Getting Started
Geekonomics is a bookkeeping app for small businesses — available self-hosted on your own hardware or in the cloud at books.geekonomics-app.com. It supports one or more business lines. This guide walks you through the first-run setup and gives you an orientation to the app.
First-Run Setup Wizard
When you visit Geekonomics for the first time, you'll be redirected to the setup wizard. This is a one-time process that creates your company and admin account.
Step 1 — Create Admin Account
Enter your name, email, and a password. This becomes the first admin user. Additional users can be added later in the Admin Console at /admin.
Step 2 — Company Profile
Enter your company name, address, invoice prefix (e.g. INV), and default tax rate. These values appear on PDF invoices. You can edit them later in Settings.
Step 3 — Business Lines
Business lines let you track income and expenses across different parts of your business (e.g. "Consulting", "Products", "Photography"). Add at least one to get started. You can add more at any time in Settings → Business Lines.
Once the wizard is complete you'll be logged in and taken to the Dashboard.
Navigating the App
The left sidebar contains all main sections:
| Section | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Dashboard | Financial overview and recent activity |
| Transactions | All income and expense entries |
| Accounts | Bank and clearing account ledgers |
| Clients | Client list and per-client history |
| Invoices | Create and track invoices |
| Vendors | Vendor list for tracking who you pay |
| Recurring | Scheduled recurring income/expense entries |
| Rules | Auto-categorization rules for synced transactions |
| Employees | Employee records for payroll |
| Payroll | Run payroll and view pay run history |
| Reports | P&L, expense breakdowns, AR aging, cash flow, and more |
| Square Sync | Import Square transactions |
| Stripe Sync | Import Stripe charges |
| AI Assistant | Chat with Claude about your finances |
| Admin | User management and audit log (admins only) |
| Settings | Company info, categories, credentials, SMTP, tax tables |
What to Do First
- Add your accounts — Go to Accounts and create at least a checking account. If you use Square or Stripe, the app automatically creates clearing accounts for those.
- Enter opening balances — When you create an account, set its opening balance to match your real bank balance as of the date you start using Geekonomics.
- Set up categories and vendors — Go to Settings → Categories to review or customize your expense/income categories. Go to Vendors to add the vendors you pay regularly. Both feed into auto-categorization rules.
- Connect your payment processors — Go to Square Sync or Stripe Sync to connect and pull in past transactions.
- Set up auto-categorization rules — Go to Rules and create rules to automatically categorize and tag vendors on synced transactions.
- Enter any manual transactions — Add income or expenses that didn't come through Square or Stripe.
- Reconcile — Once your transactions match your bank statement, run a reconciliation to lock them in.
Roles
Geekonomics has two roles:
- Admin — full access including settings, user management, and credentials
- Viewer — can view all data but cannot add users or change settings
The first account created in the wizard is always an admin.