Octobooks

Double entry accounting run by your own AI for small companies and freelancers in the UK, Germany and Austria: book bank lines and receipts, match payments, draft and issue invoices, prepare VAT return figures and close the month. Remote server with OAuth.

View on octobooks.ai

Hosted MCP Server

npx add-mcp 'https://mcp.octobooks.ai/octobooks/mcp'

Installs into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and more

Documentation

1. The short version

  1. Your Claude may do anything in your books that your switches allow: read, explain, put entries forward, release and so book them. Every entry is in the audit trail, and nothing is ever deleted.
  2. You decide per company who releases: you on the approval page, or your AI for bookings that stay inside the books.
  3. You choose what the connection may do when you connect: read, propose, upload. You can end it any time.

2. Connect in two minutes

  1. In Claude, open Settings, Connectors, and add Octobooks (or "Add custom connector" with the address https://mcp.octobooks.ai).
  2. Claude opens the Octobooks sign in. Sign in as yourself, with your passkey or Google and your authenticator.
  3. Tick what this connection may do: read, propose, upload. Confirm.
  4. Back in Claude, say: "Read the Octobooks guide and tell me what my books are waiting for."

3. Things to ask

  1. "What is open in my books? Work through the list and ask me only what you cannot find out."
  2. "Here are this month's receipts. Hand them in and match them to the bank lines."
  3. "Draft an invoice to Alpen Kost for 40 hours at my stored price."
  4. "What is missing to close September? Do what you can and put the rest forward."
  5. "Show me the VAT return for the last quarter and explain every figure."

4. What Claude can do

59 tools. No tool both reads and writes. 28 only read:

  1. Read the guide (octobooks_guide)
  2. List open items (list_open)
  3. Explain an open item (explain)
  4. Search the books (search)
  5. Show a journal entry (get_entry)
  6. Trial balance (trial_balance)
  7. Preview a VAT return (vat_preview)
  8. Show an invoice (invoice_preview)
  9. Open invoices and receipts (receivables)
  10. Reports of the books (report)
  11. Getting started status (onboarding)
  12. Questions to the owner (questions)
  13. Price table (prices)
  14. Invoice workspace (invoice_workspace)
  15. Show quotes, orders, delivery notes (sales_document_list)
  16. Show recurring invoices (recurring_invoice_list)
  17. Paid and unpaid (settle_list)
  18. Invoice and receipt check (receipt_check)
  19. Trust ladder (trust_ladder)
  20. Open items cleanup (open_items)
  21. Receivables desk (receivables_desk)
  22. Cockpit: where do I stand (cockpit)
  23. Month close checklist (month_close)
  24. Invoice builder (invoice_builder)
  25. Work-off lists (work_lists)
  26. The live panel to publish (cockpit_page)
  27. VAT return to work through (vat_workspace)
  28. A situation as a report with its PDF (situation)

26 prepare, book, release, hand in or note something, as far as your switches allow; none moves money, sends anything or files anything:

  1. Answer an open item (answer)
  2. Prepare many answers (propose_batch)
  3. Draft a sales invoice (invoice_draft)
  4. Ask to issue an invoice (invoice_issue)
  5. Draft a credit note (credit_note_draft)
  6. Hand in a document (upload_document)
  7. Ask to lock a period (close_request)
  8. Put accruals forward (accruals_propose)
  9. Put depreciation forward (depreciation_propose)
  10. Put year end entries forward (year_end_propose)
  11. Ask to close a fiscal year (year_close_request)
  12. Ask for a release (release)
  13. Agree or disagree as second agent (review)
  14. Give a getting started answer (onboarding_provide)
  15. Record the owner's answers (questions_answer)
  16. Say what a bank line is for (identify)
  17. Match payments to invoices (settle)
  18. Ask for an invite (person_invite)
  19. Draft a quote, order or delivery note (sales_document)
  20. Save a recurring invoice (recurring_invoice)
  21. Hand in a bank statement (upload_bank_statement)
  22. Set a price (prices_set)
  23. Set a cost centre, project or channel (dimension_set)
  24. Note the chase of a customer (chase_note)
  25. Remember where the panel lives (artifact_register)
  26. Set the company's invoice details (invoice_details_set)

The invoice workspace opens as a page inside the chat: what is to do, your newest invoices and your template. The page reads only; what you press there goes into the chat as a sentence, and Claude takes it from there.

5. Who releases

  1. Out of the box every proposal waits for you on the approval page, behind your authenticator.
  2. On the page Control you can let your AI release bookings that stay inside the books, ask for two agents to agree, or approve a rule.
  3. What leaves the company (an issued invoice, a filing, access for a person) is always yours to confirm.
  4. Every step is in the audit trail, with who asked and who released.

6. Your data

  1. The connection sees the companies you own, and only with the rights you ticked.
  2. Text written by outsiders (banks, suppliers, customers) reaches Claude marked as untrusted data, never as an instruction.
  3. Octobooks does not train models on your books. How we handle data: App privacy, Data processing, Subprocessors.
  4. End one connection, or all of them, on the page Connections; its tokens stop working at once.