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One double-entry ledger derived from the books you already keep, proved to zero to the minor unit, with every line naming the document it came from. It reads six books this collection already keeps, all read-only: the invoice ledger, the credit notes and purchase orders, the deposits, the expense ledger, the bank import and the fixed asset register. For a period in one currency it derives a debit and a credit for every movement in them. Revenue and VAT output come off the invoices, receivables and the payments that clear them, deposits held as the liability they actually are, expenses by category with the VAT taken OUT of the gross rather than added on top of it, fixed assets as they enter service, and depreciation charged by month. The bank import posts nothing at all, which is the decision the whole ledger rests on: a bank line and a payment record are not two transactions, they are one transaction seen twice, so cash is posted from the documents, which are the only rows that carry a second leg, and each bank row is matched to a posted cash movement of the same amount, the same direction and a date within three days, written onto the line as evidence. What is left unmatched is the output that matters, because a bank debit with no expense behind it is a payment nobody entered. Nothing is ever balanced with a plug: an entry whose own legs do not add up is posted exactly as the document states it and the difference is raised by name, with the entry, the source server and the source document behind every unit of it, because a trial balance can only find a broken document if it is allowed to come out non-zero. Currencies are never added together, a purchase order stays a memo and is never posted, a deposit applied to an invoice moves the liability rather than cash, and the ledger opens at nothing, since an opening figure nobody can walk back to a document is the first invented number in a set of books. Every line carries the server, the document id and the ISO date it came from, and the bytes and mtimes of all six sibling stores are unchanged across all six tools.
This is the window every one of those books was written in, so the ledger is derived from what is already on this machine rather than from an export: "build June" and then "does it balance" is two sentences, and if it does not balance the answer names the invoice or the expense whose own figures do not add up rather than a row number in a spreadsheet. It writes into none of the six stores it reads, and the only file it owns is a register of the periods it built.
| You say | Tool |
|---|---|
| Build the double-entry ledger for June and tell me whether the trial balance comes to zero. | ledger_build |
| Show me every ledger line that hits receivables, with the invoice each one came from. | ledger_lines |
| Close June: what does the month leave unposted or inconsistent? | month_close |
Posting the bank import alongside the documents, which is the obvious way to build a cash book and the way most spreadsheets do it, double-counts almost all of the cash and the trial balance still comes to zero. Measured on this server's worked month: four of the five bank rows are the same money as a document already posted, 1,375,300 of 1,380,300 minor units of cash movement, 99.6 percent. Posting them as well moves the cash balance from -10,543.00 to -21,111.00 EUR, and nothing flags it, because every duplicated receipt arrives with its own contra, every individual line is plausible and the only symptom is one account off by nearly a factor of two in a direction nobody audits. What is left after matching is 7,500 minor units, one unexplained withdrawal. That 0.4 percent is the entire reason to import a statement at all, and it is exactly what a duplicate-heavy ledger buries.
The file is claude_desktop_config.json, and the key inside it is mcpServers.
| Scope | Path |
|---|---|
| macOS | ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json |
| Windows | %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json |
{
"mcpServers": {
"cash-book": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@theluckystrike/mcp-cash-book"]
}
}
}If node came from nvm, asdf or homebrew, replace "npx" with the absolute path that which npx prints:
"command": "/Users/you/.nvm/versions/node/v22.14.0/bin/npx"Save, then completely quit Claude Desktop and start it again. A window reload is not enough.
The npm publish of @theluckystrike/mcp-cash-book is pending; until then use the .mcpb bundle or a clone and build from the latest release.
The same server runs at https://mcp.zovo.one/mcp/https://mcp.zovo.one/mcp/cash-book over MCP streamable HTTP, no install. Mint a free token with curl https://mcp.zovo.one/mcp/token, or use a Pro key. It has no filesystem, so a file comes back as a one-hour download link.
{
"mcpServers": {
"cash-book": {
"url": "https://mcp.zovo.one/mcp/https://mcp.zovo.one/mcp/cash-book",
"headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <token>" }
}
}
}Two documented facts decide whether the entry works: every path in claude_desktop_config.json must be absolute, and a stdio server started here inherits only a limited, platform-dependent subset of environment variables. If node came from nvm or homebrew, paste what `which npx` prints instead of the bare word. The .mcpb route avoids both: Claude Desktop ships a built-in Node.js environment.
Free: trial_balance and ledger_lines are free and unlimited on every tier. Whether the books add up is the question this server exists for, and a free tier that hides the answer is a demo rather than a tool, so neither the check nor the evidence behind it is ever metered. The cap is on the PERIOD instead: three distinct periods a calendar month, keyed by from, to and currency, so rebuilding a period already in the register is free forever on every tier and the meter only ever moves when you ask a genuinely new question. Pro is $19 once, verified offline.
macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json. Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json. There is no published Linux path. Settings, Developer, Edit Config opens the right copy and creates it if it does not exist.
In order: did you fully quit and restart, not just close the window? Is every path absolute? And is the command resolvable, given the limited environment a stdio server inherits here? If node came from nvm, paste what which npx prints.
Yes. An .mcpb bundle, the format renamed from .dxt, opens with Claude and shows an installation dialog. One you built yourself goes in through Settings, Extensions, Advanced settings, Install Extension.
MCP Cash Book in detail · The same server in Claude.ai and Claude Desktop connectors and Claude Code · Every server in Claude Desktop · Guides · Claude Desktop docs · Buy Pro