Ledger123 · The enhancement book
Where SQL-Ledger stands, and where we are taking it
The book has nineteen chapters. Four measure our hosted SQL-Ledger against the QuickBooks Online tiers, from Simple Start to Advanced, and a fifth turns the comparison round, tagging every SQL-Ledger screen with the lowest tier that has it. The rest look outward: the ten integrations QuickBooks users install, what a US client owes and how it is filed, TurboTax as the preparer’s counterpart, where AI is genuinely entering accounting software, how a firm in Pakistan wins customers abroad, and the WordPress plugins that would carry the ledger to WooCommerce; three read the Swiss SQL-Ledger forks and the Swiss AI bookkeeper Infinity, and the last two survey the accounting, tax, invoicing and payment rules a ledger must satisfy — first across twenty-two European countries, then across Australia, Canada and the United States.
Each chapter takes one comparison — a package small businesses weigh SQL-Ledger against, or a capability they ask for — researches it properly, measures our hosted SQL-Ledger against it feature by feature, and ends with the concrete enhancements we intend to build. The chapters stand on their own; read them in any order.
1
Reaching parity with QuickBooks Simple Start
What the entry-level QuickBooks plan does, what our SQL-Ledger already does, and the eleven enhancements that close the gap.
2
Reaching parity with QuickBooks Essentials
The tier above Simple Start adds bills, recurring documents, time, multi-currency and three users — most of which SQL-Ledger has had for years. The six enhancements that remain.
3
Reaching parity with QuickBooks Plus
Inventory, purchase orders, projects, classes and budgets: the tier where QuickBooks draws level with SQL-Ledger on four of five, and the one place — budgets — where it is ahead.
4
Reaching parity with QuickBooks Advanced
The top of QuickBooks Online: custom roles, approval workflows, revenue recognition, fixed assets, backup and restore, spreadsheet sync. Two missing modules, three control layers, and the nine enhancements that reach it.
5
SQL-Ledger, feature by feature, against the QuickBooks ladder
The book turned round: every SQL-Ledger screen and every Ledger123 addition, tagged with the lowest QuickBooks tier that has it — and the long list that no tier has.
6
The ten integrations QuickBooks users install, and what each means for us
Bank feeds, payment processors, bill pay, receipt capture, marketplaces, payroll, time, CRM, tax engines and Zapier: the app store distilled to ten, with the API that has to come first.
7
Serving US clients from Pakistan: the taxes, the calendar, the forms, and what the ledger can produce
What a one-person US company owes the IRS and the states, how each return is actually transmitted, what a Pakistan-based accountant may and may not file, whether QuickBooks talks to the IRS, and which of it SQL-Ledger can generate — with three New York businesses worked end to end.
8
TurboTax: what it is, what it files, what it costs, and how a ledger feeds it
The other half of Intuit: the consumer filing engine that QuickBooks hands off to. Editions and 2026 prices, the expert tiers, the Windows-only business product, the one import format a ledger can write, and why a paid preparer may not use it.
9
Ten ways AI is entering accounting software, and which of them SQL-Ledger should build
The named agents in QuickBooks, Xero’s JAX, Sage Copilot, the AI-native bookkeepers, document extraction, bank-feed learning, anomaly detection, and talking to the ledger through MCP: what is real, what is marketing, what to build, and what merely to watch.
10
Marketing from Pakistan: the old method, the new internet, and a plan
How SQL-Ledger customers were won from Lahore in 2008 — mailing lists, forums, one Google keyword — what the archive says it produced, what replaced those venues, whether a free-forever tier helps, a twelve-month plan that a sole operator can keep, and the ladder from the first client to the hundredth at $10,000 a month.
11
A US company from Pakistan: which shape, which state, what it costs, and whether the bank will open
The LLC packages sold on WhatsApp, priced out line by line: the four shapes of US company and what each drags in, which state and why it is almost never Delaware, how to file it yourself, whether a Pakistan-resident owner can open an account at all, and what the IRS, the State Bank and the FBR want afterwards.
12
Who is allowed to do US taxes: PTIN, EA, CPA, attorney, and what they charge
CPAs are only a quarter of the answer. The four tiers of US tax practitioner, what each may actually do before the IRS, how each is made and at what cost, what they bill their clients in a year, what they are personally liable for, and which of them a practice run from Pakistan can staff or become.
13
The accountant's edition: what to build so a US tax preparer brings their clients to us
The build order for selling the hosted ledger to US tax preparers: where a season’s hours actually go, what QuickBooks Online Accountant and the practice suites give away and at what price, the twelve modules in dependency order, the changes the hosting itself needs — MFA, audit log, restores, a security package — what to charge per client, and ninety days in sequence.
14
The WordPress plugins: a shop, two portals, and what the ledger must offer them
Nine plugin ideas for the wordpress.org repository, what each does for exposure and for hosting sales, the repository’s rules, and the twelve limitations in SQL-Ledger today that a plugin would run into first.
15
The Run my Accounts fork: thirteen years of a Swiss SQL-Ledger, feature by feature
What Run my Accounts AG built on SQL-Ledger between 2013 and 2026 — read from 2,130 commits and the schema of the features whose code stayed closed — and how each can be built here for the users who come looking for its hosting.
16
The Tekki fork: eighteen years of tracking upstream, and the Swiss layer on top
Rolf Stöckli’s SQL-Ledger — 702 commits from 2008 to version 4.1.3 in 2026 — read commit by commit: UTF-8, the JSON API, QR-bill in and out, pain.001, camt.054, XLSX everywhere, TOTP, a real test suite, and the 4.0 re-architecture; what to port, what to leave, and what to build for its users.
17
Infinity: the Swiss AI bookkeeper, feature by feature, and what it leaves to us
NextBusiness AG’s infinity.swiss, surveyed from every page, ninety-nine changelog entries, the help centre and the API: the bank feed that proposes bookings, receipt extraction by quota, QR-bills and quotes by link, projects, payroll through a Swissdec partner, an iPhone app and an agent in beta — fifty-six features marked against our ledger and the RMA cockpit, the long list it refuses to build, and the ten things to build.
18
Europe: the rules a ledger must satisfy, country by country
Twenty-two countries and the layer they share: the VAT mechanics an engine must derive rather than store, the e-invoicing mandates on a dated calendar from Italy 2019 to the EU-wide rule of July 2030, the payment formats and check-digited references that make money come back matched, the November 2026 deadline that kills unstructured addresses, the audit file each tax office demands, and the five countries that regulate the accounting software itself — with what our ledger has, lacks, and should build in what order.
19
Australia, Canada and the United States: the rules a ledger must satisfy outside Europe
The mirror image of the European chapter: three countries that barely regulate the invoice and regulate the report instead. One GST rate in Australia against 12,566 taxing jurisdictions in the United States; the ABA, Standard 005 and Nacha payment files field by field; payroll reported at every pay run in Australia and deposited within days in America; cheques still carrying twenty-four trillion dollars a year; Quebec’s certified fiscal device and its French-language law; and the one rule Europe never asks — where, physically, the books are allowed to live.
20
Further chapters
More comparisons are in progress and will appear here as they are finished.