Bookkeeping for freelance designers

Turn a messy bank feed into tax-ready invoices.

Ledgerline reads your Stripe payouts, PayPal transfers and 2 a.m. software charges, works out which client every deposit belongs to, and drafts the invoices you never quite got around to sending. Then it hands your accountant a clean Schedule C instead of a shoebox.

No card required. Your first 50 transactions a month are free, forever.

Works with Plaid Stripe PayPal Wise Mercury 9,000+ banks

Bank feed → ledger

Live sync

As it hits your bank

SQ *SQUARESPACE INC−16.00
STRIPE TRANSFER ST-A1B2C3+2,319.45
PAYPAL *LARKSPUR CO+1,451.10
ADOBE CREATIVE CLOUD−59.99

As Ledgerline reads it

Software · business expense

Squarespace — website hosting, Apr–May

−16.00

Deductible
Northwind Studio · invoice #1039

Gross 2,400.00 − Stripe fee 80.55 − net 2,319.45

+2,400.00

Matched
Larkspur Co. · invoice #1041

Gross 1,500.00 − PayPal fee 48.90 − net 1,451.10

+1,500.00

Matched
Software · business expense

Adobe Creative Cloud — 3 licences

−59.99

Deductible

4 of 4 categorised 2 invoices matched 0 receipts chased

SQ *SQUARESPACE INC −16.00 / STRIPE TRANSFER ST-A1B2C3 +2,319.45 / PAYPAL *LARKSPUR CO +1,451.10 / ADOBE CREATIVE CLOUD −59.99 / VENMO CASHOUT M. OKONKWO +120.00 / WISE EUR→GBP CONVERSION −3.42 / CHASE CARD PURCHASE APPLE STORE −2,199.00 / STRIPE FEE ST-A1B2C3 −80.55 / FIGMA SUBSCRIPTION −15.00 / ACH DEPOSIT NORTHWIND STUDIO +3,200.00 /

The shoebox problem

You didn’t go freelance to do data entry.

Designers spend roughly six hours a month on bookkeeping, and most of it lands in one terrible weekend in April. It isn’t laziness. It’s that the money arrives in a shape that has nothing to do with the work you did.

§01

Every client pays differently

Stripe pays out net of fees, three days late, in one lump. PayPal arrives in another currency. A long-standing client still mails a check. And there’s a Venmo labelled “thanks!” that is definitely, finally, income.

§02

One deposit, four stories

That $2,319.45 was the balance on a retainer, a logo sprint and a rush fee, minus a processing fee you never saw. Splitting it back into three invoices means remembering what happened nineteen Tuesdays ago.

§03

April, 11:40 p.m.

Three inboxes of receipts, a spreadsheet called taxes-final-v3-FINAL, and a bank export where one coffee shop appears forty-one times. Your accountant charges by the hour, and you’re paying for them to do archaeology.

How it works

Four steps. Only the first one is work.

Set it up once over a coffee. After that, Ledgerline runs in the background and emails you when something actually needs a human decision.

Connect your first account

01

Connect your accounts

Link your bank, plus Stripe, PayPal and Wise, through Plaid. It’s read-only, it takes about two minutes, and Ledgerline pulls twenty-four months of history on the first sync — so you’re not starting from a blank page in March.
02

Let it read the story

Every line gets a plain-English label: business or personal, client or vendor, income or expense, and which tax category it belongs in. The ambiguous ones get flagged for you. Ledgerline would rather ask than silently guess.
03

Match deposits to clients

It learns that STRIPE TRANSFER ST-A1B2C3 is Northwind Studio, because it lands on the third of the month for roughly the same amount. When one payout covers three projects, split it across three invoices in two clicks.
04

Send, export, file

Generate branded PDF invoices, chase what’s unpaid, then export a Schedule C summary, a transaction ledger and a profit & loss when your accountant asks — or hand them a read-only link and skip the export entirely.

What it does

Built for the way designers actually get paid.

No invoice templates with clip-art, no “small business suite” trying to sell you payroll. Just the six things that make a freelance design practice reconcilable.

Deposit matching that learns

Teach Ledgerline once that a recurring transfer is Northwind Studio and it will match every future payout on its own — fee, net amount and all. Nicknames, initials and company names are all treated as the same client.

Fee-aware amounts

Stripe takes 2.9% + 30¢ before you ever see the money. Ledgerline books the gross, the processing fee and the net separately, so your revenue line isn’t quietly 3% short — and the fees you paid are claimed as an expense.

Split a payout across projects

One deposit, three invoices. Ledgerline proposes a split from your open invoice values, you nudge the numbers, done. Each piece keeps its own client, category and tax treatment.

Rules that stick

Mark ACME SOFTWARE as a business expense once and every future charge follows. Personal spending stays out of your totals permanently — visible in the feed, absent from the books.

Multi-currency, no arithmetic

Clients in Berlin, Toronto and Lisbon pay in euros, Canadian dollars and pounds. Ledgerline records each one at the exchange rate on the day it landed, not a rounded guess at year end.

Duplicates, refunds, oddities

The double-charged subscription, the client who reversed a payment, the $120 you refunded in a rush — pulled out of your income totals and flagged with a note explaining exactly why.

What you get

The part your accountant actually sees.

Two artefacts come out the other end: invoices you’re happy to send, and a tax packet that answers the questions before they get asked.

Branded, auto-numbered invoices

PDF · auto-drafted

Invoice #1042

Issued 12 May 2026 · Due 26 May 2026

Paid

Billed to

Northwind Studio · accounts@northwind.studio

Invoice #1042 line items
Brand retainer — May 2026	3,200.00
Logo sprint — two extra concepts	800.00
Rush delivery — 2 business days	500.00
Sales tax	0.00

Total due $4,500.00

Paid 12 May via Stripe · matched to deposit ST-A1B2C3

Your logo, typeface and payment terms — or a clean default you won’t be embarrassed by.
Pulls unbilled work straight from your tracked projects, so nothing gets forgotten.
Late fees, deposits and partial payments handled without a separate spreadsheet.

A tax packet, not a shoebox

Schedule C · CSV · P&L

2025 profit & loss · all entities

Gross receipts: 68,400.00
Returns & allowances: −1,200.00
Card & platform fees: 2,614.00
Software & subscriptions: 1,847.00
Equipment & hardware: 3,400.00
Travel & meals: 2,310.00
Insurance: 780.00
Net profit: 56,249.00

Every number links back to the transactions underneath it

Quarterly estimates

Four dates. Four numbers. No surprises.

Ledgerline keeps a running estimate of what you’ll owe and nudges you two weeks before each deadline. Set aside the right amount monthly and April becomes a formality instead of an event.

Q1 · 15 Apr

$4,180

Q2 · 15 Jun

$3,910

Q3 · 15 Sep

$4,640

Q4 · 15 Jan

$5,020

Estimates only, based on your year to date. Ledgerline does not file or give tax advice.

6.2hrs

Median time members say they got back each month. Almost all of it in April.

94%

Of transactions categorised correctly without you touching them. The rest get flagged, never guessed.

1,240

Freelance design and illustration practices with a connected account as of this quarter.

11min

Median time from signing up to a reconciled first year of books.

Designers, not bots

Six hundred people have told their accountant about us.

“I used to lose a whole Saturday each quarter reconciling Stripe payouts. Now I open Ledgerline, check the four flagged lines, and I’m done in twenty minutes.”

Priya Raman

Brand & packaging design, Leeds

“The fee-aware thing sold me. I’d been reporting revenue on the net payout for two years — understating income and writing off nothing I was entitled to.”

Marcus Ide

Contract product designer, Toronto

“Half my clients are in Europe, so money lands in euros at a different rate every time. Ledgerline keeps the date and the rate on every transaction — exactly what my accountant kept asking for.”

Sofía Beltrán

Web & motion design, Mexico City

Access & privacy

It reads your bank. It cannot move your money.

Connecting a bank account to software should feel like handing over a statement, not a cheque book. That distinction is the whole design.

Read the security overview

Read-only

No payments, ever

The connection Ledgerline uses through Plaid can read balances and transactions. It cannot initiate transfers, move funds or change anything at your bank.

Credentials

We never see your login

You authenticate directly with your bank inside the Plaid flow. Your username and password never pass through our servers, and we store a token instead.

Encryption

AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.3 in transit

Data is encrypted in isolated stores, access is limited to the small team that supports it, and every internal read of customer records is logged.

Yours to leave with

Export everything, delete anything

One button exports your full transaction history and invoices as CSV. Deleting your account removes your data within 30 days, and we’ll confirm it in writing.

SOC 2 Type II audit in progress · GDPR and CCPA compliant · Financial data is never sold, rented or used to train advertising models.

Pricing

Priced to fit between two invoices.

One late-fee recovery covers a year of Studio. Every plan includes read-only bank connections, and your data is exportable whichever one you’re on.

Sketch

For a first year of freelancing, or a first client.

free forever

1 connected account
50 transactions a month
3 invoices a month
CSV and PDF export
Community support

Start free

Most chosen

Studio

For a working freelance practice.

$18/mo

$15/mo billed yearly · save two months

Unlimited transactions & invoices
Unlimited bank, Stripe, PayPal & Wise accounts
Multi-currency with day-of-rate history
Quarterly estimates and reminders
Accountant packet & read-only guest link
Email support, one business day

Start 30 days free

No card until day 31

Atelier

For studios with subcontractors and more than one entity.

$39/mo

$32/mo billed yearly

Everything in Studio
Up to 3 businesses or entities
1099 and contractor tracking
Custom categories, rules and invoice templates
API and Zapier access
Priority support and a 45-minute onboarding call

Talk to us

Prices in USD, excluding tax. Cancel any time — exported data and issued invoices remain yours. Non-profits, students and anyone in their first year of freelancing get Studio free for twelve months; just ask.

Questions

The things people ask before connecting a bank account.

Still unsure? Write to hello@ledgerline.app and a person called Frances will reply, usually within a few hours.

Do I have to connect my bank?

No. You can import CSV statements from your bank, Stripe and PayPal instead, and upload new ones whenever you like. Connecting just means the numbers stay current without you remembering to do it, which is the entire point.

What if I mix personal and business spending in one account?

That is how most freelancers start, and Ledgerline is built for it. Mark a charge as personal once and a rule applies it to every future match — the transaction stays visible in your feed but drops out of your income and expense totals. You can also set a rule for a whole merchant, so groceries never get counted as client entertainment.

Will Ledgerline file my taxes?

No, and be sceptical of software that claims it will for the price of two coffees. What we produce is the input: categorised transactions, a profit & loss, a Schedule C summary with every figure traced back to the transactions underneath it, and a clean expense ledger. Your accountant — or your tax software — does the filing.

Does it work outside the United States?

Invoicing, transaction matching, expense tracking and multi-currency all work anywhere in the world. The tax export is currently US-shaped (Schedule C). A UK self-assessment summary including VAT and Making Tax Digital is in private beta, and a Canadian GST/HST export is next. Join the waitlist from inside the app and we’ll email you when your country ships.

How accurate is the automatic categorisation, really?

Across connected accounts, about 94% of transactions are categorised correctly without you changing anything. The important part is the other 6%: they are flagged with a specific question rather than quietly filed under “other”, because a wrong number that looks confident is worse than an obvious gap. It gets better the longer you use it — your corrections become rules.

Can my accountant see this without buying an account?

Yes. Send a read-only guest link, optionally with an expiry date. They can browse the ledger, download the packet and ask questions in comments; they cannot edit a single number. Accountants who use it a lot get a free Atelier seat on us — it saves them the archaeology too.

What happens if I stop paying?

Nothing gets held hostage. Drop to Sketch and keep 50 transactions and three invoices a month, or export everything — full transaction history, invoices and the tax packet — and walk away. Your data stays downloadable for twelve months after you cancel, then it’s deleted.

Is my financial data sold or used for anything else?

No. We don’t run ads, we don’t sell or rent data, and we don’t let anyone train models on it. Revenue comes from subscriptions and nothing else, which is why the free tier exists rather than an ad-supported one. If we ever changed that, it would need your explicit consent — and you’d be told in plain language, not a footnote.

April is coming

Get a clean year of books in about ten minutes.

Connect an account and Ledgerline will show you the first pass before you decide anything — every categorised transaction, every matched deposit, every question it needs answered. If the books look wrong, close the tab.