Ambivo Books User Guide

Ambivo Books: User Guide

A chapter-by-chapter user guide for Ambivo Books, written for the people who use the front end every day: owners, bookkeepers, accountants, AR/AP staff, and anyone who reads or produces financial reports.

Each chapter stands on its own. Use the order below for a first read; jump straight to a topic when you have a specific question.

Getting Started

Guide	What it covers
UG-001: Welcome to Ambivo Books	What Ambivo Books is, the dashboard, navigating the sidebar, key terminology
UG-002: Sign Up, Login, and Authentication	How to log in, MFA, password reset, and the Payment PIN
UG-003: Setting Up Your Company (Entity Setup)	First-time entity setup: name, currency, fiscal year, chart-of-accounts presets
UG-004: Bookkeeping Concepts	Double-entry, debits and credits, ledger, periods, accrual vs. cash

Master Data

Guide	What it covers
UG-010: Chart of Accounts	The 21 account types, codes, categories, balances, statements
UG-011: Customers	Adding and managing customers, default A/R accounts, statements
UG-012: Vendors	Adding and managing vendors, defaults, Wise recipients
UG-013: Products and Services	Catalog, default income/expense accounts, tax codes

Sales

Guide	What it covers
UG-020: Invoices	Creating, posting, sending via Stripe, recording payments, voiding
UG-022: Payments Received	Customer receipts, refunds, prepayments, assignments

Purchases

Guide	What it covers
UG-021: Bills	Recording bills, paying, syncing with the master record, voiding
UG-023: Transfers Sent (Wise Payouts)	International payments through Wise, recipients, the Payment PIN

Banking

Guide	What it covers
UG-030: Bank Feeds	Connecting banks via Stripe Financial Connections, manual bank accounts
UG-031: Bank Transactions and Reconciliation	Auto-match, manual matching, excluding, creating expenses inline

Accounting Operations

Guide	What it covers
UG-040: Journal Entries and Transactions	Creating manual journals, browsing all transactions, reversing posted entries

Reporting

Guide	What it covers
UG-050: Financial Reports	Trial Balance, Income Statement, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow, Aging

Data Management

Guide	What it covers
UG-060: Data Import	Importing chart of accounts, opening balances, bank transactions, masters

Advanced

Guide	What it covers
UG-070: Multi-Currency	Base currency, multi-currency mode, exchange rates, FX gain/loss

Administration

Guide	What it covers
UG-080: Settings and Configuration	Entity, currency, fiscal year, accounting basis, Stripe Connect, Payment PIN
UG-090: QuickBooks Migration and Read-Only Mode	Migrating from QuickBooks, or running Books in read-only mode behind QuickBooks

Reading Order Suggestions

Brand new: Read UG-001, UG-002, UG-003, UG-004. Gets you set up and oriented.
Accountant taking over an existing entity: Read UG-001, UG-004, UG-010, UG-040, UG-050. Then dip into master-data and operations guides as needed.
AR clerk: Read UG-001, UG-011, UG-020, UG-022, UG-031. Covers customers, invoicing, receipts, and reconciliation.
AP clerk: Read UG-001, UG-012, UG-021, UG-023, UG-031. Covers vendors, bills, Wise payouts, and reconciliation.
Moving from QuickBooks: Read UG-090 first, then UG-060. Start with migration, then data import.
Running multiple companies or international operations: Read UG-003, UG-070, UG-023. Multi-entity setup, multi-currency, and Wise payouts.

Conventions Used in This Guide

Bold names refer to UI elements (buttons, fields, screens).
code-style refers to internal field names or values.
Quoted values like "Standard" refer to user-facing labels.
Each guide ends with Common Questions, Tips and Best Practices, and Related Guides.
Where the system enforces permanence ("cannot be changed after creation"), the guide flags it explicitly.

Reporting Issues With This Guide

If something here is wrong, out of date or unclear, email support@ambivo.com. We fix documentation quickly.