Getting started

1. Make an account

Open Billkeep and it asks you to sign in, the same as the Android app. An email address and a password, or Sign in with Google — whichever you use here works on the phone too, because it is one account for both.

It is the thing that lets your records exist in more than one place. A cleared browser or a lost phone is otherwise the end of them.

2. Let it set you up

The first time in, it offers to set you up — your name, your currency and a logo if you have one. Every step can be skipped, and skipping is remembered so it does not ask again on the next visit.

Want it to feel like an app? Most browsers show an install option in the address bar. That adds an icon to your home screen or dock and lets it run with no connection. It is the same app either way.

3. Say who you are

Settings → Your business. What goes here is what prints at the top of every document, so it is worth getting right once:

• Name — the trading name your customers know.
• Email and phone — how somebody replies to an invoice.
• Address — required in many places on a tax invoice.
• Tax ID, with your own label for it — VAT number, GSTIN, ABN, whatever it is called where you are.
• Logo — scaled down and stored with your records, never uploaded anywhere.

4. Add a tax rate, if you charge tax

Settings → Tax rates and groups. If you are not registered for anything, skip this entirely — the tax control does not even appear on an invoice until at least one rate exists.

If you are, add the rate you charge most: a name your customer will recognise, and the percentage. Two taxes that always go together belong in a group, which then behaves as one choice on a line. There is more in tax rates and groups.

5. Write the first invoice

Press New invoice. Three things make a document you can send:

1. Who's it for? Type a name and pick New client. A name is enough; the other fields wait until you need them.
2. A line. What you did, how many, how much each. Add more lines with the button underneath.
3. Save draft. Nothing is written down until you do, so a half-typed invoice never becomes a record.

The totals move as you type. Due dates are picked as terms — on receipt, 7, 14 or 30 days — rather than from a calendar grid, because that is how people actually think about them.

6. Finish it

Finish invoice is the moment everything changes. The next number in the sequence is allocated, and the document freezes: a copy of your business details, the client's details, the tax rates and the payment methods are written onto it, so nothing you change later can rewrite what your customer was sent.

Made a mistake? Unlock to edit, fix it, and finish again — it keeps its original number and its original issue date.

7. Send it

Share or print as PDF opens your browser's print dialogue, where “Save as PDF” gives you a file to attach to an email or a message. Billkeep never sends anything itself — you do, from your own mail or chat app, which is also why it asks you to confirm you have sent it.