Cooked Books — AI Bookkeeping for Developers & Freelancers

A double-entry accounting system that works for you

Your books, perfectly cooked.

Bank sync, AI categorization, Stripe enrichment, and one-screen reconciliation — for people who'd rather build than do books.

14-day free trial, then $4/mo.

cookedbooks.ai

It's bookkeeping. But you talk to it.

Most bookkeeping software was built for accountants and then dumbed down for everyone else. Cooked Books was built for people who think in APIs, not spreadsheets.

Import your bank transactions. Let the AI categorize them. Review what it did. Hit approve. That's it. That's bookkeeping.

1

Import

Drop in a CSV, connect your bank, or paste a Stripe export. We'll parse it.

2

AI Categorizes

Rules match what they can. Claude handles the rest. You approve everything.

3

Reports Build Themselves

P&L, balance sheet, cash flow — all generated from your categorized transactions.

Only in Cooked Books

What if you could branch your books?

Reclassify 50 transactions, check the P&L, and decide if it looks right — all without touching your real books.

Create a scenario

Open a sandbox from your current books. Recategorize transactions, move things around, experiment freely.

Preview the impact

See exactly what your changes would do. Review every modification before it touches your live books.

Apply or discard

Happy? Apply it to your books in one click. Not happy? Discard it. Nothing was harmed. Every change is tracked and revertible.

Every mutation to your books creates an immutable commit with before/after diffs. Full audit trail, one-click revert. Accounting shouldn't be scary. Developers: yes, it's basically git for your books.

Real usage

"Claude found a $1,400 error in 30 seconds"

A founder's balance sheet didn't match their bank statement. They asked Claude to figure out why. It found the problem, explained it, and fixed it — all through Cooked Books.

Everything you need. Probably nothing you don't.

Auto-pilot your bookkeeping

Choose your automation level. Manual for full control, Suggest for AI-assisted review, or Auto-pilot to let rules and AI categorize and reconcile everything automatically. Your books stay current without daily attention.

Bank sync via Plaid

Connect Mercury, Chase, or any bank. Transactions sync automatically. Rules categorize them. Balances reconcile. No more downloading CSVs — though you still can if you want.

See inside Stripe payouts

Your bank sees "STRIPE TRANSFER $2,450." Cooked Books shows you 8 ticket sales for your conference, 2 workshop add-ons, and 1 refund. Event names, product details, charge breakdowns.

Reconciliation that makes sense

A visual grid showing every account and period at a glance. Click a cell to see the transactions, categorize them, and close the period. Statement balance vs. book balance, always visible.

Invoices & payment matching

Create invoices with line items, send them, and when payment arrives, we match it automatically. One click links the payment, marks the invoice paid, and creates the journal entry.

Actually correct, not just vibes

Real double-entry accounting. Journal entries, debits and credits, balance sheets that balance. Every automated action has an audit trail. Your accountant will be pleasantly confused.

Bring your own agent

Connect Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP client. Your LLM categorizes transactions, matches invoices, and runs reports. Full API access with your own keys.

Multi-currency support

Set your base currency to USD, GBP, EUR, or 12 others. Every amount in the app — transactions, reports, invoices — uses your currency. Built for businesses everywhere.

Limited beta

Your bank syncs. AI categorizes. You confirm.

Pro turns hours of manual data entry into a 5-minute review. We're onboarding early users now.

Request early access

cooked-books context and chill

CLI, API, or MCP — talk to your books however you want.

terminal
$ cooked-books context Acme LLC — Financial Overview ══════════════════════════════════════ Transactions: To review: 12 AI suggested: 3 Reviewed: 214 Reconciled: 186 Financials (YTD): Cash balance: $32,450.00 Revenue: $86,400.00 Expenses: $41,200.00 Net income: $45,200.00 $ cooked-books pnl --start=2025-01-01 --end=2025-12-31 $ cooked-books balance-sheet

Or ask Claude: "What did I spend on travel last quarter?" and get a real answer from real data.

Built for people who build things

Indie Developers

You have a side project that accidentally makes money. Now you need to track it. Congrats, I guess.

Solo Founders

You're the CEO, CTO, and CFO. At least one of those jobs should be easy.

Freelancers

You invoice people and money shows up eventually. Let's keep track of where it all goes.

Conference Organizers

Sponsorship revenue, venue costs, speaker travel — we know because we built this for Deep Dish Swift.

Switching from QuickBooks?

Export 4 files. Upload them. Done. We'll import your chart of accounts, contacts, invoices, and journal entries. Your accountant won't notice the difference — except they'll be happier.

1
Chart of Accounts
2
Customers & Vendors
3
Invoices
4
Journal Entries

Simple pricing, because your chart of accounts is complicated enough

Start with a 14-day free trial, then pick the plan that fits. Pro is invite-only while we onboard early users.

Most popular

Starter

$4 /mo
Billed annually at $48/yr

Bring your own AI via MCP. The full bookkeeping product stays included.

  • BYOA via MCP — Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP client
  • 1 organization
  • 500 transactions / month
  • 1 team member
  • 1 active scenario
  • Full API, CLI, MCP, history, and exports
  • Invoicing and reports included
Start free trial

14 days free, then $4/mo (billed annually). Cancel anytime.

Team

$79 /mo or $758/yr

You hired help. Good for you. AI included.

  • Everything in Pro
  • Unlimited organizations
  • Unlimited transactions
  • 10 team members
  • Unlimited scenarios and AI included
Join the waitlist

Starter includes a 14-day free trial. BYOA means you connect your own LLM via MCP so AI runs on your side. Pro and Team include built-in AI and bank connections.

Questions you probably have

Is this actually bookkeeping or just expense tracking?

Real double-entry bookkeeping. Journal entries, chart of accounts, balance sheets, P&L. Your accountant can review the actual ledger.

Can my accountant use this?

Yes. They get their own login and can review everything. They'll probably have opinions about your chart of accounts. That's normal.

What if the AI categorizes something wrong?

You review everything before it hits the ledger. Nothing happens without your say-so.

Do I need to know accounting?

No. But you'll accidentally learn some. Debits go on the left. That's free.

Can I import from QuickBooks?

Yes. We have a QuickBooks import parser. It's cathartic.

Is my data safe?

Encrypted at rest and in transit. Or self-host and keep everything on your own infrastructure.

You've read this far, which means your books are probably a mess.

That's fine. Start free. Import some transactions. See what real bookkeeping software feels like.