What works today, and what is next.
Countbean is small and early, and the fastest way to lose your trust would be to describe features we have not built. So this page lists both — what is running in production right now, and what is not.
Today: the book, the plugin, and the history
The core is real and in production. A book is a Beancount ledger in a Git repo on its own isolated machine, and every write goes through bean-check before it is committed.
A private cloud book, provisioned in seconds
One book per customer, on its own machine, with its own HTTP ledger API and its own credentials. It sleeps when you are away and wakes on your next request.
Natural-language bookkeeping over MCP
Countbean is an MCP server, so any client that speaks MCP can keep your books — Claude is the one we package as a plugin. Say what happened; it writes balanced double-entry, validates it, and commits it. Works on a ledger on your own machine and on your hosted book.
Statement, CSV and receipt ingestion
Hand the plugin a bank export, a card statement, a receipt, or a plain description of what you spent, and it turns them into categorised, validated transactions.
Git history, diffs and one-line revert
Every change — yours or the AI’s — is a commit you can read. Undo a change by reverting it, the same way you would in any repository.
Browser reporting with Fava
Balance sheets, income statements and account trees in the browser, behind your login. Read-only by design: writes go through the validated path or not at all.
Off-machine backups, verified by restore
Every book is bundled to object storage nightly, on every plan including the free one — and the restore is exercised, not assumed.
Now: make connecting take one click, not one afternoon
This is the single loudest thing our first users told us. The product works once you are connected; getting connected asks too much. Everything in this group is about deleting that gap.
Approve-in-the-browser connection (device authorisation)
The standard device-authorisation flow, the one your TV uses: the MCP client shows a short code, you approve it in a browser tab and pick which book to connect. No copying keys between windows.
Sign in without a Google account
Sign up and sign in with an email address and a password, or continue with Google — whichever you prefer. You do not need a Google account to use Countbean.
Errors you can actually read
Some failures still surface as raw JSON. Every one of them should be a plain sentence telling you what happened and what to do about it.
Export and take your book with you
Zero lock-in is only true if there is a door. A one-click export that hands you the whole Git repository — including if you cancel.
Next: bookkeeping from your phone, with no laptop involved
Right now Countbean assumes you are at a computer with Claude open. Most bookkeeping does not happen there — it happens standing at a till with a receipt in your hand. This group is the answer, and it is the paid tier.
A bookkeeping assistant on Telegram and WhatsApp
Message your book the way you would message a person. “Paid 40 for diesel just now.” It asks what it needs to, writes the entry, and commits it. No app, no laptop, no Claude subscription required.
Photograph a receipt, get a transaction
Send a photo in the same chat. The assistant reads it, categorises it, and attaches it to the entry it created.
Reminders that keep the books current
A nudge at the start of the month to upload last month’s statement, and a note when an account has gone quiet for longer than it usually does. Bookkeeping fails from neglect far more often than from error.
Informal budgeting, structured for you
Describe a budget in your own words and let the assistant turn it into something the ledger can check you against.
Later: reports worth sending, and a book your accountant can use
A ledger that only its owner can read is half a product. Two audiences are missing today: the person who wants a good-looking monthly summary, and the CPA they hired.
Reports that read like a document, not a dump
Ask for a report in plain English and get a designed HTML page — or a spreadsheet — you would be happy to forward. The first version exists; it is not yet good enough to be the reason you stay.
Custom dashboards
Pin the numbers that matter to your business — runway, margin per client, whatever it is — instead of the ones a generic accounting tool decided to show you.
Plugins, so a book can be extended
A supported way to add your own importers, checks and views on top of your ledger, rather than waiting for us to build each one.
An accountant’s view
Countbean has owner, accountant and client roles today, but nothing built for the accountant: a review queue, a period lock, a clean handoff at year end. Nothing here replaces filing — we are books of record, not a tax product, and we will keep saying so.
What Countbean does not do — and where each gap is going — expand
Stated plainly, so you do not have to find out after you have paid. Each item says what is true today, then where we intend to take it. Nothing in the italics is built — an intention is not a date, and we would rather say so than let a plan read like a promise.
No payroll and no tax filing. We keep the books of record. Filing is your accountant’s job or your tax software’s, and we would rather integrate cleanly with them than pretend. Intended, unscheduled: a clean year-end handoff to the tools that do file, so nothing has to be re-keyed.
No direct bank feeds. Ingestion is statement- and export-driven today. Live bank connections are a licensing and reliability commitment we are not ready to make. Intended, unscheduled: bank connections where the licensing is straightforward, behind the same validated write path as everything else.
No mobile app. The chat assistant above is deliberately the answer to this — a chat you already have installed beats an app you have to install. The Telegram and WhatsApp assistant in the Next group is how we intend to close this.
No accountant behind the software. Countbean is a tool you or your own accountant drive. There is nobody on our side doing your books. Intended, unscheduled: CPA as a service for companies — a licensed accountant working inside your book, on the same plain-text ledger you can read, with the monthly close and review done for you instead of by you. Not built, not priced, and not scheduled. If that is the thing you actually need, tell us and it moves up this list.
This list moves when users push on it.
Everything in the “Now” group is there because someone told us it was in their way. If something here is in yours, say so.