Gig'o'Books
Accounting, tax reporting, and invoicing for gigs and side income
(No registration required)
Gig'o'Books
If you have a gig (or several gigs!) or other source of side income and you need to do some simple accounting, tax reporting or invoicing, then Gig'o'Books is for you.
Gig'o'Books is an accounting app tailored for simple income-generating activities. All you have to do is enter sales and purchases data and Gig'o'Books will manage the accounts for you. It can also generate financial reports, help prepare your monthly or quarterly tax reports, and create invoices.
It's not worth spending hundreds of dollars to buy full-featured accounting software just for your simple gig. Nor do you want to be paying money every month just to record a few transactions (All those monthly charges add up!). In contrast, Gig'o'Books is free.
Best of all, your data stays on your own computer where it's safe and private instead of being stored in the cloud where who-knows-what algorithms are mining it for data.
Gig'o'Books is simple and easy to use. Spend as little time as possible on accounting, tax reporting or invoicing. The less time you spend, the better. Then go and do more important stuff.
Pricing
Demo
Alternatively, to look at a demo, start Gig'o'Books and select File and then Demo from the menu.
Features
Gig'o'Books comes in two (or maybe in the future, three) editions.
The Community / desktop edition (which is the original edition) runs on your Windows*/macOS/Linux desktop computer. It is free and open source.
The Community edition is traditional 'old style' desktop software and saves data files to the local computer.
The Web edition is the Community edition re-targeted to run in a web browser. It can run on any device (Windows/macOS/Linux/iPhone/Android) that has a modern web browser. It is free.
The Web edition also saves data files to the local computer.
In the future, we might:
- Create a Premium edition for the desktop (or for smartphones) and charge for it, or
- Put advertising on the Web edition.
However, these are speculative and might not even happen. (We're only mentioning them because some people insist on knowing our monetisation plan even though we don't know what it is yet.)
*The Community edition hasn't been ported to Windows yet but this is expected to be a straightforward task.
Both the Community desktop edition and the Web edition of Gig'o'Books are free. There are no subscription fees.
Gig'o'Books is tailored at a niche and contains only features which are needed. It does not have all the features of full accounting software but that's actually a good thing. It means Gig'o'Books is simple and easy to use and it's not cluttered with unnecessary features.
For example, there is no dedicated support for payroll or stock-keeping. (Albeit such data could still be entered via the generic double entry book-keeping feature.)
Gig'o'Books is fast.
Instead of running on a server 'somewhere in the cloud' like other SaaS accounting software, it runs fully (in a web browser) on your local computer or phone. Changes don't need to be uploaded to the cloud and then re-fetched. Rather, changes can appear instantaneously.
This also means Gig'o'Books can run offline without an internet connection.
There are no subscription fees with Gig'o'Books.
Other SaaS accounting software charges you every month, even if you don't use it. Gig'o'Books does not.
Some desktop accounting software force you to pay for new updates every few years, even if there are no useful changes. Gig'o'Books does not.
Don't be subject to vendor lock-in.
Gig'o'Books saves your data to your computer or phone. It does not store it 'somewhere in the cloud' that you have no control over.
Instead, own and manage your data yourself. Do whatever you want with it. If you want to save it to your own cloud folder and have it sync-ed across multiple devices, you can.
The data file is in an open and accessible format.
It's just an sqlite file. You can peer inside by opening it with any database program that supports sqlite (honourable mention: sqlitebrowser).
You can even modify data this way (or write a script to do so) but please be very very careful if you do.
We don't want to know anything about you or your accounts*. The less we know, the better.
Since the data file is saved to your computer or phone, no one else has access to it except for you.
(If you save to a cloud folder via something like Dropbox or Google Drive, then the cloud folder provider might have access to it. We certainly don't.)
For more information, please look up our privacy policy.
*The web edition contains software analytics.
Gig'o'Books creates tax compliant invoices in convenient PDF format. (Just make sure you fill in a tax id for all your customers.)
View a Sale transaction and click on the PDF link.
Satisfy monthly or quarterly tax reporting requirements for multiple tax authorities.
For example, if you sell eBooks to New Zealand and Canada and you consult to a client in Ireland, Gig'o'Books can produce tax reports (ie. GST101A, GST/HST, VAT3) for those three authorities, in their respective currencies, with the same set of books.
Currently, the following tax authorities are supported: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand.
If you need support for a tax authority, please contact us. We'd be happy to help.
(Adding a tax authority is not hard but we need a user to help test and verify. You could be that user.)
Gig'o'Books has true multi-currency support. Transactions can be entered in any currency subject to the following limitation:
- Sales and purchases can only be entered in a single currency (out of the currencies which are configured).
For example, there can be an invoice that is in USD and another invoice that is in EUR, but an invoice can't contain a USD amount and a EUR amount at the same time. (However, if you absolutely must need multi-currency within a single invoice, please contact us.)
Reports can show multiple currencies (where applicable), or can be configured to convert all amounts to a single currency (where applicable).
Gig'o'Books uses double entry book-keeping underneath. Every transaction is stored as a series of debits and credits. It is also possible to manually enter transactions in double entry form (known as 'raw' transactions).
('Double entry' doesn't mean you have to enter data twice. It refers to the industry-standard accounting technique of recording monetary amounts in two different columns and ensuring that the books balance. If you don't know what it is, there's no need to worry about it.)
The Community desktop edition is free and open source under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0.
With Gig'o'Books, the people who provide support are the people who wrote the software. We understand the software.
Talk to someone knowledgeable ... and helpful too!
If you have any questions, comments, criticisms, feature requests, or anything, just drop us a line.
FAQs
Yes, you can!
If you want to use Gig'o'Books for invoicing only, then enter only your sales data. Don't enter any purchases data.
However, this means you won't be able to use any of the reports. The reports will be incorrect since they are missing purchases data.
Currently, we support Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand. Support for the UK will be coming soon once brexit happens.
We are interested in adding support for more tax authorities (particularly EU countries and US state sales tax) but we need users to help us test and verify. If you are able to assist, please contact us. Thanks!
The beautiful answer to this question is: There's no need to!
Unlike other cloud-based or SaaS services, your file is not stored with us. Instead, it's stored on your own computer or phone.
Or if you save your file to a cloud folder by using something like Dropbox or Google Drive, it's saved to your own cloud, not ours. There's nothing for us to protect.
Yes, you can!
Set up a cloud folder using Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox or something similar. Then, when you save your file, save it to the cloud folder.
As a result, you can (use Gig'o'Books and) access the file from any device which has access to the folder.
Note that this assumes that your browser asks you to choose where to save downloaded files. By default, most browsers don't ask, but there is a setting to configure the browser to ask you to choose.
If your browser doesn't ask, then you'll have to manually move files from the Downloads folder (or whatever it's called) to the cloud folder.
(Speculation: In the future, we may consider having Gig'o'Books save directly to a user-provided cloud ie. Amazon S3.)
The Community desktop edition of Gig'o'Books runs on a computer (macOS/Linux, Windows soon) like a desktop software program.
The Web edition is a fork/variant of the Community edition that has been re-targeted to run inside a web browser. The source code changes are due to the vagaries of running in a web environment.
Functionally, there are no differences between the two editions. The features are exactly the same. Whatever you can do with one edition, you can also do with the other.
The Web edition of Gig'o'Books is a progressive web app (PWA) that can be installed onto your computer or phone's home screen. Once installed, it can work offline.
This requires a web browser that supports PWAs. Most common web browsers already do.
To install as a PWA, start Gig'o'Books. Then, in your web browser's menu, there should be something that says Install or Add to Home screen. Click on that.
(In Safari/iOS, Add to Home screen is in the browser's Share button.)
(Safari/macOS does not support PWAs. To install PWAs on macOS, use Chrome or Firefox.)
Unfortunately there is no native Android nor iOS app (yet).
You could try using the Web edition but open/save-ing files is a bit clunky. (Web browsers on Android/iOS are ... just weird.)
Sorry, you probably want to wait for the native Android or iOS app to be available.
Nobody can predict the future. Large tech companies can falter. Long running tech products can get acquired and change their focus or even just be shut down.
Unfortunately, we can't guarantee we'll be around in 10 years time. We certainly intend to be, but we can't guarantee it. Nobody can guarantee anything.
However, here are some mitigating things to consider:
Gig'o'Books has extremely low, almost non-existent, running costs. The source code, website, and app are hosted by Microsoft on a free plan. Gig'o'Books is not going to have a problem with cash burn.
Gig'o'Books is focused on a niche. Once the product is feature complete, there is no pressure to keep 'innovating' if 'innovating' means 'continually changing things just so there is work to do'. Gig'o'Books is not going to change it's focus.
We use Gig'o'Books ourselves for our own personal projects. So we have a vested interest in it staying around.
Let's assume the worst case: Gig'o'Books is acquired for a billion dollars and forcibly shut down.
Since Gig'o'Books is open data, you'll still have your data and you can migrate to something else if you wish.
Since Gig'o'Books is open source, it can still be supported by the community and continue to keep working indefinitely.
Overall, Gig'o'Books is just as likely to still be around in 10 or 20 years time as any other app (if not more so).
Gig'o'Books can be free because the running costs are almost non-existent. The source code, website, and app are hosted by Microsoft on a free plan. There are no expensive servers to maintain.
We don't really have a business model yet. We have some ideas, but they are just that: ideas. Ideas may or may not actually happen.
One idea is to sell a premium edition of Gig'o'Books and charge for it. But we don't really know what will be in the premium edition that is not in a 'non-premium' edition (Told you we don't have a business model yet).
In any case, if this happens, it will be far in the future. Furthermore, we won't remove any features in the existing editions in order to upsell.
Another idea is to place (non-targeted) advertising on the Web edition. This is just an idea, nothing more.
Unfortunately, not yet ... although it is something we should think about doing. If you need bank reconcilation functionality, please contact us.
Unfortunately, not yet ... although it is something we should think about doing. If you need third party integration, please contact us.
Unfortunately, not yet ... although it is something we have thought about and would consider doing. If you need these features, please contact us and let's have a talk.
When your gig or side income outgrows Gig'o'Books, you can export your data and pass it to your accountant or new accounting software provider. They can import it into your new system.
For example, you can open the data file with a sqlite database viewer and export in CSV format. (If you need a more customised or fancy export, please contact us.)
Since Gig'o'Books uses double entry book-keeping, there is no loss of data nor detail.
Gig'o'Books is unsuitable if:
- You have employees or have to do payroll. — There's no support for either.
- You have to keep track of inventory or stock. — There's no inventory or stock tracking feature. If you still want to use Gig'o'Books, you can, but you'd need to find another way to keep track of inventory or stock.
- You have complicated financial affairs. — Unless you want to enter transactions as 'raw' double entry transactions.
- More than one person works on the accounts at the same time.
To understand the last point, consider the following:
- Alice opens a file with Gig'o'Books.
- Bob opens the same file with Gig'o'Books. (Let's assume the file is stored in a cloud folder. That's why two people can open it at the same time.)
- Alice makes a change and saves the file.
- Bob makes a change and saves the file.
Oops! Bob overwrites Alice's change. Alice's change is lost.
One more thing
If you've read all the way down here, you should just try Gig'o'Books. Seriously, stop thinking about it and just do it. It's not like we've going to devour your brain or something.
Try Gig'o'Books