Free forever · nothing to host
The command line
Install abo and keep the books in a directory on your laptop. Every command validates what it books and commits it. Push the repository wherever you push code.
For freelance developers and consultants
Keep your own books.
The way you keep your code.
abo is open-source bookkeeping that keeps your company's books in a git repository. Run it yourself, free forever. Or let us host it, with an AI that books your receipts while you press Run.
Start hosted, $9/month Run it yourself, free
Keep your accountant for the annual return, payroll and social contributions. Stop paying them to type in receipts.
Open source, free forever
Plain-text hledger journals
Every change a git commit
Move between all three, any day
Three ways to keep your books
The same books, the same commands, the same git repository. Pick where they run.
abo file hetzner-oct.pdf --date 2026-10-01 --issuer Hetzner Filed bills/2026/2026-10-01-hetzner-9870bd34.pdf. Committed b887271. abo bill --document bills/2026/2026-10-01-hetzner-9870bd34.pdf --desc 'Hetzner servers, October' --number R0024417 Expenses:Hosting=46.41 Liabilities:Payable=-46.41 Booked entry 1: Hetzner servers, October. Committed 800f030. abo pl --period 2026 Expenses Expenses:Hosting 46.41 EUR git log --oneline -1 800f030 Book the bill Hetzner servers, October
Free forever · self-hosted
Your own server
abo-web serves the same books as web pages: invoices, bills, the bank, the reports. Run it on your machine or a server of yours, behind the login of your choice, and invite your accountant.
abo-web serve listening on http://localhost:8801
localhost:8801/bill
Expenses:Hosting46.41
Liabilities:Payable-46.41
Book the bill
Booked entry 1. Committed 800f030.
$9/month · hosted by us · AI included
Hosted, with the AI
Sign up and your books are open. Photograph a receipt on your phone: the AI reads it, checks your accounts and how you booked the last one, and proposes the entry. You press Run. No server, no updates, no backups to think about.
Youhetzner-oct.jpg
Reading the document, your accounts, September's Hetzner bill…
AI
Hetzner, invoice R0024417 of 2026-10-01: €46.41 for servers. You booked
September's to Expenses:Hosting; same here?
abo bill --document bills/2026/2026-10-01-hetzner-9870bd34.pdf --desc "Hetzner servers, October" --number R0024417 Expenses:Hosting=46.41 Liabilities:Payable=-46.41RunChange it
✓ Booked entry 1. Committed 800f030, as you.
Why it is safe to do this yourself
Nothing books itself
The AI can read your books. It cannot change them: every change waits for your Run, and then goes through the same validation as one you typed.
Mistakes are a revert away
The books are a git repository. The log says who changed what, and when. Any change can be undone, and the history stays.
Your accountant still sees everything
Invite them, view-only or with edit rights. At year end they review clean books instead of a shoebox: fewer hours on their bill.
No lock-in, ever
Your books are text files hledger reads, invoice PDFs and your documents.
git clone them from us and run abo on them at home. Leave with everything.
Everything a one-person company needs
- Invoices as PDFs, numbered per year, from a template you can edit. Credit notes too.
- Bills booked with their documents. The same document twice is caught.
- Bank reconciliation: match payments to what is owed.
- Reports: profit and loss, balance sheet, VAT return, account registers.
- Clients and contracts: partners, agreements, and invoice templates per contract.
- Ask the books (hosted): “what did I spend on hosting this year?” answered with a table.
Plans
Open source
$0 forever
- abo, the command line
- abo-web, the web pages, on your own server
- As many companies and people as you host
- You run it, you back it up
Most freelancers
Hosted
$9/month
- You and your accountant
- The AI: scan receipts, ask the books
- Hosted, updated and backed up by us
git cloneyour books any day; cancel any time
Hosted team
$9/month + $5 per extra person
- Everything in Hosted
- Partners and staff, each with their own role
- Every change signed by who made it
Self-hosting for a team, with the AI? Book a consultation.
Questions
I have never done bookkeeping. Can I really do this?
Most of a freelancer's books are a few kinds of entry: invoices out, bills in, payments between them. abo knows those kinds and refuses an entry that does not balance or breaks your VAT scheme. Hosted, the AI explains anything you ask. Have your accountant look at the first months if you like.
Do I still need an accountant?
Probably, for what is not bookkeeping: the annual accounts and the tax returns, payroll (payslips, withholding, its filings) and social contributions. abo books the salary and the contributions you pay, from the payslip and the statement; it does not compute them. What you stop paying for is the data entry: the receipts, the invoices, the bank statements.
Can I start free and move to hosted later, or back?
Yes. All three keep the same git repository. Push yours to us, or clone ours to your laptop or server, and carry on where you were.
What does the AI see?
The documents you scan and the questions you ask. It reads your books through abo's read-only commands to answer. Nothing changes until you press Run.