Bookkeeping for New Zealand businesses
Invoices, GST, expenses, bank import and reports. On your own computer. Twelve practice businesses included, for training staff.
macOS app · works offline · no account, no cloud
Three everyday jobs
Each clip below is the real app, about three seconds long.
Send an invoice
Choose a customer, add the lines, post it.
- Prices can include GST or have it added
- Save it as a draft, or put it in the books now
Code the bank statement
Drop in a CSV from your bank. ByteBook suggests an account for each line, and you confirm it.
- Enter the closing balance and it checks the books against the statement
- Lines are skipped if you import the same file twice
Work out GST
Pick a period. The return fills in from your transactions.
- Every box traces back to the entries behind it
- Save a snapshot before you file, so it can be checked later
Three checks a spreadsheet cannot do
Run the assurance checks
Fourteen procedures run on the real entries every time you open the page. Each one reports what it found and gives you a working paper.
- Ledger integrity, double entry
- Bank, debtors, creditors, GST reconciliation
- Manual journals, duplicate payments, cut-off, documents, expenses
- Sealed packs, access, and a recalculation of the reports
Check the record has not changed
Every entry carries a fingerprint that includes the one before it. Change an old number and the chain shows it.
- Voiding a mistake does not break the chain. Editing the original does
- Verify the whole chain, or click one entry to read it
Seal a period
Seal a month or a GST period. The fingerprint covers every entry and figure inside it.
- Verify it later to prove the period has not moved
- Backdating an entry into a sealed period fails the check
Twelve businesses to practise on
Each one sets itself up, trades, banks its money, files GST, and has its books checked from the raw entries. Nothing you do in training can touch a client's records.
| Business | GST | Return | What it practises |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bright Cuts hairdressing | No | — | Books with no GST anywhere |
| Kōwhai Advisory consulting | Yes | Monthly, payments | A late payer, and GST that follows the money |
| Tasman Builders construction | Yes | 2-monthly, invoice | Stage payments on one contract |
| Harbour Cafe hospitality | Yes | Monthly | Many small sales, and a work vehicle |
| Loom & Light online retail | Yes | 2-monthly | Refunds that reverse a sale |
| Marine Parade Rentals property | Yes | 2-monthly | Exempt rent beside taxable rent |
| Whirinaki Contracting horticulture | Yes | 6-monthly | A long return period |
| Foundry Labs software | No | — | Costs only, no revenue yet |
| Marine Parade Dental health | Yes | Monthly | Passwords and four roles |
| Ngata Plumbing trades | Yes | 2-monthly | A busy bank statement |
| Pacific Trading wholesale | Yes | 6-monthly | Stock bought and sold |
| Precision Engineering engineering | Yes | 2-monthly | Amounts that break careless rounding |
For the person running the training
One command sets a business up and trades it. Another runs all twelve, ten times over, and checks every set of books from the raw rows.
Four roles
Owner, general manager, accountant, auditor. The last two can read everything and change nothing. Adding a role needs the owner's password.
Every rule behind the handbook is named
So you can check it yourself.
Where they come from
New Zealand's accounting and auditing standards, published free by the External Reporting Board, and the IAASB Handbook, published free by IFAC.
What we publish
References, and short quotes with the paragraph named. Not the standards themselves — they stay with their publishers, and the link goes to them.
Read it here
Twenty-three chapters. Turn the page, or open it on its own.
Use the arrows to turn the page. Every citation opens the standard, the paragraph and the document it was checked against. The whole book on one page prints to a clean PDF.
Who it is for
- Accounting and audit firms training staff on a business that behaves like a real one.
- Small businesses that want their books on their own computer.
What it does not do
- It works out GST from what you code. It does not decide whether a supply is taxable.
- It prepares tax working papers. It does not file them.
- It reports what is in the books. It does not draw the conclusion.
One SQLite file holds the books. The
app listens on 127.0.0.1 only, keys go in the macOS Keychain, and the
optional assistant is off by default.