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📚 equosBooks

equosBooks is a free desktop bookkeeping app for Australian small businesses, running on Windows, Mac, and Linux. There is no server to work against, no subscription, and no login every morning — your books live on your machine. This page is a short orientation to what equosBooks is for and where it fits.

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equosBooks has its own detailed user guide, and it now lives in this site. This page is just an orientation — head to the equosBooks Guide for the full walkthroughs of day-to-day entry, reconciliation, payroll, and reports.

What it's for​

equosBooks is built for the small business that does its own bookkeeping. The shape is familiar — receipts, bills, the bank, the categories you already think in — and Australian tax conventions are built in, so the file you hand your accountant is in a form they recognise.

Because the books are a file you own, you can back them up, carry them to a new computer, or hand a copy to your accountant, the same way you would any document you keep.

Day to day​

You install it, open it, and start entering — there is no setup wizard chasing you for a credit card.

  • Enter receipts, payments, invoices, and transfers as they land on your desk.
  • Reconcile the bank, matching what cleared against what you have already recorded.
  • Produce the quarter-end and year-end reports your accountant asks for.

Because the categories carry forward from month to month, the record keeps itself close to current — so when the BAS is due or the year closes, the numbers are already there.

Coming from another tool​

If you are moving across from another bookkeeping tool, there is a one-time migration companion that helps you bring your history in. You simply run it once, finish, and never think about migrations again.

What it doesn't do​

  • Payroll is basic, not a full payroll system. It handles the common Australian case — PAYG withholding, superannuation, and payslips for a small team — but not complex awards or allowances.
  • It is not a tax agent. It tells you what is in your books; your accountant tells you what to lodge.
  • Your books are local-first. The file stays on the machine you keep it on, and nothing leaves it unless you turn on the optional encrypted cloud backup.
  • It is one set of books on one machine, not multi-user. If several people need the same live picture of the business, that is a job for the EQUOS cloud platform, not for this.