Tidy-Ledger

TidyLedger – invoice cleaner

Upload invoices (photo, PDF, TXT, CSV) → pick and rename your columns → download Excel.

No money for API credits? Use the free option

This app can read invoices with either Google Gemini (free tier, no card needed) or Anthropic (paid). If GEMINI_API_KEY is set, it’s used automatically — you never need to add a card to try this for real.

  1. Go to https://aistudio.google.com/app/apikey
  2. Sign in with any Google account (no billing setup needed for the free tier)
  3. Click “Create API key,” copy it
  4. Put it in .env as GEMINI_API_KEY=your-key-here (locally) or as an environment variable named GEMINI_API_KEY on your host (e.g. Render’s Environment tab)

The free tier has a request-per-minute limit, which is normal — for a small/testing app it’s plenty. If you outgrow it later, either wait for the quota to reset or switch to Anthropic by removing GEMINI_API_KEY and setting ANTHROPIC_API_KEY instead.

Run it on your computer

  1. Install Node.js 18 or newer from https://nodejs.org
  2. Open a terminal in this folder and run: 
    npm install

Try the screens first (no API key, fake data)

npm run demo

Open http://localhost:3000 . Every upload returns fake demo invoice data. Use this to test headings, editing and the Excel download.

Read real invoices

  1. Get an API key at https://console.anthropic.com
  2. Copy .env.example to .env and paste your key after ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=
  3. Run: 
    npm start
  4. Open http://localhost:3000 and upload a real invoice.

Pages: / is the tool, /landing.html is the sales page.

Accounts (real login, no password to manage)

Visitors log in with an emailed magic link — no passwords to store or leak. The flow:

  1. They type their email and click “Send login link.”
  2. They get an email with a link that logs them in for 30 days (a secure cookie, not a plain-text email like before). Only someone with access to that inbox can log in as them.
  3. Free plan: 50 invoices per calendar month per account, with a daily burst cap of 20 (change with FREE_MONTHLY_LIMIT / FREE_DAILY_LIMIT in .env). Pro and Business are unlimited.

Sending the login emails. Pick one (set in .env, or in your host’s Environment tab):

The server prints which mode it is in when it starts.

Before going live, set SESSION_SECRET in .env to a long random string (this signs the login/session tokens — treat it like a password). Usage and accounts are stored in data.json in this folder; swap for a real database once you have real traffic.

Accepting payments (optional, off by default)

  1. Create a Stripe account at https://stripe.com and turn on test mode.
  2. Create two recurring Prices (e.g. Pro $12/month, Business $39/month) and copy their Price IDs.
  3. In .env, set STRIPE_SECRET_KEY, STRIPE_PRICE_PRO, STRIPE_PRICE_BUSINESS.
  4. For the free-plan limit to lift automatically after payment, set up a webhook:
    • In Stripe, add an endpoint pointing to https://yourdomain.com/api/stripe-webhook for the checkout.session.completed event, and copy its signing secret into STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET in .env.
    • Locally, use the Stripe CLI (stripe listen --forward-to localhost:3000/api/stripe-webhook) to test this before going live.
  5. Restart the server. The “Upgrade to Pro” button in the tool will now open real Stripe checkout.

Until Stripe is configured, the Upgrade button shows a clear message instead of failing silently.

Notes