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Introduction

ownpurse keeps a local record of the facts from your financial sources, in a file you hold. You, and the agents you work with, query that record, rebuild the ledger from it, check it against the source, and plan changes to your books.

Xero is the first source ownpurse connects to. QuickBooks, bank exports, spreadsheets, investment portfolios and plain files are planned.

What you get

Section titled “What you get”
  • A record you own. ownpurse mirrors your books into one SQLite file on your disk. Every version of every entity it has seen is kept. Rows are only ever appended, and a SHA-256 chain links each one to the last, so you can prove nothing was edited afterwards.
  • A ledger rebuilt locally. ownpurse derives postings from the documents in the record and computes the trial balance, general ledger, profit and loss and balance sheet itself, in exact decimals. It then checks them against the provider’s own reports, account by account, to the cent.
  • Reads that cost nothing. Once the record is synced, every read is local. Only a handful of commands talk to the provider, and they say so.
  • Many organisations at once. One login covers every organisation you tick. You address them by short aliases (roast, hold), named groups (group:ops) or all.
  • Changes you approve. Proposed changes are collected as document diffs, checked locally, and sealed into a package. Nothing reaches the provider until you approve that package by its hash and run it yourself.

The layers

Section titled “The layers”

ownpurse is built in layers. Each one reads the layer below it and never writes past it.

Layer What it does Status
Connectors Read a source (Xero today) and append what they see to the record, with where and when it came from Xero shipped; others planned
Record The append-only, hash-chained SQLite file: every version, every report snapshot, every API call Shipped
Daemon A long-running process that keeps the record current and serves it Planned
CLI ownpurse: the full surface. Every read, sync, report, check and write plan is a command Shipped
TUI ownpurse tui: a terminal interface over the record, built on caretline Shipped

The CLI is the complete interface. Anything the TUI can show, a command can print, as compact text or as --json.

The TUI is a read-only view over the same record. It is built on caretline, with one Elm-style state and a single update loop. That state is complete: an agent can read it, move the view with a small set of view-only verbs, and point things out to you on screen, while your own keys always win.

Who it is for

Section titled “Who it is for”

ownpurse is for people who keep their own books, or run several related organisations, and want to see them exactly, offline, and alongside an agent. It follows the AXI conventions for agent-friendly tools: compact output, counts on every list, structured errors, stable exit codes and no interactive prompts.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”

ownpurse is not affiliated with or endorsed by Xero Limited. “Xero” is a trademark of Xero Limited.