One ritual, once a month. That’s the product.
RE has exactly one job: get your month from “probably fine” to “closed at $0.00, locked, reported.” Here is every step of how it does that — and what it refuses to do.
This number is the whole interface. Your month closes when — and only when — it reads $0.00 with no bank row unexplained.
During the month
Record as you go.
Or don’t.
If you like tidy habits, tap + when money moves — expense, income, or transfer — snap the receipt, done. Every entry is true double-entry underneath; RE rejects anything that doesn’t balance, server-side, in integer cents.
If you’re a once-a-month person, that’s fine too: the statement import can create the entries for you at close time, each one categorized in a tap. The ritual works either way — entries you recorded get matched, entries you didn’t get created.
Real double-entry
Debits equal credits on every record or it doesn’t save. You never see the ledger jargon unless you open Journal mode — but your accountant will know it’s there.
Receipts where they belong
Photos and PDFs attach to the entry they prove, stored outside the web root, served only to signed-in users. Audit season becomes a scroll, not a search party.
The anomaly scan
Duplicates, future-dated entries, missing descriptions, bank entries that never reconciled — RE flags them quietly all month so nothing ambushes you at close.
Close day
Fifteen minutes, five moves.
Start the reconciliation
Pick the bank account and month, type the opening and closing balances from the statement. Two numbers — that’s all the setup there is.
Import the statement
Upload CSV or PDF from any bank. RE finds the header row, the date format, debit/credit columns, currency punctuation, negatives-in-parentheses — and skips rows it has already seen, so re-importing is always safe.
Let it match — honestly
A bank row pairs with an entry only on exact amount within ±3 days, and only when there’s exactly one candidate. Anything ambiguous waits for you. Software that guesses with your books is software you can’t trust at $0.00.
Categorize the strangers
Rows with no matching entry become entries in one tap: RE pre-fills the category from what you taught it in past months, you confirm, and the rule sticks forever. Transfers between your own accounts are spotted and entered once — not double-counted as expense and income.
Close at zero
When the difference reads $0.00 and no row is unexplained, Close month unlocks. The month locks — entries in it can’t be edited or slipped in behind the report. The one-page close report generates itself. Reopening is an admin action that leaves a trace, not a habit.
What RE refuses to do
Simple is a budget.
We spend it carefully.
Every feature bookkeeping software adds makes the close longer and the honest number blurrier. So RE draws hard lines — not because these things don’t matter, but because they belong to other tools:
- No bank feeds. Feeds break, drift, and demand your bank credentials. Statements are certain, universal, and already in your inbox.
- No payroll, no invoicing, no inventory. RE keeps the books; it doesn’t run the business.
- No force-close. There is no button that makes a wrong month look right. That’s the point.
“Trust isn’t a feature you add. It’s a number that reads $0.00 because the arithmetic left it no other choice.”
Why the close gate never bends