OBSCURA for accountants and finance teams
Bank statements, payroll exports, a client’s receipts for the year: finance work runs on files that describe someone’s whole financial life. These tools read, reconcile and hand them over in the browser, so a statement is never uploaded to a converter or an expenses app to get the job done.
Where finance work goes wrong with files
Names in capitals are single tools: free to open and to check a file with, and Pro to save the result. A name marked Pro is a service inside the Sovereign Suite, which is Pro as a whole. Sheets, in the Workspace, is free.
Billing and getting paid
An invoicing service learns the client list, the rates and the monthly income of everyone who uses it.
- INVOICES: invoices drawn as PDFs on the device, with part payments, repeats and a CSV for the accountant; an invoicing tool, not accounting software
- QUOTE: a quote as a PDF, which becomes the invoice once accepted
- NETTERMS: how overdue an invoice is, and the reminder or demand that fits
- LEDGER: a cash book against real categories, with the summary an accountant works from
Receipts and expenses
Expense apps read receipts by uploading them. These are read where they are.
Reconciling and checking
A lookup formula finds the exact matches and silently drops the interesting ones.
- RECONCILE: two CSV lists matched in passes, hardest evidence first, with the near misses and one-against-several payments listed as exceptions
- DIGITS: leading digits, repeated amounts, round-number excess and bunching under an approval limit
- SAMPLE: a seeded sample anybody can reproduce: simple, systematic or stratified, with a written record
- STRUCTURING: runs of deposits across accounts that clear a reporting threshold with no single reportable one
- FIGURES: a column of numbers described honestly, and when the mean misleads
Read first: when Benford’s law works and why a lookup misses values that look the same.
Forecasts and the numbers behind a decision
The closing balance is not the number that matters.
- CASHFLOW: a 13-week forecast that finds the lowest balance and when it falls, and how much can go wrong before payroll is missed
- ASSETS: depreciation by four methods, with a reducing-balance rate solved to land on the residual
- RECUR: the five movements in recurring revenue, reconciled, with retention and payback
- LOAN: the schedule and the effective rate, with what a flat rate hides
- BREAKEVEN: break-even on a real sales mix, and which lever is worth pulling
Read first: the lowest cash balance in the month.
Spreadsheets that carry more than they show
A workbook sent to a client can hold a hidden sheet, a pivot cache of the source rows, or a link naming the file server.
- CLEANSHEET: removes hidden sheets, pivot caches, formulas, external links and comments from an .xlsx
- DATASCAN: finds the columns holding card numbers, IBANs, national identifiers and contact details
- SPLIT: dedupes, filters and splits a CSV into one file per value, and 007 stays 007
Read first: what a spreadsheet hides and whether it is safe to upload a bank statement.
Handing a client their accounts
The year-end pack is the most complete picture of a client’s finances there is, and it usually goes by email.
- Send a file securelyPro: files sealed into one page that opens with a passphrase sent another way
- STAPLE: merges the reports into one PDF and numbers the pages
- PADLOCK: an AES-256 password on the PDF
- PRESS: makes a PDF small enough to attach, with the text left as it is
- LOCKBOX: watermarked previews now, and the originals once the fee is paid and you send the key
Why it matters that the file stays on the machine
A bank statement shows who someone pays, who pays them, where they shop and when they are paid. Uploaded to a free converter or an expenses app, it sits on that company’s servers under terms the client never saw. Here the file is read from the disk and worked on in the browser tab, and nothing is uploaded.
The same is true of the tools that keep records. INVOICES, LEDGER and RECEIPTS keep theirs in the browser on the machine where they were made. That keeps them private, and it also means a record lives with the person who made it: there is no shared ledger for the team, and clearing the browser’s site data removes it, so save the CSV or JSON export each tool offers.
Nothing here is tax advice, and none of it files anything. The rates and rules written into a tool are there to show the working; the tax authority’s own figures are the ones to rely on.
A worked example: month end for a small client
A bookkeeper closes the month for a client with a shoebox of receipts. On one laptop:
- The client’s receipts arrive as phone photographs. RECEIPTS reads each into a line and keeps the SHA-256 of every image, and two faded ones are typed in by hand.
- The bank statement’s CSV and the client’s ledger go into RECONCILE. Most pair on a reference; the exceptions are one payment covering three invoices and one amount keyed wrongly.
- DIGITS runs over the expense column as a routine check for amounts bunched under the approval limit.
- CASHFLOW, starting from the reconciled balance, shows the lowest point falls in week nine, when the VAT quarter is due, not at the end of the thirteen weeks.
- STAPLE merges the reports into one PDF, and the pack goes to the client through Send a file securely.
What it costs a practice
Every tool above is free to open and to check a file with, so a practice can see what they do before paying anything. Saving the reconciliation report, the invoice PDF or the cleaned workbook is Pro.
- Free, for everyone
- The Workspace: Docs, Sheets, Slides, Notes, Calendar, Tasks, Contacts, Plan, Drive and the PDF editor, at work as well as at home. And every single tool on this page, to open a file and see what it finds, with no account.
- Pro, for one person
- $15 a month or $144 a year, with 7 days free. Saving the result in every tool outside the Workspace, the whole Sovereign Suite and the Photo Editor.
- Team, up to 25 people
- $69 a month or $690 a year, with 14 days free. Everything in Pro for up to 25 people on one key for the whole team, a Stripe invoice with your organisation’s name and tax number, and email answered by a person within a working day.
- Not included
- No admin console, single sign-on, audit log or shared team storage: each person’s work stays on their own machine. The page for teams lists the rest, with the answers a security reviewer will ask for.
From five people, Team costs less than five Pro subscriptions. Checkout is Stripe’s: the card is asked for at the start and not charged until the fourteen days are over, and if you cancel before then nothing is paid.
Questions
Is this accounting software?
No. There are no bank feeds, no double-entry general ledger and no tax filing. These are tools for the jobs around the accounts: invoicing, reading receipts, reconciling two lists, forecasting cash and handing files over.
What does RECONCILE read?
Two CSV files, one for each side, and you pick which column holds the reference and which the amount. Most banks and accounting systems can export one.
Where are invoices and ledgers kept?
In the browser on the machine where they were made, not on a server and not shared across the team. Each tool offers a CSV or JSON export; keep one somewhere that is backed up.
Are the tax rates in MILEAGE current?
They are written into the tool and shown beside the claim. Check them against HMRC, the IRS or the CRA for the year you are claiming, because rates change and the authority’s figure is the one that counts.
Can the whole practice use one subscription?
Yes, up to 25 people on the Team plan, with one key for the whole team and an invoice with the practice’s name and tax number.
The same tools, for other work
This page describes what the tools do. It is not accounting, tax or legal advice.