Question 1

I don't have a registered business name yet. Can I still start?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Leave the name blank and setup calls it "My Business" until you change it. Nothing downstream depends on the name — you can rename the entity later and every statement re-renders with the new heading.

Question 2

What is 'accounting basis' and which do I pick?

Accepted Answer

Setup never asks it that way. It asks when you want money counted: on the day cash moves (cash basis), or on the day the work is done or the bill is raised (accrual basis). If you are a freelancer, a small shop, or you simply do not know — pick cash. It matches your bank account and is what most small entities file. Choose accrual if you invoice customers and get paid later, hold inventory, or a lender or auditor has asked for it. You can change it. Existing entries stay where they are; the statements recompute.

Question 3

Do I have to build a chart of accounts?

Accepted Answer

No. Pick what the entity is — company, sole trader, charity, and so on — and a full chart of accounts is created for you, numbered and grouped the way an accountant would expect. Add, rename or hide accounts afterwards.

Question 4

Does the setup differ by industry?

Accepted Answer

Yes — this is one of the platform's core advantages. Banking books do not look like manufacturing books, so setup asks what the business does and installs an industry pack: a chart of accounts, terminology and demo transactions shaped for that trade. Twelve packs are built in — retail, manufacturing, professional services, hospitality, construction, charities and more. A manufacturer gets work-in-progress and cost-of-production accounts; a charity gets fund and grant accounts. You can change the industry later, and anything you add yourself is never removed.

Question 5

Can I try it without using my real records?

Accepted Answer

Generate demo data from the Studio screen. It creates a realistic few months of transactions and matching documents for your entity type so every report, reconciliation and control has something to show. Demo rows are tagged as demo, appear with a marker, and can be cleared in one action without touching anything real.

Question 6

How long does setup actually take?

Accepted Answer

Three screens. Name and type, when money counts, and the opening position if you have one. Most people are on the Studio screen inside two minutes.

Question 7

I forgot my password. How do I get back in?

Accepted Answer

Use "Forgot password?" on the sign-in screen and a reset link is emailed to you. The link opens a screen where you choose a new password and sign straight in.

Question 8

What file types can I upload?

Accepted Answer

PDFs, photos of receipts (JPG, PNG, HEIC), CSV files, and Excel spreadsheets. Photos are read with the same vision model as PDFs, so a phone snapshot of a receipt on a table works.

Question 9

Does uploading a document post it to my books?

Accepted Answer

No. Extraction produces a draft: date, counterparty, amount, tax, the suggested debit and credit accounts, and a confidence indicator. It sits in Review until you confirm it. Confirming posts a balanced journal entry with the source document permanently attached to it.

Question 10

The AI picked the wrong account. What now?

Accepted Answer

Change it in Review before confirming — that is what Review is for. If it is already posted, post a reversal and re-enter it; the ledger never gets edited in place.

Question 11

Can it read a multi-page bank statement PDF?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Each line becomes a statement line rather than a journal entry, which then flows into Reconcile for matching. Duplicate uploads are detected by date, amount and description, so re-importing an overlapping range does not double up.

Question 12

My spreadsheet columns are named oddly. Will the import fail?

Accepted Answer

Import shows you a mapping step with its best guess for each column — date, description, money in, money out, balance, reference. Correct anything it got wrong and the mapping is remembered for that source.

Question 13

Why can't I just edit a wrong entry?

Accepted Answer

Because an editable ledger proves nothing. Anyone reviewing your books — a lender, a buyer, a tax auditor — needs the record to be the record. Corrections are made by reversal: the system posts a mirrored entry on a date you choose, links it to the original, and both stay visible with the reason you gave.

Question 14

Do reversals get the same checks as normal postings?

Accepted Answer

Yes. A reversal into a locked period is blocked, a reversal of an already-reversed entry is blocked, and one without a reason is flagged as an exception. Reversals are one of the first things an auditor looks at, so they are logged loudly.

Question 15

What exactly is in the audit log?

Accepted Answer

Every upload, extraction, confirmation, posting, reversal, reconciliation match, control override, period lock and unlock — with who did it, when, and what changed. It is append-only.

Question 16

Can I record entries for more than one location?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Define locations for the entity and tag entries to them. Every statement can then be filtered to one location or consolidated across all of them.

Question 17

What is an exception?

Accepted Answer

A flag saying a posting is allowed but under-supported. A lodgement recorded with no stamped bank slip, inventory purchased with no supplier invoice, a payment to a counterparty you have never recorded before, a bank line unmatched for weeks, a loan agreement whose scheduled interest never appeared. Exceptions are graded info, warning or critical, and they never stop you posting. They collect on the Controls screen so nothing quietly rots.

Question 18

Why does it want me to record suppliers, banks and employees?

Accepted Answer

Master data is how the checks get sharp. Once the system knows who your real counterparties are, it can flag a first-time payee, spot a duplicated supplier under a slightly different spelling, and tell payroll apart from a random transfer.

Question 19

What do policies and agreements do?

Accepted Answer

Policies encode your rules — the capitalisation threshold, depreciation method and useful lives, how goodwill is treated. Agreements encode standing obligations — a loan, a lease, a subscription contract. Both feed the control scans and the Copilot. A loan on file means the system knows an interest charge is due each month and flags its absence rather than waiting for you to remember.

Question 20

Can I dismiss an exception I disagree with?

Accepted Answer

Yes, with a reason. The dismissal and the reason go into the audit log, so the judgement call is documented rather than erased.

Question 21

Which statements do I get?

Accepted Answer

Profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow, a proper indirect-method statement of cash flows, trial balance, and a full set of numbered notes with references from the face of the statements.

Question 22

What is the difference between the cash flow report and the statement of cash flows?

Accepted Answer

The cash flow report is a movement summary: money in, money out, by category. Useful day to day. The statement of cash flows is the formal one. It starts from net income, adds back non-cash items like depreciation, adjusts for movements in receivables, inventory and payables, and splits everything into operating, investing and financing. That is the version a lender or auditor expects.

Question 23

Can I see how a figure was built?

Accepted Answer

Click any number. Drill-down lists the underlying ledger lines and each line links to its journal entry and source document.

Question 24

What does closing a period do?

Accepted Answer

It locks it. No new postings, no reversals dated inside it, no imports landing in it. Before locking, the close checklist surfaces unreconciled bank lines, open exceptions and unconfirmed drafts so you are not sealing a mess. Unlocking is possible and recorded.

Question 25

Can I export?

Accepted Answer

Trial balance, general ledger, statements and note disclosures export to CSV, and every source document can be downloaded. Your data is never held hostage.

Question 26

What can I ask it?

Accepted Answer

Anything about your books or about accounting. "Why did gross margin drop in March?", "What's sitting unreconciled?", "Reverse entry 42, wrong supplier", "What does accrued expense mean here?" It reads your live statements, ledger, exceptions, policies and agreements before answering, so the answer is about your entity rather than a textbook.

Question 27

Can it change my books?

Accepted Answer

It proposes; you confirm. Anything that would write to the ledger comes back as a proposal card showing the exact entry, and nothing happens until you approve it. It also flags its own proposals when they trip a control.

Question 28

How do I get a figure into the conversation?

Accepted Answer

Drag it. Any number or row in Studio, Ledger, Review, Reconcile, Reports or Controls can be dragged straight onto the Copilot and it arrives with its full context attached.

Question 29

Does it take files and voice?

Accepted Answer

Both. Drop a file onto the panel to discuss it before posting, or use the microphone to talk. The panel itself is draggable and resizable, so it can sit out of the way or take over the screen.

Question 30

Can it set up my business from my documents?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Say something like "from my uploads, update the company profile" or "expand the chart of accounts for these transactions". The Copilot reads your uploaded documents, finds what matters — legal name, tax numbers, transaction types it has no account for — and returns an approval card. The card shows every proposed field change or new account, with the reason and a warning if it would replace an existing value. Nothing is written until you confirm it, so the system stays credible.

Question 31

Is there a full-screen version?

Accepted Answer

Yes — the Ops AI page, first in the side navigation. On the left are all your past conversations, each with its own address you can bookmark or share; in the middle is the conversation itself, with the same brain, tools and approval cards as the floating panel; on the right is a live briefing of the business — files still being read or that failed, entries waiting for approval, open control flags, unmatched bank lines and where this month's close stands. Every briefing line is clickable: open the page it refers to, or drop a ready-made question into the conversation. The floating panel and the page share the same history, so a chat you start in the bubble carries on full screen.

Question 32

Can I leave notes on a document for the AI?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Open any upload and, at the foot of the "what we read" panel, add a note — "this is personal, don't post it", "the date on this is wrong". The note stays with that file forever and appears in your activity trail. The AI reads a file's notes before it works on that document again, and can reply on the file itself — its replies show in the same thread, marked as AI. "Ask the AI about this file" hands the document and its notes straight to the assistant.

Question 33

Open it with a keyboard shortcut?

Accepted Answer

⌘K on Mac, Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux.

Question 34

What is the difference between a test and a live business?

Accepted Answer

Every business starts as a test sandbox, marked with a TEST badge in the top bar. In test mode you can wipe the books clean at any time and start over — ideal while you are learning, importing trial data or letting the Copilot propose a setup. A live business is the real thing. Live books cannot be wiped or bulk-cleared anywhere in the system; corrections go through reversals, so the audit trail stays intact.

Question 35

How do I convert a test business to live?

Accepted Answer

Advanced console → Company file → Status → "Convert to live books". It is a one-way switch and the moment is timestamped. A common pattern is to run two entities side by side — one test, one live — or to practise on a test entity and convert it once the opening position is right.

Question 36

Does demo data carry over when I go live?

Accepted Answer

Demo rows are tagged and clearly marked wherever they appear. Before converting, use "Clear all test data" to start the live books from a clean slate; the chart of accounts and company profile are kept.

Question 37

What is the advanced console and where is it?

Accepted Answer

It is a separate workspace — linked from the main navigation as "Advanced" — for the machinery under the simple interface: the chart of accounts, subledgers, the general ledger in detail, and the company file. The everyday screens stay simple; nothing here is required to use them.

Question 38

Can I customise the chart of accounts?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Every account can be renamed, recoded and given search aliases — so typing "chair rent" finds your rent account. You can add accounts freely; the chart is unique per entity and grows with the business. Accounts the system depends on (retained earnings, control accounts, and so on) are flagged as system accounts. They can be relabelled but not deleted, so the ledger can never be broken by accident.

Question 39

What are subledgers?

Accepted Answer

The general ledger automatically breaks down into subledgers — receivables by customer, payables by supplier, fixed assets, loans — because every journal line knows which counterparty it belongs to. Open the subledger tab in Advanced, pick a control account, and see exactly who makes up the balance.

Question 40

What lives in the company file?

Accepted Answer

The entity's profile template: legal and trading names, registration and tax numbers, industry, locations, accounting policies (depreciation method, capitalisation threshold, goodwill treatment) and standing agreements (loans, leases, contracts). Policies and agreements are not just records — they feed the control scans and the Copilot, so a loan on file means missing interest is flagged rather than forgotten.

Question 41

Who can see my books?

Accepted Answer

Only you. Isolation is enforced by row-level security in the database itself, so another account's query returns nothing even if the app has a bug. Documents live in a private bucket reachable only through short-lived signed links.

Question 42

Is my data used to train AI models?

Accepted Answer

No. Data goes to the model provider only to answer the request you made, and is not retained for training. See the privacy policy for the detail.

Question 43

Do you connect to my bank?

Accepted Answer

Not today. You upload statements. That means no banking credentials are ever held here — a deliberate trade of convenience for a much smaller blast radius.

Question 44

What happens if I stop using it?

Accepted Answer

Export everything first — statements, trial balance, ledger, documents. Deleting the account removes live records within 30 days. Because the ledger is immutable, there is no undo.

Help & FAQs

Getting started

Documents & AI posting

Ledger, reversals & the audit trail

Controls & exceptions

Reports, notes & closing

The Copilot

Test & live modes

The advanced console

Data, security & billing

Still stuck?