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Accounting Workflows

Autopilot, the Ledger, reconciliations, bills, invoices and the people you do business with.

Ask Zera

Ask Zera:

What Ask Zera can do

Ask Zera is the bookkeeper built into ZeraBooks. Ask in plain words and it answers from your books or does the work, from a quick fix to catching up months of books, using ZeraBooks' own tools and checks. Here is how to open it and what to ask.

Ask Zera:

What Zera knows about your business

Ask Zera remembers what you tell it about your business and keeps its own profile of the company, built from your books. It uses both in every chat, and you can read it any time under What Zera knows.

Ask Zera:

Do your books with Ask Zera

Ask Zera catches up months of bookkeeping from one plain message. Attach your statements and say "do my books": Zera imports and checks each statement, categorizes, adds bills and invoices, reconciles every month, signs off what ties and closes the books, asking you only what only you can answer.

Ask Zera:

Give Zera statements, bills and receipts

Drop up to 20 statements, bills, receipts and invoices onto any page and Ask Zera reads each one, matches it to the right account, vendor or customer, and adds it to your books. You can also type a bill or invoice in plain words.

Ask Zera:

Approve, skip and undo with Ask Zera

By default, every change Ask Zera makes to your books arrives as a card that waits for your Approve or Skip, and every applied change can be undone from its card. Here is how to read a card, approve or skip it, and undo a change afterwards.

Ask Zera:

Let Zera apply changes by itself (Auto-approve)

Auto-approve lets Ask Zera apply changes to your books as it makes them and keep going on its own, instead of waiting for you to approve each card. Every change can still be undone, and anything that can't be undone, such as emailing a customer, still asks first.

Ask Zera:

Troubleshoot your books with Ask Zera

Ask Zera finds out why a month doesn't tie, why a number looks wrong, or whether anything is duplicated or missing. It re-reads the statement and your books, explains the cause in plain words, fixes it, and checks again until the month ties.

Ask Zera:

Ask Zera safety, privacy and limits

Ask Zera changes your books only through ZeraBooks' own tools and checks. By default every change waits for your approval, it works only in the company you have open, text in documents can't instruct it, and every figure comes from your reports, not AI arithmetic.

Autopilot & AI

Autopilot & AI:

How AI works in ZeraBooks

ZeraBooks uses AI to read your documents and judge what each transaction means. It acts when it is sure, asks you when it isn't, and calculates every number itself.

Autopilot & AI:

What Autopilot does for you

Autopilot works through your books in one pass: vendors, categories, bills and invoices, reminders, a second look, month-end and a monthly summary. It runs when you click Run now or while ZeraBooks is open.

Autopilot & AI:

Answer Autopilot's questions

When ZeraBooks can't tell, it asks in Needs you with one-tap answers, its best guess first. Here is how to answer, skip, and what each kind of question means.

Autopilot & AI:

Review and undo AI actions

Everything ZeraBooks does on its own is listed in Done by AI with how sure it was. Here is how to check the actions flagged for a glance, undo one, and what can't be undone.

Autopilot & AI:

Choose how much ZeraBooks does on its own

Pick Cautious, Balanced or Autopilot to set how sure ZeraBooks must be before it acts, and use four switches to decide what it may do by itself.

Autopilot & AI:

Month-end entries

Autopilot proposes depreciation, the interest part of loan payments and prepaid-expense spreads, and asks about recurring bills that didn't show up. Here is how each one works.

Autopilot & AI:

The auditor's notes and the monthly digest

On every pass ZeraBooks takes a second look at your categories, flags possible duplicates and explains months that don't tie, then sums up the latest complete month.

Ledger & Categories

Ledger & Categories:

Navigate the Ledger

The Ledger shows every category's register for the period you pick, built from your categorized bank and card activity plus the entries you add yourself.

Ledger & Categories:

Record a journal entry

Use a journal entry for adjustments that don't move money through a bank, such as accruals, prepaid expenses, depreciation or corrections between categories.

Ledger & Categories:

Record money in, money out and transfers

Use Pay In, Pay Out and Transfer to record money that moved through a bank or card account before its statement arrives, such as a cash deposit or a check you wrote.

Ledger & Categories:

Import journal entries

Bring in up to 100 balanced journal entries at once from a CSV or Excel file. ZeraBooks checks the whole file first, and if any entry fails, none are posted.

Ledger & Categories:

Edit or remove a manual transaction

Change or remove a journal entry, Pay In, Pay Out or transfer you recorded yourself. Removing one can be undone; a statement-matched entry must be unmatched first.

Ledger & Categories:

Transaction details and the activity log

Open any transaction to see where it came from, which category it's in and why, how often you pay the same party, and change its category.

Ledger & Categories:

Split a payment across bills or invoices

When one deposit pays several invoices, or one payment covers several bills, split the bank transaction across them so each balance is settled.

Ledger & Categories:

Understand the Category Manager

The Category Manager is your chart of accounts: every category your transactions post to, grouped into eight types and numbered so reports stay in order.

Ledger & Categories:

Set up your chart of accounts

Start your categories one of three ways: let AI draft a chart for your business, import the one you already have, or build it yourself one category at a time.

Ledger & Categories:

Generate categories with AI

Describe what your business does and ZeraBooks drafts a complete, numbered chart of accounts for it. You review and edit every category before anything is saved.

Ledger & Categories:

Import a chart of accounts

Bring your categories over from QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, any spreadsheet or a PDF. ZeraBooks reads the file, you review every row, and existing categories are never overwritten.

Ledger & Categories:

Add, edit, deactivate and reactivate categories

Create a new category, change its name, parent or number, and turn off categories you no longer use. Categories are never deleted, so your history stays intact.

Reconciliations & Month-end

Reconciliations & Month-end:

How reconciliation works

ZeraBooks checks every account, month by month, against the bank's own statement. Here is what the three checks are and what every dot on the timeline means.

Reconciliations & Month-end:

Fix a month that doesn't tie

When a statement and your ledger disagree, the month shows an orange ! on the timeline. Here is how to find the difference and fix it, usually in a minute.

Reconciliations & Month-end:

Verify a statement with AI

When a statement doesn't tie, ZeraBooks can re-read the original document line by line and propose only the fixes that make it tie. You apply them with one click.

Reconciliations & Month-end:

Finalize a month

Finalizing signs off a month that ties, recording what you verified and when. Here is how to finalize one month, or every tied month at once.

Reconciliations & Month-end:

Reopened months and removing a sign-off

A finalized month reopens on its own when its checked numbers change. Here is how to see what changed, remove a sign-off, and finalize again.

Reconciliations & Month-end:

Close and reopen the books

Closing the books locks every date on or before a day, so nothing reconciled can change by accident. Here is how to close through your reconciled month, and how to reopen.

Bills (AP)

Bills (AP):

The Bills board

Every bill you owe sits in one board, sorted into lanes by where it is: waiting for your review, posted and still owing, or paid.

Bills (AP):

Upload a bill

Upload a PDF or photo of a vendor bill and ZeraBooks reads the vendor, number, dates, lines and categories for you.

Bills (AP):

Create a bill by hand

Enter a bill without a document: pick the vendor, add each line with its price and category, and add a holdback or reverse charge when you need one.

Bills (AP):

Why a bill is waiting

A bill posts on its own only when seven checks pass. Here is each check, what it means when it's unmet, and how to clear it.

Bills (AP):

Approve or reject a bill

Approving a bill posts it to Accounts Payable in one click. Here is how to approve, what happens with a new vendor, and how to return a bill for correction.

Bills (AP):

Match a bill to its bank payment

Once you've paid a bill and the payment is on an uploaded statement, apply it to the bill. Partial payments, bank fees, vendor credits and other currencies are covered.

Bills (AP):

Mark a bill as paid

Record a bill you paid outside your uploaded statements, such as a check or cash, so ZeraBooks knows it's settled. It records the payment; it doesn't send one.

Bills (AP):

Delete, void or reopen a bill

Delete a draft that never posted, void a posted bill while keeping it for the record, reopen a posted bill to fix it, or restore a voided one.

Invoices (AR)

Invoices (AR):

The Invoices board and statuses

Every customer invoice sits in one lane on the Invoices board, from Draft to Paid. Here is what each lane and status means and how an invoice moves between them.

Invoices (AR):

Create an invoice

Build an invoice from scratch: choose the customer, add line items, set the dates and discounts, then preview it before you approve.

Invoices (AR):

Upload an invoice for AI reading

Upload an invoice you already issued elsewhere and ZeraBooks reads the customer, dates and lines into a draft for you to review and approve.

Invoices (AR):

Approve an invoice

Approving an invoice posts it to your books. Here is what ZeraBooks checks first and the exact journal entry it records.

Invoices (AR):

Email an invoice, send it manually, or download the PDF

Email an approved invoice with its PDF attached, record that you delivered it yourself, or download the PDF.

Invoices (AR):

Automatic payment reminders

Autopilot emails customers about invoices a week or more overdue, at most once a week. Here is exactly when a reminder goes out, when it asks you first, and how to turn it off.

Invoices (AR):

Record payments, partial payments and credits

Settle an invoice by matching the customer's deposit from your bank statement, applying a credit, or marking it paid when the money came in some other way.

Invoices (AR):

Credit memos

A credit memo is an invoice with a negative total. Create one to credit a customer, then apply it to one of their unpaid invoices.

Invoices (AR):

Edit, duplicate, void or delete an invoice

Change an approved invoice, copy it into a new draft, cancel it with a void, or delete a draft. Here is when each one is allowed and what it does to your books.

Invoices (AR):

Invoice branding

Put your logo, address, phone and footer on every invoice, and give your invoices a brand color or cover image and your own message.

Invoices (AR):

Invoice accounting settings

Tell ZeraBooks which accounts invoices post to — Accounts Receivable, sales tax, holdback and settlement differences — and when documents post on their own.