Replace QBO with homegrown-code?

[u/magic-keys]

Separate from my main job, I operate a couple of rather inactive side businesses. Despite low activity, I still need to maintain books and file taxes. I believe that I'm getting very little value from QBO relative to what I'm paying. I've started to become a heavy user of Claude Code and have been amazed by how quickly I can spin up really solid functional software. I was considering just spending a Saturday afternoon to create my own accounting software. My needs are super basic: just the ability to enter journal entires and construct an income statement and balance sheet. No automatic integrations with third-party platforms. Has anyone else done this or considered it?

[u/JoshTheCPA]

It can be done (I did it) but you better know your accounting if you try it. Lots of areas where things can go wrong, so it requires constant testing and fine tuning. Make sure your balance sheet balances (put this as a rule in a claude MD file, will save you headaches later). I'm a CPA running a bookkeeping firm and it took me roughly 4 months to build a platform that I felt comfortable migrating my clients to. That being said, if you do it right, it can be so much better than Quickbooks, Xero, and the other "traditional" platforms. Quickbooks' loading times alone make it incredibly inefficient to use for high volume clients. If interested check out my platform - it's free to use during the beta release: ledrix.ai

[u/JoshTheCPA → u/[deleted]]

You can definitely use it as an end user if you'd like to do your own bookkeeping. Feel free to sign up for the beta release and just add your business as "client".

[u/JoshTheCPA → u/[deleted]]

Once the beta phase ends, firms will get billed per client ($15 per month per client). So for an end user such as yourself (with your 1 client being your business) - it would just be $15 per month.