Get Started

Learn the minimum elements to get your account up and running to beginning utilizing Bookkeep.

  1. Create your account on our sign up page. to determine your company persona:
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  2. If you are a bookkeeping or accounting firm, you will have the option to create your first client entity:
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    1. An entity is what you will be connecting your apps and accounting platform to enable journal entry postings
    2. An entity has the ability for one accounting platform connection to post journal entries
    3. You can invite others to help manage your entity and postings
  3. After completing sign up you will be prompted to connect your accounting platform on your Connections page.
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    1. You need to do this if you wish to post your data as journal entries to this accounting system
    2. You can choose to skip this and still connect your apps to bring the data into Bookkeep and preview it without posting to accounting
    3. You will not be able to map the incoming data to your accounting platform accounts until this accounting connection is completed
    4. Once your accounting platform is connected, you will see it listed under the Accounting tab:

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  4. After this step, you will need to connect your apps. These are sources of data that will post to accounting e.g. Shopify sales data, Sezzle fees, Etsy sales, Shopify deposits, etc. If at anytime you need to add more Apps you can do so by navigating to the Apps tab and searching as shown below:

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    1. Each app connection offers different journal entry templates based on the data available for that app connection. For example, Shopify offers a sales summary journal entry, cost of goods journal entry, and a deposit journal entry.
    2. Each app connection has different methods of connecting. For example, some apps require you to login while others require you to retrieve an API key from that app's dashboard such as with Recurly.
  5. If you have not connected your accounting platform but wish to preview the data in Bookkeep (if you connected accounting skip to Step 6): Once you have connected your apps, you can choose to import days to review the data in Bookkeep prior to connecting accounting.
    1. On the Activity table, you can post data using our "Import dates" feature:

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    2. The data may not show up right away as the data has to be fetched from your source app and can takes a few minutes.  But our "Import in progress" banner will keep you updated on the status of your imported dates:

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    3. For days with no sales or "unposted" entries (conversely, "posted" entries occur when your accounting platform is connected), you can still click the summary to preview the lines of the journal entry (which again is not posted since accounting is not connected):

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    4. Once you are satisfied with the data, you can proceed to connect your accounting platform from the Apps tab. See Step 3 around connecting your accounting platform.
  6. Now that both your accounting platform and apps are connected to Bookkeep, you are ready to complete your account mapping to enable automated journal entry postings.
    1. From the Connections page, you can click "Map" next to each template you have turned on to complete the journal entry mapping: 
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    2. Once clicking "Map," you will have the option to allow Bookkeep to create the accounts for you automatically in your accounting platform via the magic wand icon:
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    3. If you choose to allow Bookkeep to complete this automatically, Bookkeep will create the necessary accounts in your accounting platform and map to these new accounts for the journal entries.
    4. Alternatively, if you choose to complete the mapping yourself, you will see the lines of the journal entry and the "ON" button indicating that the journal entry will run daily and post to your accounting platform (pictured above):
      1. If you keep the journal entry ON this will fetch new data daily and post it to your connected accounting platform. Otherwise, turning it to OFF will not post any journal entries.
      2. For each journal entry line dropdown, you can select the account you would like that line mapped to from your accounting platform such as QuickBooks Online.
      3. In addition to the account mapping, there are settings for the journal template that allow you to customize the journal posting
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        1. Specifically, the time zone and end of day are relevant for your business as they impact when the data will be fetched from your app as well as the time frame that will be used:
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          1. If you input the wrong end of day or time zone, the journal entry may not match your app reporting
  7. Now that your apps and accounting platform have been connected and your journal entries have been turned to "ON" and accounts mapped, you are good to go! Bookkeep will post journal entries on a daily basis for the prior day's results to your accounting platform!

    Welcome to smarter accounting automation!