OpenBooks

Problem

Fund-raisers, estates, clubs, and co-operatives need a simple way to manage shared money without losing permissions, receipts, reporting, or a reliable history of financial decisions. Spreadsheets are approachable but difficult to govern, while accounting products often add more complexity than small organizations need.

Solution

OpenBooks provides organization workspaces with role-based access, funds and categories, transaction review and approval, receipt storage, multi-currency entries, reports, CSV exports, and optional public summaries. PostgreSQL Row Level Security, views, and controlled RPCs keep tenant boundaries and financial permissions close to the data.

What shipped

• Multi-tenant organizations with Owner, Admin, Treasurer, Auditor, and Member roles
• Funds, income and expense categories, and a draft, review, approval, return, and void transaction workflow
• Receipt uploads, manual multi-currency conversion, activity history, and member-level field redaction
• Trend, fund, and category reporting with CSV exports
• Invite-based onboarding and optional public financial summaries using tokenized links

Technologies

• Next.js
• React
• TypeScript
• PostgreSQL
• Supabase
• Row Level Security
• TanStack Query
• Vitest

Architecture and engineering

• A pnpm monorepo with a Next.js App Router application and Supabase database, authentication, and private receipt storage
• Organization IDs scope the core financial tables, with PostgreSQL RLS helpers and SECURITY DEFINER RPCs enforcing membership and role permissions
• A restricted transaction view removes memos, counterparties, and workflow details for members who should not see them
• Amounts are stored as integer cents; manual foreign-exchange rates avoid floating-point drift and dependence on a live FX provider
• AWS Amplify deploys the application and applies Supabase migrations, while CI runs dependency audit, lint, tests, and production builds

Gallery

Organization dashboard with balances, trends, and recent activity.

Transactions with filters, statuses, and receipt attachments.

Transaction details with line items, approvals, and audit history.

Scoped financial reports and export options.

Interactive product tour of the core workflows.

Mobile reporting interface.

Outcomes

• Shipped a live, usable MVP with tenant isolation and database-enforced role permissions.
• Implemented the full transaction lifecycle with receipts, audit events, and sensitive-field redaction.
• Delivered reports, CSV exports, and public summaries for organizations that need to share financial information.

Next steps

• Add CSV import, budgeting, recurring transactions, and receipt OCR.
• Expand automated coverage beyond utility tests to include APIs, RLS policies, and end-to-end financial workflows.
• Tighten transaction action visibility so the interface mirrors database permissions more closely.