SmokoBooks. The bookkeeping app we built and sell ourselves.

What it does

Two halves that work as one system. Money is the cash book: jobs and invoices, money in, expenses, subcontractors, assets and a vehicle log, with GST, deductions, reconciliation and job costing. Quoting makes the PDFs and tracks every quote from draft to sent to accepted. Accept a quote and a job appears; save an invoice and the job picks up the number, date and amount; save a receipt and a payment lands in Money In.

• Branded quotes, invoices, receipts, work orders, variations, defect notices, service reports, SWMS and electrical safety checks, generated with the business's own logo and details
• A dashboard with the money and quote figures for the financial year, cash in against cash out, and one "needs attention" list
• Tax and BAS: monthly and quarterly cash summaries with BAS labels, an income tax estimate, a GST registration monitor and the cents-per-kilometre vehicle deduction, as planning estimates to confirm with an accountant
• A week schedule, a price list, payment reminders with the PDF attached, receipt photos on expenses and customer statements
• An Excel workbook of the whole year, with live formulas, to hand to the accountant at tax time

Why it runs on the tradie's own computer

Everything lives on the user's PC, not on our servers. A dated backup is written automatically every day the app is used, the app keeps working for two weeks without internet, and moving to a new computer is a deactivate-and-reactivate step. That was a deliberate design choice: a trade business's books should not depend on someone else's cloud staying up.

How we built it

The app is built with Electron and Node.js, so it installs like any Windows program and runs offline. PDFs are drawn with pdf-lib from shared document templates, so every business gets its own header, colours, logo, bank details and terms rather than a fixed layout. The customer acceptance block on a quote is made of real PDF form fields, so a customer can tick, type their name and sign in any PDF reader and send it back.

The Excel export is generated with ExcelJS. Email goes out through Outlook or the user's own mail account. The shop, licence service and admin panel live on smokobooks.com.au, built with React and TanStack Start, with Stripe handling payments and a licence check the app runs once a day.

What it says about working with us

Building and supporting our own product means we live with the decisions we make: the setup flow, the help button on every screen, the daily backup, the plain-English wording. Those are the same habits we bring to software we build for a client. If you have a spreadsheet, a repetitive task or a missing tool in your business, this is what it can turn into.

Built with

• Electron
• Node.js
• pdf-lib
• ExcelJS
• React
• TanStack Start
• Stripe
• Vercel

Common questions

Is SmokoBooks a client project?

No. It is our own product. We designed it, coded it, and we sell and support it ourselves from Queensland.

Does it run on a Mac or a phone?

SmokoBooks is a Windows desktop app. It runs on the user's own PC and keeps working without an internet connection.

Can you build something like this for my business?

Yes. Quoting tools, admin panels and automation are exactly what our custom software service is for. Tell us the problem and we will work out the code.