Why would the balance sheet ever not balance?

It shouldn't, in a healthy ledger — every entry the system accepts is required to balance on its own. If it ever reads false, that points at something wrong underneath and is worth reporting rather than working around.

Can I get a cash-flow statement?

Not yet. cash_position gives you a current snapshot, and profit_and_loss gives you income and expenses over a period, but there's no operating/investing/financing breakdown in this release.

Does exporting the book change anything?

No — export_book only reads. It hands back CSV files; nothing about the ledger changes because you exported it.

Prompts for reading your financial reports

The reports themselves are computed live off the ledger, so the honest question isn't "is the math right" — it usually is — it's "am I asking for the right slice of it." These prompts are built around getting a specific, useful answer rather than a dump of every number the book has.

A couple of these tools return figures you should sanity-check against each other rather than take at face value — a balance sheet that doesn't balance, or a spending total with a large uncategorized chunk excluded, is telling you something.

The big picture

Profit and loss, balance sheet — the two most people mean when they say "how are we doing."

Say thisHow did the business do last quarter?

Runs income and expenses for the period with net income at the bottom. A loss-making period shows net income as negative — that's expected math, not an error.

Uses: profit_and_loss

Say thisCompare this month's P&L to last month's, side by side.

Pass a comparison period alongside the main one and it returns both, so you're not mentally subtracting two separate reports.

Uses: profit_and_loss

Say thisWhat's the balance sheet look like as of today?

Assets, liabilities, and equity as of a date, with retained earnings computed from all-time activity. Assets should equal liabilities plus equity — check the "balanced" field.

Uses: balance_sheet

Say thisGive me a trial balance for the whole year.

Every account with a nonzero balance in debit and credit columns. In a healthy ledger the totals always match — if "balanced" ever comes back false, that's worth flagging, not explaining away.

Uses: trial_balance

One account, in detail

When a total isn't enough and you need to see what built it.

Say thisWalk me through how the Materials account got to this balance.

Lists every posting to that account over a period with a running balance and the opening figure carried in — the actual paper trail behind a single number.

Uses: general_ledger

Say thisHow much cash do I have across every account right now?

A snapshot of every bank account and card balance plus a total, not a period report — useful for "where do I stand today" rather than "how did last month go."

Uses: cash_position

Spending patterns and getting the data out

Where the money went, and handing the whole thing to someone else.

Say thisWhere's all my spending going this year, broken down by vendor?

Totals spending grouped by normalized vendor name — repeat charges from the same place collapse together even if the store number in the description differs.

Uses: spending_summary

Say thisBreak that down by category instead of vendor for Q2.

Same total, grouped by the ledger account it was posted to instead. Only categorized transactions can show up this way — check the excluded-uncategorized figure before treating the total as complete.

Uses: spending_summary

Say thisExport everything so I can hand it to my accountant.

Produces three CSV files — transactions, the full journal, and the chart of accounts — everything needed to check the books outside BalanceMCP entirely.

Uses: export_book

Worth knowing before you run these

There is no cash-flow statement in this release — cash_position is a point-in-time snapshot of balances, not an operating/investing/financing breakdown.
"Closing the books" locks a period against new postings; it does not run a year-end closing entry. Retained earnings on the balance sheet is always computed live, never rolled forward.
A spending total by category leaves out anything not yet categorized. Check that count before presenting a total as the whole picture.

Common questions

Why would the balance sheet ever not balance?: It shouldn't, in a healthy ledger — every entry the system accepts is required to balance on its own. If it ever reads false, that points at something wrong underneath and is worth reporting rather than working around.
Can I get a cash-flow statement?: Not yet. cash_position gives you a current snapshot, and profit_and_loss gives you income and expenses over a period, but there's no operating/investing/financing breakdown in this release.
Does exporting the book change anything?: No — export_book only reads. It hands back CSV files; nothing about the ledger changes because you exported it.