Free forever. Bring your AI.

Double-entry accounting. Self-hosted.

No banner across the top of your books. No usage telemetry. No account to sign into. Nobody is upselling you inside your own ledger.

Download for Windows Download for macOS All platforms View on GitHub
Signed Windows installer, verified publisher macOS: Developer ID signed and notarized by Apple Windows · Mac · Linux AA contrast · tagged PDFs Analytics & AI · v2.31.4 No telemetry or account
SlowBooks Pro Server Edition: the complete left menu, from Dashboard to Companies, beside the Copperline Woodworks snapshot: $70,993.52 receivable, $40,891.36 payable, $271,149.29 in checking, the A/R aging bar, twelve months of revenue, recent invoices and payments, this month's and the year's profit, and the balance sheet trend climbing to $431k of assets.

Point your AI at your books

Every install ships a self-documenting 735-operation local API, built for Claude Code and Grok first. Codex CLI, Gemini CLI or any agentic tool works too. Here is how it stays safe.

  1. Your AI

    Claude Code, Grok, or any agent you run

  2. A key with a role

    Read-only or bookkeeper. A key is never an administrator

  3. SlowBooks’ local API

    On your computer or your own server, not ours

  4. Your books

    Every change it makes is in the audit log under the key’s name

What people hand it

The AI setup guide

What makes SlowBooks different

Most accounting apps rent you a login to your own books. SlowBooks runs on the computer in front of you.

Free, every feature

  • No trial, no paid tier, no invoice cap
  • No account to create, nothing to cancel
  • Free for personal and business use, including large companies

Cost to you$0.00

Completely local

  • No SaaS backend and no third-party cloud
  • Each company is one file on your computer
  • Or a PostgreSQL database on a server you run

Servers we run for you0

You own the data

  • Backups you can download and restore
  • IIF, CSV and PDF exports
  • Leave for another tool any time; there is no contract

Yours to keep100%

Your books are safe

“What if my computer breaks?” Keep a copy somewhere else, put the books on a server, or lock the file.

Backed up

One click, then keep it anywhere

Settings, Backup / Restore in SlowBooks Pro for NEONpulse Techshop: the Create Backup button, with a green toast saying Backup created.
  • Settings → Backup / Restore → Create Backup, then download it
  • Restore takes a safety copy first, so it can be undone
  • One file per company, so File History or Time Machine copies it too

Running on your server

Your office, or your own VPS

The Unlock NEONpulse Techshop sign-in screen: a password field and an Unlock button.
  • Server Edition is in the same Windows installer; the office opens it in a browser
  • Sign-ins, roles and an audit trail of who changed what
  • Or Docker with PostgreSQL on any Linux server or VPS

Server Edition guide Cloud server guide

Encrypted

Lock the file if you want

The Turn on company file encryption dialog: it explains the recovery key, asks for the company name and your password, and has an Encrypt the company file button.
  • Off until you turn it on in Settings
  • A recovery key is shown once; keep it away from the backups
  • Backups of an encrypted company stay encrypted

How encryption works

What people say

From X and the project’s GitHub, in their own words.

Sutehk@sutehk

I’ve already set it all up and it works better than QuickBooks. No ads constantly trying to pull more money out of me when I’m just trying to record a check!!!

Left QuickBooks Online

Larry Martin@LarryMartinJr

The agents did it automagically for me looping me in only when the skill file I authored with the agent was unable to determine how to classify a charge

Runs the books with AI agents

Threecents@jschnett

Ditch QBO and move to @SlowBooksPro free and it’s better.

Switched from QuickBooks Online

CimarronSiteServices

I loved QB Desktop, but when Intuit started forcing everyone on to QBO and the subscription price has gone up so much, I thought there has to be a better way!

Moving off QuickBooks Online

jarvis4openclaw

Thank you for such an excellent product, this is great for PTAs and non-profits that have no money!

Nonprofit

What’s in it

Double-entry books, invoicing, bills, banking, US payroll and tax forms, plus these. Click a picture for the full screen.

Settings, Users - Server Edition: four users with the roles admin, bookkeeper, accountant and read-only, each with last login, an end date for the sign-in, Deactivate and Reset password, and the form to add a user or invite an accountant.

One office PC serves everyone

  • Run the Windows installer in server mode; everyone else uses a browser
  • Roles: admin, bookkeeper, accountant, read-only
  • The audit trail names who changed what
  • Starts with Windows, before anyone logs in. Nothing to buy
Analytics, year to date: revenue $560,465.00, expenses $429,036.40, DSO 58.2 days and a 23.4% margin, then the twelve-month revenue trend line from $42k to $70k with its month-by-month table.

Analytics dashboard

  • KPI cards and a 12-month revenue trend
  • A/R and A/P aging, a 90-day cash forecast, an expense chart
  • Month, quarter or year to date
  • CSV and PDF export
New Invoice with ha typed in the Customer box. The list below it shows Halden & Roe Dental, highlighted, then Harlow Construction, Lewiston Hardware Co and Priya Chandrasekar, with the matching letters in bold in each, and + New Customer last.

Type to find it

  • Customer, vendor, item, account, job and class pickers narrow as you type
  • “6500” finds 6500 Rent or Lease
  • Enter or Tab takes the highlighted name, Escape backs out
  • + New Customer opens with the typed name filled in
Items & Services: nine inventory items and four services with rate, cost and quantity on hand (1,240 hinges, 601 sheets of maple ply, 15 quartz slabs), each product with Adjust and History buttons.

Inventory and drill-down

  • Perpetual inventory at weighted-average cost
  • Cost of goods sold posts itself on each sale
  • Reorder points and a low-stock report
  • Click a P&L or Balance Sheet row for the transactions behind it
Migrate Data with QuickBooks Online export chosen as the source: upload the Export data zip with the A/R Aging Detail report beside it, then Dry Run or Import.

Payments and moving in

  • Stripe, PayPal or Square: a Pay Online button on the emailed invoice, the payment recorded for you
  • QuickBooks Online moves in from its own Export data zip, open invoices included
  • Xero, MYOB, Sage 50, Wave, Zoho Books and GnuCash too
  • A dry run shows what will come in before anything does
The AI Insights settings card: provider Anthropic Claude, a model picker with claude-sonnet-4-5 typed as the model ID, the API key field, and Test and Save AI settings buttons.

Bring your own AI, if you want it

  • Optional; nothing is sent until you add a key and click
  • Anthropic Claude and xAI Grok, plus Groq, OpenAI, Gemini, Cloudflare and any OpenAI-compatible endpoint
  • Keys encrypted at rest
  • Eleven ready-made analyses: customers, vendors, banking, P&L, tax
Nonprofit mode: the Report Center's statement cards (Statement of Activities, Statement of Financial Position, Fund Balances, Statement of Functional Expenses, Pledge Report, Year-End Giving Statements) above the Statement of Activities for 2026 to date compared to prior year: revenue and support $58,970, expenses $36,950, a $22,020 change in net assets against $10,999 the year before, with and without donor restrictions.

Nonprofit mode

  • Funds with donor restrictions, and releases from them
  • Program, management and fundraising on every expense
  • Statement of Activities, Financial Position, Fund Balances, Functional Expenses
  • Donor receipts, acknowledgment letters and year-end giving statements
The Copperline Woodworks Snapshot split down the middle: the light theme on the left and the dark theme on the right, the same figures, overdue table, bank balances and A/R aging colour key in both.

Accessible in both themes

  • WCAG AA contrast in the app’s light and dark themes
  • Every form field says its name to a screen reader
  • Tagged PDFs (PDF/UA-1), invoices and tax forms included
  • Dialogs keep keyboard focus; notifications are read out

Where we stand →

Pick your platform

Windows and macOS get signed apps: download, open, done. Linux, Intel Macs and servers use Docker or a source install.

Windows - signed native installer, Server Edition included

A normal Windows app: download, double-click, done. The installer is code-signed (Windows shows a verified publisher, not a SmartScreen warning) and completely self-contained, so there is nothing else to install.

Download SlowBooksPro-Setup-x64.exe

Currently v2.31.4 for 64-bit Windows 10/11, also available as a portable .zip. Each company is its own file (like QuickBooks company files), stored under %LOCALAPPDATA%\SlowBooksPro, so upgrades and even uninstalls never touch your books. When a new version ships, the app’s footer shows an update notice.

A love letter to software that respects you

Owns nothing. Phones home to nobody. Runs on hardware you can unplug. Accounting software should be the last thing you’d rent.

Vintage by design. Everything you need, nothing you don’t. Modern underneath, with a vintage feel on top: dense screens, keyboard first, every field where you expect it. No upsell banners, nothing blinking for attention.

“Intuit’s activation servers died in 2017. The hard drive died in 2024. We just wanted to print invoices.”

Frequently asked questions

Is SlowBooks really free? What’s the catch?

No catch. SlowBooks is source-available under a license that permits free use for personal, educational, and internal business purposes, including at commercial enterprises. The only restriction is you can’t repackage and resell it as your own paid product or hosted service. See the LICENSE for the full text.

Is it “open source”?

The source is public on GitHub and you can read, modify, and redistribute it. Technically the license is “source-available” rather than OSI-certified open source, because of the No-Commercial-Resale clause. In practice, if you’re using it to run your own business, there is no functional difference.

Why is it not on the cloud?

Because accounting data is the last thing that should live on someone else’s server. Your financial history, customer information, payroll, and tax records shouldn’t be subject to some other company’s pricing decisions, breach history, or terms-of-service updates. SlowBooks sidesteps the entire question.

Why does it look vintage?

On purpose. Underneath it’s modern: signed installers, a local API built for AI agents, your choice of your own computer or your own server. On top it has a vintage feel: dense screens, the keyboard doing the work, nothing moved around for a redesign. Everything you need, nothing you don’t.

How do I back up my data?

In Settings → Backup / Restore, click Create Backup. Download any backup to keep it off the computer, and restore it from the same screen; a restore takes a safety copy of the books first, so it can be undone. Backups are made when you click; there is no schedule in the desktop app. Each company is one file, so if your computer is already backed up by File History, Time Machine, a cloud drive or an external disk, your books are in that backup too. You can also export to IIF (for QuickBooks), CSV or PDF.

What if my computer breaks?

Your books survive if a copy lives somewhere other than that computer. Download your backups from Settings → Backup / Restore to a USB stick, a NAS or a cloud drive, or let File History or Time Machine copy the company file. A desktop backup is a copy of the company file, so it can go onto a new computer; Get help if you want a hand with that. If you’d rather not depend on one desktop, run the books on a server: Server Edition on an office PC, or Docker on a Linux server or VPS. See Your books are safe.

Does it work on Windows?

Yes, natively. Download the signed installer, double-click, and you’re keeping books in under a minute, without a database server to configure first. Windows shows a verified publisher instead of a SmartScreen warning because every release is code-signed. Each company is a single file under %LOCALAPPDATA%\SlowBooksPro, so backups are as simple as copying a file. Docker still works too, if you prefer containers, and serving your whole office over the LAN needs no Docker at all: that’s Server Edition, built into the same signed installer.

Do I need Docker to run the server / multi-user mode?

No. Server Edition is built into the signed Windows installer. Run it in server mode (or use the bundled install script for a boot-time service) and every machine on your LAN connects through a browser, with per-user logins, roles, and an attributed audit trail. Docker is an optional alternative for Linux servers and Intel Macs, never a requirement. See the Server Edition guide.

Can I import from QuickBooks?

Yes. SlowBooks imports IIF files exported from QuickBooks Desktop (including the finicky Mac QB format with quoted thousands separators). QuickBooks Online companies move in from QuickBooks’ own Export data zip, with no Intuit app or sign-in needed.

Does SlowBooks really have analytics and AI built in?

Yes. v2.0.0 ships an analytics dashboard (KPI cards, charts, 90-day cash forecast, CSV/PDF export) and an optional AI Insights brief. The AI is bring-your-own-key: pick from eight providers (Claude, Grok, Groq, Cloudflare Workers AI, a self-hosted Cloudflare Worker, OpenAI, Gemini, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint you point it at). Nothing is sent until you click. Keys are Fernet-encrypted at rest. If you don’t configure a provider, the feature simply isn’t there.

Can my customers pay me online?

Yes, through Stripe, PayPal, or Square (enable any combination). SlowBooks emails invoices with a “Pay Online” button; the customer pays on the processor's hosted page and a balanced journal entry posts back into your local ledger automatically. Card data never touches SlowBooks. Desktop installs record payments on the customer's return, no public webhook needed. The payment URL is a token-scoped page, so customers never need a SlowBooks login.

Is SlowBooks Pro accessible?

We strive to conform to WCAG 2.1 AA. Text meets AA contrast in the light and dark themes on every page and dialog, checked by a browser before each release. Every PDF it makes is tagged for screen readers (PDF/UA-1), invoices and tax forms included. Every form field is announced with its label, and a required field as required. Dialogs keep keyboard focus, and notifications are announced. The full picture, and how to report a barrier →

Is my data secure if it’s all on one machine?

Single-user authentication is built in - setup wizard on first run, argon2id password hashing, rate-limited logins. All API keys you add (AI providers, payment processors) are encrypted at rest with Fernet, and the company file itself can be encrypted from Settings. The Docker image runs as a non-root user. v2.0.0 also completed an external security audit pass: SSRF guards on outbound LLM calls, CSV formula-injection protection, schema-validated config payloads, constant-time secret comparison on the Cloudflare gateway. Your books are still on your hardware, same backup story as the rest of your machine (Time Machine, an external disk, whatever you already use).