Blog
The institution that outlived its founders
Japanese merchant houses survived for centuries. Not because they were clever with money, but because they were careful with records.
Cash is a location, not a verdict
How much of your cash is actually yours to spend? Accrual books answer that question. Cash books make you guess.
Beancount for freelancers
Plain-text double-entry accounting. Why your ledger should be a text file you can read, grep, and version-control.
Why budgeting fails (and what to do instead)
Budgets are forecasts. Ledgers are facts. The gap between them is where anxiety lives.
Money is where counting goes to rest
There were always many books: food, labour, obligation, time. Money compressed them into one. That worked, until it didn't.
How the mafia kept books
The ledger that convicted Al Capone wasn't creative accounting. It was accurate accounting. That's why it worked.
The Venetian trick that changed everything
In 1494, a friar published a chapter about bookkeeping. It wasn't his invention. It had been common practice in Venice for decades. But writing it down changed the world.
Actually useful AI
It's 11pm, you just wrapped, and you still need to invoice. What if you didn't have to think about it?
Japan ran empires on rice accounting
No double-entry. No balance sheets. Just obligation tracking that lasted generations. It worked until it didn't.
Your data is a file (and that's the whole point)
Every other invoicing tool stores your data on their server. Nett stores it on your computer. Here's why that matters more than you think.
Clay balls and the invention of owing
Five thousand years ago, someone sealed a clay token inside a ball of clay. That was the first receipt. It was also the invention of debt.
Your rate card isn't hours times a number
Day rates, overtime loadings, weekend multipliers, turnaround penalties. Production freelancers don't charge by the hour. Here's how to set up a rate card that actually reflects how you work.
Your invoice isn't a spreadsheet
Why qty × rate = amount doesn't work for production invoices, and what to do about it.
Cash vs accrual: why your bank balance isn't your income
Two ways of counting money, two very different pictures of your business. Here's which one you're probably using and why it matters at tax time.
What GST actually is (and when you need to charge it)
You've registered for GST because your accountant told you to. But do you actually know where the money goes? Here's the ten-minute version.
The tax system that ran on sticks
For seven hundred years, England collected taxes with hazelwood. It worked better than you'd think.