See the big picture.
A reliable bloke who does his job well.
Nigel is a terminal-based bookkeeping tool built for freelancers and small consultancies. Import your bank statements, auto-categorize transactions with simple rules, review flagged transactions, and instantly generate the reports you actually need — P&L, expenses, tax summaries, cash flow.
No cloud. No subscription. No 47-step setup wizard. Just a single password-protected database file, your transactions, and a bloke named Nigel who gets things done.
Everything you need. Nothing you don't.
Bank imports
CSV and XLSX with format auto-detection. Drop your statement in, Nigel figures out the rest.
Rules engine
Pattern-based auto-categorization. Contains, starts_with, regex — with priority ordering. Teach Nigel once, he remembers.
Interactive review
Step through flagged transactions one by one. Assign categories, create rules on the fly. No surprises at tax time.
Reports
P&L, expense breakdown, tax summary (Schedule C / 1120-S), cash flow, and cash balance. Export to PDF.
Modular design
Importers, reports, and exports are all modular. Built-in support for multiple banks, report types, and output formats.
Local-first
Single SQLite file. No server, no account, no cloud sync. Your books stay on your machine.
Encryption & 2FA
SQLCipher database encryption with optional TOTP two-factor authentication. Your financial data is locked down tight.
Snake
Everyone needs a break from charts from time to time.
Nigel in action.
Three commands. That's the whole workflow.
Import your bank statements
Download a CSV from your bank. Nigel auto-detects the format and imports your transactions.
nigel import statement.csv --account "BofA
Checking"
Review the flagged ones
Most transactions get categorized automatically by your rules. Walk through anything Nigel isn't sure about.
nigel review
Run your reports
P&L, expenses, tax prep, cash flow. Export to PDF when your accountant asks for them.
nigel report pnl --year 2025
Batteries included.
Nigel ships with importers, reports, and export formats ready to go. Plus a generic CSV importer for any bank.
Automation-ready by design.
Nigel contains no AI features, but every command is fully scriptable via CLI, which means it plays beautifully with AI agents and automation tools.
The repo includes Claude Code skills for adding new importers and intelligently creating categorization rules from your statements. With a tool like Claude Cowork, point it at a CSV and say:
Get Nigel.
No dependencies, download a native binary for your platform: