Nigel is a cross-platform cash-basis bookkeeping app for small businesses and individuals. Replace QuickBooks with a simple, local-first workflow: import bank CSVs and payroll reports, auto-categorize transactions via rules, review flagged items, and generate reports. Businesses get a Schedule C / Form 1120-S chart of accounts, tax summaries, and a K-1 prep worksheet, individuals get a household chart of accounts with the same imports, rules, review, and reports. Choose during onboarding or with nigel init --profile personal.
Nigel is primarily terminal-based, but a web client is in the works. The terminal app is designed for humans but works extremely well with AI agents. The repo includes Claude skills to add new importers and intelligently create new rules from your statements before importing into Nigel. With a tool like Claude Cowork, point it at your CSV statement and say "Import my latest statements into Nigel and generate my monthly P&L" or "Generate a Schedule K-1 prep report for 2026."
Nigel also includes a demo mode — nigel demo which generates more than a year's worth of sample transactions, plus a few clients and invoices, so you can get a feel for things without entering any real data. Take the full walkthrough tour and explore the dashboard, register, accounts and rules, review flagged transactions, and run every report.
- Interactive dashboard — run
nigelto access your dashboard with YTD financials, account balances, a monthly income/expense chart, and a command menu; browse, review, import, reconcile, manage accounts, categories, clients (k) and invoices (n), view rules, view and export reports, and switch data files. - Bank imports — CSV/XLSX parsers with format auto-detection;
--dry-runto preview without writing - Generic CSV — import any CSV with
--date-col,--desc-col,--amount-col; save reusable profiles with--save-profile - Payroll import — XLSX payroll importer with auto-categorization
- Duplicate detection — file-level checksums and transaction-level matching prevent double-imports
- Auto-snapshot — automatic database snapshot before every import for easy rollback
- Undo imports —
nigel undorolls back the last import, removing its transactions after confirmation - Rules engine — pattern-based auto-categorization (contains, starts_with, regex) with priority ordering; test patterns with
nigel rules testbefore committing - Bulk recategorization —
nigel recategorizemoves transactions between categories by ID or by filters (category, date range, pattern, account, amount), with--dry-runpreview and confirmation for filter-based moves - Interactive review — step through flagged transactions with a pinned category chart, assign categories, and create rules on the fly; press Esc to go back and redo previous transactions
- Reports — Profit & Loss, expense breakdown, tax summary (IRS Schedule C / 1120-S), cash flow, balance, K-1 prep, A/R aging; interactive ratatui views by default with date navigation (Left/Right arrows to page between periods,
mto toggle month/year), with--mode exportfor PDF or--format textfor text files. In the dashboard,vopens the View Reports picker; picking a report opens the viewer, whereeexports the period you are looking at as a PDF andtexports it as text. "Transaction Register" opens the interactive browser instead, which exports the transactions it is showing withx(PDF) andt(text) —eis inline editing there. The picker's last entry, "Export All Reports", exports every report at once (Enter for PDF,tfor text) - Register filters — narrow
nigel report registerandnigel browse registerby--account,--category, or--uncategorized, composed with any date range; active filters appear in the report header and in the default export filename - Interactive browser — paginated register browser showing all transactions, starting at today with full backwards scrolling, keyboard navigation, jump-to-date, and transaction search
- PDF export — export any report to PDF or text with
nigel report <type> --mode export - Invoicing — draft invoices for your clients, edit or void them while they are still drafts, publish them as a static page and PDF on Cloudflare R2, email them via Mailgun with a Stripe payment link attached, and pull payments back in with
nigel invoice sync. Manual payments, A/R aging, and a one-time InvoiceShelf import are included. Clients (k) and invoices (n) are on the dashboard too. See docs/invoicing.md - Monthly reconciliation — compare calculated balances against bank statements
- Personal books —
nigel init --profile personalseeds a household chart of accounts (groceries, rent, utilities, …) instead of the business one; the K-1 worksheet steps aside and everything else works the same. - Web UI —
nigel serveruns a local web interface and JSON API from the same binary on 127.0.0.1, opening a browser with a one-time session link - SQLite storage — single portable database, no server required
- Database encryption — optional SQLCipher encryption; set a password during onboarding or manage via the Settings screen (
pfrom dashboard) ornigel password set; returning users enter their password inline on the splash screen, or in the browser when usingnigel serve; backups preserve encryption state - Auto-updater — checks GitHub Releases for new versions on launch (once per 24 hours); run
nigel updateto download and install the latest binary in-place; opt out via the Settings screen orupdate_check: falsein settings.json - Settings screen — edit business name, manage database password, and toggle auto-update checks from the dashboard (
pkey) - Snake - 🍎 🐍
Importers currently include Bank of America and Gusto, but adding a new importer is straightforward. See docs/importers.md for more information. The repository also contains a Claude skill that can create an importer from any data file. Contributions for importers for widely used import formats are welcome.
Download a pre-built binary from GitHub Releases, or build from source:
cargo install --path .# Initialize — prompts for data directory on first run
nigel init
# Or keep personal books instead of business books
nigel init --profile personal
# Load sample data to explore
nigel demo
# Launch the interactive dashboard
nigel
# Or set up your own accounts
nigel accounts add "BofA Checking" --type checking --institution "Bank of America"
# Import transactions
nigel import statement.csv --account "BofA Checking"
# Preview an import without writing to the database
nigel import statement.csv --account "BofA Checking" --dry-run
# Import a generic CSV with custom column mapping
nigel import statement.csv --account "Chase" --date-col 0 --desc-col 1 --amount-col 3
# Save a reusable profile for future imports
nigel import statement.csv --account "Chase" --date-col 0 --desc-col 1 --amount-col 3 --save-profile chase
# Use a saved profile
nigel import statement.csv --account "Chase" --format chase
# Undo the last import
nigel undo
# Manage accounts
nigel accounts rename 1 "New Name"
nigel accounts delete 3
# Test a rule pattern before creating it
nigel rules test "ADOBE" --match-type contains
# Add a categorization rule
nigel rules add "ADOBE" --category "Software & Subscriptions" --vendor "Adobe"
# Re-run categorization
nigel categorize
# Review flagged transactions
nigel review
nigel review --id 185 # Re-review a specific transaction by ID
# Recategorize transactions non-interactively (by ID, or in bulk by filters)
nigel recategorize 185 212 --category "Software & Subscriptions"
nigel recategorize --from-category "Cost of Goods Sold" --year 2025 --category "Supplies" --dry-run
nigel recategorize --from-category "Cost of Goods Sold" --year 2025 --category "Supplies" --yes
# View reports (interactive ratatui views)
nigel report pnl --year 2025
nigel report expenses --month 2025-03
nigel report tax --year 2025
nigel report cashflow
nigel report balance
nigel report flagged
nigel report aging # A/R aging: buckets and open invoices
nigel report register --year 2025 # Transaction register
nigel report register --year 2025 --account "BofA Checking"
nigel report register --year 2025 --category "Taxes & Licenses"
nigel report register --uncategorized # Transactions with no category
# Export reports
nigel report pnl --year 2025 --mode export # PDF
nigel report pnl --year 2025 --mode export --format text # Text file
nigel report all --year 2025 # All reports to PDF
nigel report all --year 2025 --output-dir ~/exports/ # Custom directory
# Interactive register browser (all transactions, starts at today)
nigel browse register
nigel browse register --year 2025 # Filter to a specific year
nigel browse register --account "BofA Checking"
nigel browse register --category "Taxes & Licenses"
nigel browse register --uncategorized
# Invoicing (see docs/invoicing.md for the Stripe/R2/Mailgun setup)
nigel client add "Acme Co" --email ap@acme.test
nigel client show 1 # Details plus invoice history
nigel client edit 1 --email billing@acme.test # Applies on the next send
nigel client edit 1 --contact "ap@acme.test:Ada Payne:AP" --contact "dana@acme.test:Dana Chen"
# Whole list; the first is billed, the rest cc'd
nigel client archive 7 # Hide a finished client; touches no invoice
nigel client unarchive 7
nigel client list --all # Include archived clients
nigel client delete 7 # Refused while any invoice bills them
nigel invoice new --client 1 --issue 2026-08-04 --item "Consulting:10:150"
nigel invoice edit 1248 --due 2026-09-30 # Drafts only
nigel invoice void 1248 # Cancel, deactivate its link, void its page
nigel invoice preview 1248 # Render it locally first — no network, no config
nigel invoice send 1248 # Preview it, confirm, then publish and email
nigel invoice send 1248 --yes # Skip the confirmation
nigel invoice sync # Record Stripe payments
nigel invoice pay 1248 --date 2026-08-20 # Record a payment received directly
nigel invoice aging # A/R aging
nigel invoice template export # Make the invoice page your own
# Reconcile against a bank statement
nigel reconcile "BofA Checking" --month 2025-03 --balance 12345.67
# See what's active
nigel status
# Switch between data directories
nigel load ~/other-books
# Back up your database
nigel backup
nigel backup --output /tmp/nigel-backup.db
# Restore from a backup
nigel restore ~/Documents/nigel/backups/nigel-20250301-120000.db
# Database encryption
nigel password set # Encrypt database with a password
nigel password change # Change existing password
nigel password remove # Decrypt database (remove password)
# Web UI (localhost only)
nigel serve # Opens a browser at 127.0.0.1:5731
nigel serve --port 8080 --no-open # Custom port, print the URL instead
# Check for and install updates
nigel update
# Shell completions
nigel completions bash # Also: zsh, fish, powershellnigel backup uses SQLite's online-backup API, so it produces a consistent snapshot even while Nigel is running, and an encrypted database yields an encrypted backup.
On an encrypted database, nigel normally prompts for the password on the terminal. Scheduled jobs have no terminal, so set NIGEL_DB_PASSWORD instead:
NIGEL_DB_PASSWORD="$(security find-generic-password -s nigel-db -w)" \
nigel backup --output ~/Documents/nigel/backups/nigel-$(date +%F).dbPut this in a wrapper script rather than directly in a launchd plist.
Read the password from a secret store, as above, rather than writing it into a script or a plist.
Settings are stored in ~/.config/nigel/settings.json. The data directory defaults to ~/Documents/nigel/ and can be changed by re-running nigel init --data-dir <path>. Use nigel load <path> to switch between existing data directories without reinitializing. nigel status shows the active database and summary statistics. Set "update_check": false to disable automatic update checks on launch. Invoicing credentials (Stripe, Mailgun, Cloudflare R2) also live in settings.json or in matching NIGEL_* environment variables, alongside the outgoing email envelope keys from_email, from_name, reply_to_email and contact_email — see docs/invoicing.md.
nigel serve binds 127.0.0.1 only and generates a fresh session token on every start. See docs/api.md for the endpoint inventory and security model.
| Flag | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
gusto |
Yes | Gusto payroll XLSX importer + auto-categorization |
pdf |
Yes | PDF export via printpdf (built-in Helvetica, no font files needed) |
serve |
Yes | nigel serve web UI and JSON API (axum + embedded assets) |
Build without Gusto, PDF, and web server support:
cargo build --release --no-default-featuresIndividual features can be re-enabled, e.g. --no-default-features --features serve.
cargo build # Debug build
cargo build --release # Release build
cargo test -- --test-threads=1 # Run all tests (serial — the DB password is a process global)
cargo test --no-default-features -- --test-threads=1 # Without gusto/pdf/servenigel serve serves a single-page app that is compiled into the binary. It
lives in web/ and needs Node 20.19 or newer (22 recommended):
cd web
npm ci
npm run build # writes web/dist, which the binary embedscargo build works without Node — the binary then serves a placeholder page
explaining that the UI has not been built. Run the npm run build above before
cargo build --release if you want a binary with the real interface in it.
For the live dev loop (Vite on :5173 proxying to a running nigel serve), the
component preview harness, and the theme and API conventions, see
web/README.md.
MIT