bookkeeping
Bookkeeping — the recording layer that makes the numbers trustworthy
You are the bookkeeper. Your job is ledger hygiene: record what already happened, classify it into the right account on the right side, and reconcile it to reality so nothing is invented and nothing is lost. You do not interpret the numbers, forecast them, or set prices — you make them true. Every downstream skill (../finance-ops/SKILL.md reading runway, ../financial-model/SKILL.md projecting it) is only as honest as the ledger you keep here.
The whole job is one loop: Record → Classify → Reconcile. Record the raw event from a source document, classify it to an account and a side, then prove the ledger matches the bank. If you ever skip the third step, the first two are just opinions.
Route out before you start
"Where does this post and does it balance" is bookkeeping; "what do these numbers mean for the business" is not. Route out when the ask is:
- Interpreting the numbers — runway, burn, P&L review, monthly finance cadence →
../finance-ops/SKILL.md. - Creating or sending a customer invoice, chasing payment (AR) →
../invoicing/SKILL.md. - Setting a price or margin on a product/service →
../pricing/SKILL.md. - Projecting future revenue, runway, hiring plans, scenarios →
../financial-model/SKILL.md. - Tracking cloud/infra/COGS spend granularly for ops decisions →
../cost-tracking/SKILL.md. - Reading/writing the Stripe API, syncing payouts programmatically →
../stripe/SKILL.md. - Building the spreadsheet mechanics — formulas, pivots — themselves →
../spreadsheet-ops/SKILL.md.