Free accounting software your AI can use
BalanceMCP is free to use: unlimited business and personal books, statement import, every accounting tool, live financial reports, and CSV export of everything. It is free because the only paid tier does not exist yet. That tier is planned at nine dollars a month and will add automatic bank connections.
Anyone searching for free accounting software has learned to expect a catch, and the catch is usually one of three: a transaction limit that arrives at the worst moment, reports locked behind an upgrade, or your data held somewhere you cannot easily get it out of.
So here is the whole arrangement, before the pitch.
What is free
All of it, today. Not a trial, not a reduced feature set.
- Unlimited sets of books, business and personal, with their own charts of accounts.
- Statement import from PDF, CSV, or pasted text, with the arithmetic checked against the statement's own opening and closing balances.
- Every accounting tool your assistant can call — categorizing, journal entries, reversals, reconciliation, period locks.
- Every report: profit and loss, balance sheet, trial balance, general ledger, cash position, spending summaries, anomaly detection.
- Full CSV export at any time — transactions, the complete journal, and your chart of accounts.
- The append-only audit log.
- No card, no trial clock.
Why it is free, which is a more useful question
Not because of a generous free tier. Everything is free because the paid tier has not been built yet.
The plan is a nine-dollar-a-month tier called Plus, and what it will add is automatic bank connections through Plaid, along with a limit of ten connected accounts. It is not purchasable today and nothing about it works yet. When it ships, what is free now stays free — the paid tier is about bank connections, not about putting reports or books behind a wall.
That is a commitment about product direction, not a contract, and it is worth reading it as exactly that much.
What you do not get
The honest list, which is longer than the free list and matters more.
- No automatic bank feeds. Every statement is imported by hand today. Worth knowing: the obvious comparison here has moved — several free accounting tiers now also require manual import, so this is closer to parity than it was.
- No invoicing. You cannot bill a customer from here.
- No payroll, no inventory, no accounts-payable workflow.
- No tax filing and no tax advice. This keeps books; it does not decide treatment or file returns.
- No multi-client or accounting-firm features.
- No interface to click through. Everything happens through an AI assistant connected over MCP, which is either the appeal or a dealbreaker depending on how you work.
What happens to your books if you never pay
Nothing. They stay yours, they stay complete, and you can export the whole thing — every transaction, the full journal, and the chart of accounts — as three CSV files whenever you want, without asking anyone.
That is deliberate. Software that keeps your financial history should not be able to hold it hostage, and an export that requires a support ticket is a hostage situation with better manners.
Who this is for
- You want real double-entry books without a subscription.
- You already use an AI assistant and would rather ask it questions than learn an interface.
- You are keeping personal and business books and do not want to pay per set.
- You want to be able to leave, with everything, at any time.
Who this is not for
- You need bank transactions to arrive on their own. That is the one thing the paid tier is for, and it does not exist yet.
- You need to send invoices and get paid.
- You run payroll or track inventory.
- You want free software with a conventional interface. There is no screen to click through here.
- You need an accountant to log in and work alongside you.
Known limits
- Bank feeds are planned, not built. Statements come in by hand.
- The paid tier cannot be purchased, so nothing about it can be relied on yet.
- Categorizing both sides of a transfer between your own accounts records the movement twice. Reconciling against a real statement balance catches it.
Common questions
- Is it actually free, or free for a while?
- Free now, with no time limit and no card. The only planned paid tier is about automatic bank connections. What is listed above as free is not scheduled to move behind it.
- Is there a transaction or account limit?
- No limit on books, transactions, or accounts. The ten-account limit that appears in the pricing is about connected bank accounts on the planned Plus tier, which does not exist yet.
- Can I get my data out?
- At any time, as three CSV files: every transaction, the complete journal, and your chart of accounts. Your assistant can run the export for you, and no one has to approve it.
- What is the difference between this and other free accounting software?
- Most free accounting software gives you an interface and, increasingly, moves bank import behind a paid tier. This gives you a ledger with no interface at all, operated by an AI assistant you already use. If you do not want to work that way, other free options will suit you better.
- Do I need to pay to get reports?
- No. Profit and loss, balance sheet, trial balance, general ledger and cash position are all free, computed live from your entries.
Claims on this page were last checked against the product on 2026-08-09.