is listed and left alone.
3. The last month of lines comes in at once and older ones follow; from then on new lines arrive by themselves as the bank reports them, and once a day besides. Sync now asks right away.

Under Connected Banks, each connection shows its accounts, the bank's own balance and when it was last pulled. A pending charge shows once it posts, never twice. A line the bank takes back disappears while it waits; one you had already filed stays filed and is flagged under Worth a look, so nothing is reversed behind your back.

When a bank wants you to sign in again, the connection says so and Fix the connection opens the sign-in. Disconnect forgets the connection at Plaid; the accounts and their lines stay in the books.

Verify the account holder asks the bank who holds each account and its routing numbers. The screen says only "Verified on 10/06/2026 — name matches" (or does not match the business's name); the numbers themselves never reach the screen and are kept for paying vendors and being paid. Until Plaid's keys are set on the server, Connect a bank says so; bring in a statement file instead.

Bringing in a statement file

1. On Bank, choose Bring In a Statement File.
2. From the bank's website, export the account's activity as CSV, and pick the file. Lines already here are skipped, so overlapping dates are safe.
3. Each line waits to be filed. Choose File it under an account, or the other half of a transfer between your own accounts.

The count beside Bank is how many lines wait.

Rules and the assistant

• A rule files every bank line whose description has some words under one account. It proposes until you switch it to Automatic. One is offered when you file the same payee the same way a few times.
• The books assistant suggests where each line goes. Choose how much it does on the Assistant tab: Propose, and I decide, where nothing is filed until you say so; Follow the rules I approve; or File what it is sure of, under a limit you set. How It Works for You shows how often its proposals were kept.

Most people start with it proposing, and give it more to do once it has learned how they file things.

Subscriptions and repeating bills

Bank, Subscriptions & Bills finds what the business pays again and again: software and apps, the phone and internet, rent, insurance, the cleaners. It looks over the outgoing bank and card lines and the bills you entered, from the last two years, after each bank pull and once a day, and keeps each group with one payee, a regular interval (a week, two weeks, a month, a quarter or a year) and a similar amount. Three charges or more make it Likely; fewer is a Maybe. Transfers between your own accounts, a card's payment, pay and payroll taxes and a loan's payments are never counted. A bill and the bank line that paid it are one charge. PayPal, Apple and Google Play do not say who is paid, so their charges are grouped by amount and interval for you to name.

Nothing counts until a person says so. Each one found waits under Waiting for a yes: press It repeats (open it to say how often, and whether it is a subscription or a repeating bill), or Not a subscription, and it is not offered again. Add one it missed makes a repeating charge from any bank line or bill you pick, with how often it comes.

Across the top: what the confirmed ones cost A month and A year (a weekly charge counts 52 times a year, every two weeks 26, a quarterly one four times, a yearly one once), what waits for a yes, the quarterly and yearly ones Renewing in 30 days, and what canceling has saved. Worth a look names a charge after a cancellation, a price that went up, a renewal coming, two or more doing one job (and BookNovi doing it too, when the business uses that part of BookNovi), and the ones marked unused. Each row says how often it comes, what it usually costs (a range when it varies, as a utility does), the last and next charge, the card or account paying it and who looks after it.

Open one to change it:

• About It: its name, what it does, how often, its vendor (for the email and the website), who looks after it, how many days ahead its renewal is told, its cancel page, a contract it is under, and We do not use it.
• Its Charges: every line and bill kept with it. Not one of its charges leaves one out; choose some and Split them off into one of their own (a PayPal group that is two services). Merge Another Into It joins two found apart. What you merge, split or leave out stays that way.
• A quarterly or yearly one is told to whoever looks after it (the owners when nobody is named) 14 days before it renews, once each term, as a to-do and an email when the business sends email. One under a contract keeps the contract's own notice reminders instead. The days ahead are a setting, behind the settings button, beside how close an amount must be to count as the same charge (25% to start).
• It ends by itself after two repeats in a row do not come.

Help to Cancel It helps you cancel; BookNovi never signs in anywhere, keeps no password and cancels nothing. Open the cancel page (or Open their website) and Search how to cancel it take you to the vendor. The email is drafted from the vendor's record for you to change: Copy the email, or Send it from your own mailbox, filed on the vendor's record (only when you press it). Then Record that I asked, with the day it ends: it counts until then, a to-do reminds whoever looks after it to check the next statement, and a charge after that day is flagged as Still charged after you canceled. When the business has the pay-as-you-go tools on, the assistant can look the cancel page up when you ask it.

The books assistant answers what the business pays for subscriptions, what renews this month and what went up, and can put a yes, a Not a subscription or a cancellation forward as a card for you to approve. The figures are on Overview too, and the confirmed ones go out in the cash forecast report and in what is due soon.

Payables: what the business owes

Payables & Receivables, Payables is accounts payable. Every bill shows where it stands (open, partly paid, paid, closed short, or voided), how many days late it is, when it is due, and whether a payment run is paying it. Across the top, the strip counts the bills at each standing and what they come to; a tap shows only those. Under it, How Old What Is Owed Is puts what is open in five buckets (current, 1–30, 31–60, 61–90 and over 90 days past due), and When It Comes Due says what is past due, due this week (through Sunday), due later this month, and later.

Purchase Orders Waiting for a Bill lists every order that was ordered or received and has no bill yet. When the vendor's invoice arrives, choose Enter the bill: the order's lines at cost go into Inventory, owed to the vendor by its terms (or the due day you give), and a total that differs from the order carries the rest on its own line. A bill is entered once an order; the order leaves the list.

Open a bill to manage it:

• Dates and Promises: change the due day, note the day the vendor was promised payment and why ("waiting on the credit memo"), or put the bill on hold with a reason, which keeps it out of payment runs until the hold is cleared. A promised day places the bill in the schedule in place of its due day.
• Payments lists what was paid against it by hand, from the bank, or in a run, and lets you cancel a run's payment while it is still scheduled.
• Settle It Another Way: mark it paid by hand for money that never touches the bank feed, or close it short when the rest will not be paid (a credit, a discount taken, a dispute settled). What is forgiven leaves Accounts payable for Vendor credits and discounts, and the bill is closed with the reason. A payment the bank reports still closes the bill by itself when its line is filed on Bank.

To pay bills, choose them with the boxes and press Pay the chosen (below, under Paying bills).

Paying bills through the bill-pay provider

Bills are paid in payment runs through Melio, behind one seam, so the provider can change. The vendor needs no account anywhere. Before the first run, Bill Pay Setup asks:

1. Who Is Paying: the business's legal name, how it is formed, its address, its tax id (the EIN, or a sole proprietor's SSN) and the people who own a quarter or more of it, with their dates of birth. The provider runs its checks on these; the tax id and the dates of birth are sealed on the server and never shown again (the last four digits of the tax id are). The two disclosure lines the provider requires are shown here and accepted once; the screen says whether the business is being checked, verified, needs more information, or is not allowed to pay, and Check the standing again asks the provider.
2. Paying From: a bank account or card linked on the provider's own page. It is matched to the account in the books with the same last digits, so each payment posts against the right one.
3. How Each Vendor Is Paid: its bank for a transfer, an address for a paper check, or an email for a virtual card. The numbers are sealed.
4. An owner's approval: a run over the amount set waits for an owner before anyone can send it.

Then on Payables, choose the bills and press Pay the chosen. The drawer asks which account to pay from, the day the money leaves, and how it goes (a bank transfer in about three business days with no fee, same-day or instant for 1% up to $30, a paper check, an expedited check, a wire, or a virtual card), and shows the provider's fees before anything is made. Draft the run keeps it under Payment Runs; open the run, read the two lines, tick the box and Send. Each bill becomes one payment at the provider. The payment is Scheduled until the money leaves; then it is On its way and posts to the books (Accounts payable paid down, the fee an expense, the bank credited) exactly once; Delivered when it lands. A payment that fails or comes back is reversed with a compensating entry, the bill is open again, and a note under Worth a Second Look says so. Check on payments asks the provider about every payment still moving; the clock does the same once a day.

Without Melio's key on the server, a stand-in takes its place: everything works, and no money moves. The screens say so.

Vendor invoices read by OCR

Vendor Invoices reads a vendor's invoice for you. Press Hand in an invoice and choose a PDF or a picture (up to 8 MB). It is read through the assistant's model into the fields of a bill (the vendor, the invoice number, the dates, the terms, the purchase order number, each line, tax, shipping and the total), matched to a vendor on file and to a purchase order waiting for a bill, and shown beside the file for you to check. Anything that does not add up (lines that do not sum to the subtotal, a due date before the invoice date) is listed at the top. Correct what the reader got wrong, pick the account for each line, and press Make the bill; it posts through the same path as a bill entered by hand, tied to the scan and its order. Discard keeps the file ninety days and marks it. Without the assistant's key, a PDF or picture is kept and you fill in the fields by hand (a text file's labeled lines are read).

Receivables: what is owed to the business

Receivables is accounts receivable, in the same shape: every invoice (written on Customers, or made by a wholesale order on terms or a sale paid on account) with where it stands, how late it is, the strip, the aging and the schedule. Open an invoice to change its due day, note the day the customer promised to pay and what they said, and send a reminder through the app's own sending: a wholesale account gets the portal's reminder with its Pay online button; anyone else gets a plain email to the address on their record, with a line of your own if you add one. Each reminder is kept on the invoice with who it went to. Reminders by the Clock sends them for you: so many days after the due date, then every so many days, once a day at most, to customers with an email who are not wholesale accounts (those follow the schedule under Wholesale).

When the rest of an invoice will not be paid, Write it off with the reason: Accounts receivable comes down, the loss goes to Invoices written off, and the invoice is closed. Money received is recorded on Customers as before, and a deposit the bank reports is matched on Bank.

Landed costs: freight and duty that arrive after the goods

The final freight, duty, brokerage, insurance or 3PL receiving bill often comes weeks after the goods were received. Landed Costs (under Payables & Receivables) allocates it over what came in, so the stock carries what it really cost.

1. Choose Allocate a cost and find the receipt, or the whole import, by its number or the vendor.
2. Choose the kind of cost, the amount and the day it posts, and whether it is shared By value (duty, brokerage and insurance usually are) or By quantity (freight and receiving often are). A negative amount takes back what was allocated too high at receipt.
3. Pick the bill in the books it came from, if it is entered there; otherwise it comes out of Freight, duty and fees on purchases, or an account you choose.
4. Check each tag's share in the table, then Allocate and post it.

What is still on the shelf raises each tag's cost and the item's average, and goes into Inventory; what already sold goes to Cost of goods on the day it posts. Open an allocation to see each tag's share, and Reverse it with the reason if it was wrong: a compensating entry posts and the costs move back.

Deductions and chargebacks

Deductions & Chargebacks (after Receivables) keeps what customers take back, each with its reason, a strip of standings that filters, the aging of what is open and a report by reason for the last year.

• A deduction is what a customer took off a remittance: a check for less than the invoice, with a shortage, damage, a promotion, a compliance fine, pricing, freight or an early-payment discount as the reason. Record a deduction against the invoice. The invoice stays owed for it, and ages, until you decide: Dispute it with what you told the customer, Accept it (a credit on the invoice to Customer deductions and allowances, or Early-payment discounts given), or Mark it recovered when they pay it after all. An early-payment deduction says whether the account's terms allow it.
• A chargeback is money taken back. One from a card processor or a marketplace comes out of the payout, so it posts the day it is recorded against the processor's clearing account, with its fee. One from a retailer comes off an invoice and posts nothing until it is lost or accepted, when it becomes a credit on the invoice to Chargebacks and disputes. Record a chargeback with the order number it was for (or the invoice), keep the evidence on it (Keep a paper: the tracking, the signed delivery, the messages), Note the response you sent, and mark it Won, Lost or Accepted. Won, a processor's chargeback comes back and its fee stays. Disputes the card processor reported are offered at the top to be recorded in one step.

An invoice's drawer on Receivables lists what stands against it, and its row says how many are open.

Early-payment terms

A vendor or a wholesale account can carry an early-payment discount with its terms ("2/10 net 30"). On Payables, a bill from such a vendor says what paying by the day saves; pay the rest and close it short as the discount taken. On Receivables, an invoice says what the customer may take off, and a remittance short by that much is recorded as an early-payment deduction and accepted.

Sent to the accounting system

On Bill Pay Setup, Sent to the Accounting System connects the business's QuickBooks Online or Xero file, signed into on its own page. The books stay the record: vendors, bills and their payments, customers, invoices and their payments are written there once each and updated by the id the system gave back; nothing is read back. Send now sends what is new or changed; the clock sends once a day. A record the system refuses keeps its sentence here and is tried again next time. Until Andrew registers the Intuit and Xero apps, the buttons say so.

Financing

Financing shows the offers a financing provider makes the business (Stripe Capital first, for businesses taking cards through the app's processor), read through one seam. An offer says its amount, fee, how it is repaid and how long it is open; accepting happens on the provider's own terms page. Nothing is lent by the app.

Bills and vendors

Vendors shows each vendor, what is owed and how old it is, with their bills and purchase orders, and a statement of the account.

Invoices and customers

Customers is where an invoice is written and a payment received: bill a customer on account with an invoice, record what they pay, and send a statement of what is still owed. Sales rung up at the register are paid on the spot and never land here. Wholesale orders on terms do.

Loans and equipment

• Loans: add a loan with what was borrowed, the rate and the term, and its amortization schedule is worked out; each payment is split into interest and principal.
• Equipment: every chair, dryer, machine, tool, laptop and vehicle the business owns: where it is, who has it, what it cost, its warranty and its service.

The cash plan

Cash Plan (under Overview, once an owner switches on Cash plan under Admin, Modules) says what cash the business will have each week for the next 13 weeks. It starts from the cash in the books today, the bank's own balance, or a figure you give it for planning only.

• Money in: each invoice on the day its customer pays (on its terms, a set number of days after due, or as their last invoices show), booked visits and their deposits, card sales on their way to the bank, renewals and leases.
• Money out: bills on their due day, purchase orders until they are billed, repeating bills, loan payments, what is owed on each credit card on its payment day, payroll on its pay days, sales tax by its filing day and, if you choose, suggested purchases not yet ordered.
• What is not on record yet, such as sales in weeks not yet booked, is added at the pace of the last 8 weeks and marked as an estimate.

Every line says why it lands on its day. Open a week to see its lines, or a lane to follow one kind of money across the weeks; a line opens its record. Show by turns the plan into days, weeks or months, and a business with more than one location can see one at a time.

• Buffer is the cash to keep at all times: an amount, or weeks of money out, whichever is greater. The plan names the first day it falls under the buffer, and its lowest point. The plan is checked against it every day: the first time the cash goes under, the owner gets a to-do and an email, and again only after it has come back above.
• Beside the Plan lists what the plan leaves out or counts apart: invoices past the day they were expected and visits waiting on a deposit (neither counted), bills past due (counted today), and bills held back and lines set aside (not counted).
• Cash Conversion Cycle says how long cash is tied up: the days stock lasts and the days customers take to pay, less the days vendors give you.

Open a line to change where the plan puts it, and say why:

• Move to another day keeps the new day as the invoice's or the bill's promise, so the record says it too. An invoice past its day can be moved back into the plan; a bill already in a payment run cannot be moved.
• Set aside takes a line out of the plan without changing its record, such as a payment you know will not come. It is listed under Set Aside beside the plan, and Count it again puts it back.

What-Ifs tries a change on the plan without changing any record: money in or out (once, or repeating until a day), a line on another day, a lane up or down by a percent, or one customer or every customer paying later. Each what-if is kept for the business, and up to 4 are drawn on the chart at once, each with its lowest point and its ending beside the plan's. The page's address keeps which are shown, so a link opens the same view. The books assistant can try a what-if when you ask, and can propose one to keep, which a person approves.

Settings sets the weeks ahead, the buffer, where the plan starts, how long card payments take to arrive, when customers pay (and the kinds of account that pay their own way), how often the team is paid and the next pay day, the employer's cost on top, how often sales tax is filed, and each credit card's payment day. A single customer's own way of paying is set through the API. The books assistant answers from the plan too: ask it what cash there will be on a day.

Entries, reconciling and closing

• Entries is for what the register and the bank do not report: the owner putting money in or taking it out, a correction, depreciation. Debits and credits must be equal. Most months need none.
• Reconcile agrees an account with its statement: the statement's ending balance, and the lines that cleared.
• Close a Period locks the books up to a day, so nothing before it changes by accident. Closing stays with owners.

Reports

Reports has the financial statements (profit and loss, the balance sheet, cash flow), and the library of accounting reports: sales tax, what was paid to whom, bills waiting, every entry. Each can be run by location and for any stretch of days. Cost to serve says what serving each channel, customer, product and order cost over a stretch of days: the goods, freight in (from landed costs allocated after receipt), fulfillment (each order that went out from a 3PL's place carries that 3PL's rate card: the order, each unit picked, each parcel), shipping out, payment fees, chargebacks, deductions and returns, against what each brought in, with the margin and a spreadsheet. Nothing is stored; it is read from the records each time. Accounts lists every account and what it holds today; open one to see what went through it.

Liabilities held for others (tax to send in, tips to pay out, gift cards and prepaid visits still to be used) are shown apart on Overview.

Best practices

• Set the starting balances first. Every report after them is only as right as they are.
• Connect the bank so its lines come in by themselves, and file them every week while you remember what each was.
• Make a rule for anything that repeats: rent, software, the card processor's deposits.
• Look over Subscriptions & Bills each month: say yes or no to what was found, and mark what nobody uses. Cancel it on the vendor's page or by email, record the day, and watch for a charge after it.
• Reconcile every account every month, then close the month.
• Enter the vendor's invoice against its purchase order the day it arrives, so what is owed is in the books from that day and the aging is honest.
• Pay in runs once or twice a week from one account, and put a disputed bill on hold rather than leaving it to be paid by mistake.
• Allocate a late freight or duty bill the day it is entered, over the receipt it belongs to, so the shelves and the balance sheet agree.
• Record a deduction the day the short payment arrives, with the customer's reason, and decide it within the month; the report by reason shows which customers and which reasons to fix at the source.
• Give your bookkeeper a Bookkeeper login rather than yours. They see the books and nothing else.