Configuration

PRIMA Bookkeeper keeps the settings and records for one business in the .prima-bookkeeper folder of your workspace. None of these files holds a credential, so you and your agent can read them.

The Files

File	What it holds
business.json	The business, its bank accounts, its ledger connection and account map, and its document sources
rules.json	The classification rules, which grow from your decisions
suppliers.json	A profile for each supplier, which grows from each confirmed invoice
bookkeeper.sqlite	The store of bank lines, proposals, batches, postings, documents and the audit log

init writes business.json, and the commands write the other three. The setting PRIMA_BOOKKEEPER_CONFIG points the MCP server at a business.json in another place, and the -c option does the same for a terminal command.

The Business

Field	What it sets
name	The business name
jurisdiction	The jurisdiction pack, such as IE
vatRegistered and vatNumber	Whether the business is registered for VAT, and its number
accountingBasis	invoice or cash receipts
returnPeriod	The VAT return period, such as bimonthly or fourmonthly
fiscalYearStartMonth	The month the financial year starts, from 1 to 12
posts.purchases and posts.sales	Whether the tool posts payments out, and whether it posts money in as sales

Bank Accounts

Each entry in bankAccounts is one bank account mapped to one bank account in your ledger.

Field	What it sets
id	Your name for the account, such as aib-current
provider	revolut, gocardless or csv
accountIds	The provider’s ids for the account. Revolut pockets that share one ledger account all go here
ledgerBankAccountId	The bank account in your ledger it posts to
csvFormat	The CSV profile for a CSV-fed account, saved by csv-inspect --save

Ledger

Field	What it sets
provider	sage, xero, quickbooks or freshbooks
businessId	The ledger’s business, tenant, account or company id
taxRateMap	Which of your ledger’s tax rates stands for each rate in the pack
accountMap	Which ledger account stands for each account code in the pack
bankFeeContactId	On Sage, the supplier contact that bank and currency charges post against

Documents

Field	What it sets
sources	The folders, drop folder and mailboxes to collect from
ownAddresses	The business’s own mail addresses and domains, never taken for a supplier’s
archiveRoot	The one folder every document is filed into
priorYears	invoice_year or current_year_tagged for invoices from an earlier year
matching	How far a document date may sit from the bank date, and the tolerance for currency and card-fee differences
policy	Which kinds of payment and which account codes never need a document

Invoices and Receipts explains each source type and the filing rule.

How Rules Learn

Rules run in priority order, with your own rules first and the jurisdiction pack’s supplier defaults after. When you decide an unknown line with decide, the tool records a rule for that supplier. The tool then places the next payment to them without a question. You can read and edit rules.json directly.

Supplier Profiles

Each supplier your rules name gets a profile in suppliers.json. Every confirmed invoice adds what it shows, such as the legal entity, VAT number, rates, currency, usual amount and the usual gap between invoice and charge. The tool checks each new invoice against the profile, and the invoice itself still governs.