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📚 equosBooks Overview

equosBooks is a free desktop bookkeeping app for Australian small businesses, sole traders, and freelancers. This page will guide you through what equosBooks is, who it suits, and where to find each part of this guide.

Dashboard The dashboard gives you your cash position, income, expenses, and net income for the month at a glance, with a six-month income-versus-expenses chart below.

What equosBooks is​

equosBooks is a desktop application that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Your books live in a local file (an SQLite database) on your own machine, so your financial data stays with you and works without an internet connection. An optional off-site backup is available — when you turn it on, your file is encrypted with your passphrase before it leaves your computer. This ensures you keep full control of your data while still having a safety net if your machine is lost or replaced.

There is no subscription and no account to create. You simply download equosBooks, install it, and start keeping your books.

Who it is for​

equosBooks is built for small Australian businesses that want to manage their own bookkeeping without a monthly bill. It handles invoicing, bills, bank reconciliation, GST tracking, basic single-jurisdiction (AU) payroll with PAYG and super, and a full set of financial reports — enough for a sole trader, a growing trades business, or a small not-for-profit to run their books end to end.

Guide map​

Each guide below covers one part of equosBooks. Start with the getting-started pages, then dip into the workflow and ledger guides as you need them.

Getting started​

Getting Started

Install, first launch, and finding your way around

Dashboard

Your books at a glance on the home screen

Business Setup

Create a business with the 4-step wizard

Chart of Accounts

View, filter, and customise your accounts

Everyday work​

Contacts

Your customers and suppliers

Invoices

Bill your customers and track payment

Bills

Record and pay supplier bills

Credit Memos

Issue credits against invoices and bills

Recurring

Templates for repeating transactions

Items

Reusable products and services

Ledger and banking​

Journal Entries

Post manual adjustments and accruals

Banking

Import statements and reconcile accounts

Reports

P&L, Balance Sheet, GST, and more

People, groups, and admin​

Payroll

Employees, pay runs, PAYG, and super

Consolidation

Holding and subsidiary group reporting

Settings & Backup

Backups, email, period lock, and preferences

Migration

Bring data across from QuickBooks Online

How it relates to EQUOS​

equosBooks is one of the free desktop apps in The Annex, which sits beside the EQUOS platform. It is fully standalone — it keeps your books on your own machine and does not need an EQUOS subscription or account to run. If you also use the EQUOS platform, the two are separate tools that you can use side by side. For a short summary of where equosBooks fits, see the equosBooks entry in The Annex.