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Books: money in, money out and your bank

Books under Commerce keeps your business money in one place: who owes you and for how long, what you spend, what's in each bank, UPI and cash account, shareable customer statements and accounting reports — with two switches so you only see what your business needs.

11 min read · Last updated 2026-10-01

Books is the money side of Commerce. Every invoice, order payment, refund and return you already record in LogAI flows into it, and you add what the business spends and what your bank says. Open it from Commerce → Books; a strip across the top switches between four tabs, written in plain words rather than accounting terms.

Real bookkeeping, kept out of your way: Behind the scenes Books keeps a proper double-entry ledger, so the numbers on every tab agree with each other. You never post journal entries yourself — you record payments and expenses, and Books does the accounting. Turn on Accountant view (below) when you or your accountant want to see the entries.

Accounting reports live under Reporting → Books (the Reports button on the Overview takes you there), and settings under Settings → General → Books. Old links to the Receivables, Cash, Reconcile and Reports tabs still work — they open the matching tab or Reporting → Books.

Set up Books (five minutes)

1. Open Books settings. Go to Settings → General → Books (or click Open settings on an empty Bank tab). The page is called Books settings; roles that can't change it see it read-only with “Your role can't change Books settings.”
2. Choose how Books works for you. The first card, How Books works for you, has two switches — Registered for GST (or VAT, or your tax label) and Accountant view. Leave them as they are if you're unsure; the next section explains what each one shows.
3. Add the accounts money lands in. In the Accounts card, click Add account for each bank account and UPI ID customers pay into. Give it a Name, pick the Type (Bank, UPI, Cash, Payment gateway or Other), and optionally the Bank / provider, the Account number / UPI ID (stored masked — only the last digits are shown — and used to match bank statement lines) and an Opening balance. A Cash account is created for you, plus a Razorpay clearing account if Razorpay is connected.
4. Pick defaults per method. In each account, tick Default for the payment methods that usually land there — UPI → your UPI account, Bank transfer and Cheque → your current account. When you record a payment or an expense, the account is pre-selected from this; you can still pick another. Switch an account off under Active to stop new money going into it while keeping its history.
5. Set your payment terms. In Payment terms, set Default terms (days) — how long customers have to pay after an invoice is approved (0 means due on receipt; new organizations start at 15) — and Grace before overdue (days), the extra days LogAI waits after the due date before its daily check flags an invoice as newly overdue. You can give a single customer different terms from their profile (see Billing details below).
6. Choose your short-payment reasons. In Short payments, switch on the reasons you want offered when a customer pays a little less than the invoice. In Labels, set the Tax label (GST in India, Tax elsewhere) and — when you're registered — the Tax withheld label (TDS in India, Withholding tax elsewhere). Click Save changes.

The Financial year card shows the month your year starts in. It's shared with record numbering, so you change it in Settings → General and Books picks it up for the This FY and Last FY periods.

Credit limits warn, they don't block: The Credit limits setting offers Not used, Warn when exceeded and Block new orders over the limit. Today a customer over their limit gets an “Over credit limit” badge on their Money card, but new orders and invoices aren't stopped — even with Block selected.

The two switches

Most small businesses don't need tax or ledger detail on every screen, so Books hides it until you ask. Flipping a switch never deletes anything — screens simply show or hide the extra parts, and reports reappear the moment you switch back.

Registered for … starts on when your organization already has a GSTIN or tax ID saved in organization settings, and off otherwise. Accountant view starts off. Click Save changes after flipping either.

Overview: your money at a glance

Books → Overview answers “how are we doing?” for the period you pick (Last 30 days by default). Record expense and Settle up sit in the header (in a bar at the bottom of the screen on a phone), and Reports opens Reporting → Books. Four tiles run across the top — two per row on a phone:

Below the tiles, the cards:

The Overview looks the same whichever Books switches are on — tax and accountant detail live on the other tabs and in the reports.

Choose a period

Every Books tab has the same period picker: This month, Last month, Last 30 days, Last 90 days, This quarter, This FY, Last FY, or Custom with From and To dates (up to 5 years). Quarters and financial years follow your financial-year start, and “today” is your organization's time zone. The period is part of the page address, so a link you share opens the same view. Defaults: Overview last 30 days, Money out and Bank this month, Money in All time, statements last 90 days.

Money in: who owes you, and for how long

Books → Money in opens with three numbers — Owed to you (and how many customers), Overdue (and how many customers are late) and Due this week — over a list with one row per customer who owes you. A customer appears as soon as an approved invoice isn't fully paid, and drops off once it is.

Search by customer, sort any column, and narrow the list with the Invoice date period (only invoices dated in that range count). Click a row to open the customer's statement. Settle up records a payment; Statement lets you pick any customer. On a phone the list becomes cards.

Customer statements

A statement is the customer's running account for a period: an opening balance, every invoice, payment, credit and refund as a dated line with debit, credit and running balance, and a closing balance. Open it from a Money in row, the statement button in Who owes you, or the Statement button on a customer's Money card, and change the period at the top (Last 90 days by default). When tax IDs are on file it starts with Billing details — the customer's legal name and tax ID, and your own GSTIN or tax ID.

1. Share it. Click Share. LogAI creates a private link and opens your device's share sheet (or copies the link — “Statement link copied”). Send it over WhatsApp or email.
2. What your customer sees. A clean Statement of account page with your organization's name and logo, your tax ID and theirs when on file, the summary (opening balance, invoiced, paid, credited, closing balance — or “In credit” when they've overpaid) and every line. They don't need a LogAI login; Download prints it or saves it as a PDF from their browser.
3. Keep a copy. Export statement (CSV) downloads the same lines for your records or your accountant.

Not available on statements yet: The Pay button on a shared statement shows “Online payment is coming soon”, and Chase on the Money card is marked coming soon. Download PDF inside LogAI doesn't produce a file yet — share the link and use Download on that page, or export the CSV.

Money on leads, customers, invoices and orders

You don't have to open Books to see what someone owes. The same numbers appear wherever you meet the customer:

• Lead sidebar — a Money card with Outstanding, Overdue, Lifetime value, Credit, Avg days to pay and Last payment, plus Statement and Settle up. See leads and customers.
• Customer profile — a Financials section with the same Money card, the customer's open invoices, and their Billing details.
• Invoices — each row shows the amount still due and a due chip (“Due in 3 d”, “Due today”, “12 d overdue”, “Paid 2 d ago”); the invoice view adds a Balance due panel and a Payments & credits card. See orders, invoices & payments.
• Orders — the order sidebar shows the payment behind the order and which invoice it's applied to (or “Paid, not invoiced”).
• Payments — the list shows Method, Received and Allocation (Applied, Partly applied, Credit, Refund or Voided); click a row to open the payment.

Billing details: terms, credit limit and tax IDs

Open a customer and go to Financials → Billing details:

• Due after (days) — leave it blank to use your Books default terms. The due date is stamped on each invoice when it's approved, so a change affects new invoices, not issued ones.
• Credit limit — blank means no limit. A customer who owes more gets an “Over credit limit” badge on their Money card.
• Tax ID type and the ID itself — GSTIN, VAT, TIN, ABN, EIN or Tax ID (the default follows your country). A GSTIN is checked as you type: 15 characters with a valid check digit (“This GSTIN's check digit doesn't match — re-check it”). A VAT number starts with the two-letter country code.
• Legal name and Place of supply — shown for a GSTIN customer, or for everyone when you're registered. Place of supply is the state code and fills itself from the GSTIN's first two digits.

Click Save. Tax IDs appear on the customer's statement and shared statement, and let the Tax Collected report split your sales between registered and unregistered buyers. Terms and the credit limit need Update on Books; the tax details need permission to edit Customers — each part only shows to people who can change it.

Export to CSV

Every Books list exports exactly what's on screen — same period, search and filters:

Small files download straight away; a big one is prepared in the background (“Preparing export… it will download when ready.”).

Books reports

Reporting → Books holds the accounting reports, read straight from the Books ledger. They work like every other report — period, compare, filters, columns and CSV export — as described in reports and analytics. Open them from the sidebar, the Reports button on the Books Overview, or “Books reports” in the command palette.

Books reports need View on Reports and on Books. Reports hidden by a switch don't appear in the list at all.

Works in any country and currency

Books uses your organization's currency everywhere, with that currency's own decimals, your organization's time zone for “today” and “overdue”, and your financial-year start. Indian organizations get GST and TDS labels, UPI and Razorpay link as payment methods, CGST + SGST or IGST on expenses, GSTIN checks and the HSN Summary. Everyone else gets Tax and Withholding tax labels (rename both in settings), VAT, GST, Sales tax or Other on expenses, and VAT, TIN, ABN and EIN tax IDs — UPI and Razorpay link aren't offered as methods outside India.

Access

Books is its own permission item, Books, in roles and permissions. When it was introduced, every role received the same Books access it already had on Payments.

Some actions need two levels: importing a bank statement, recording a transfer, syncing Razorpay and creating a record from a statement line need Create and Update; voiding a payment needs Delete and Manage; voiding an expense needs Delete and Update.

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