For accountants
You probably came to thola because the founder you work with asked you to. That's fine. This page is for you — what you can and can't do, where the books live, what flows you'll run, and how to keep the founder out of the spreadsheets without losing control of the numbers.
The honest premise
thola is not an accounting tool. It is a cashflow-and-operations tool that plays well with your accounting tool. The books still live where they live (Tally, Zoho Books, QuickBooks, ClearTax, whatever you've set up). thola handles the operational side — invoices, expenses, payment chasing, runway, GST prep — and exports cleanly when you need to close the month.
If you wanted a replacement for Tally, this is the wrong product. If you want to stop personally chasing every overdue invoice and have the founder be slightly less panicked about cash, this is exactly the right product.
The first hour
1. Get the right role (5 minutes)
Ask the founder to add you as a Custom role with finance:* permissions. Under Settings → Roles, that custom role gives you:
- Full read on Finance
- Invoice write + send
- Expense categorisation
- Period locks (you can mark a month closed)
- GST exports
- Audit log read
You don't need access to Founder, Co-Founder Fit, or anything in the founder-personal area. Keep your scope clean.
→ See: Roles & permissions
2. Categorise the back-data (30 minutes)
If the founder uploaded the last 3 months of bank statements during Quickstart, you'll see an Expense triage queue under Recipes → Finance → Categorise expenses. Every row that thola wasn't 100% confident about is sitting there, waiting for a category assignment.
Most of them are obvious. Five minutes per month of statements once you get into a rhythm.
If you want to import a longer history, drop in older statements the same way. The triage queue grows.
→ See: Categorise your expenses
3. Set up budgets (15 minutes)
Under Settings → Finance → Budget, set a monthly budget per category (Salaries, Rent, COGS, Marketing, Software, Travel, Professional fees, Other).
This is the single thing that lifts the Finance agent from "data viewer" to "useful." With budgets in place, the agent flags overruns automatically and tells the founder before they cross 20%.
4. Lock the closed periods (10 minutes)
For any month that's already accountant-closed, lock it. Settings → Finance → Period locks → Add lock.
A locked month becomes read-only — no late uploads can change historical numbers. Useful for audit consistency.
What you'll be doing daily / weekly / monthly
Daily (5 minutes)
- Glance at the cashflow card on Home — runway band + delta
- Triage any new transactions sitting in the expense queue
- Check the Red Flags filter for anything tagged
finance
Weekly (~30 minutes)
- Review overdue invoices and run AR Cleanup Playbook
- Review the week's bank statement; flag anything anomalous to the founder
- Update cash position (just one number: today's bank balance) if you don't bank-feed
Monthly (~3 hours)
- Run the Monthly Close Playbook
- Export the GST data → upload to your GST utility / ClearTax
- Reconcile thola's expense ledger with Tally
- Lock the period
- Send the founder a one-paragraph summary (the Board Update Playbook drafts one for you)
→ See: Run a monthly close, Prep for GST filing
The four flows that will save you the most time
1. AR Cleanup (weekly)
Identifies invoices over 7, 30, 60, and 90+ days past due. Drafts reminders in the customer's language and tone. You preview, you click send.
What used to be Wednesday afternoon is now Wednesday morning, 20 minutes.
2. Expense triage (daily, 5 minutes)
Bank rows that thola couldn't auto-categorise sit in a queue. You confirm or change the category in two clicks per row.
Five clean minutes a day prevents the monthly "what is this ₹47,000 to TechVend" crisis.
3. GST prep (monthly)
Compiles your GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B exports from your invoice ledger. We don't file them for you — we hand you the file your filing utility expects. You upload, you reconcile, you file.
The math being correct is the thing. The math is correct.
4. Founder briefing (monthly)
The Board Update Playbook drafts a one-page summary of the month — revenue, expenses, cash, runway, the three biggest changes, the suggested actions. You review it, fix what needs fixing, and send.
The founder reads it on the phone in five minutes. That's almost all the founder-update conversation you need.
What thola doesn't do (yet)
We are honest about gaps because you, more than anyone, need to know them.
- e-Invoice (GST EINV) — not auto-generated. You still produce e-invoices in your existing utility.
- TDS calculation — basic TDS slabs are supported; complex 194-series calculations are planned, not shipped.
- Statutory return filing — we never file on your behalf. We prep the data, you file.
- Bank feed automation — currently manual upload. Direct bank-feeds are planned.
- Accrual basis — cash basis is default. Accrual works, but some reports are cash-only today.
For any of these, the existing process you've already set up with the founder stays as-is. thola fills the gap between business-operations and the formal books.
Talking to the Finance agent
A few questions that come back useful:
"What did we spend on COGS this quarter vs last?" "Why did our gross margin drop in March?" "Draft a payment reminder for invoice INV-104 in the customer's preferred language." "Forecast next quarter's revenue using only the High-confidence pipeline." "Show me every uncategorised transaction over ₹10,000."
The Finance agent does not invent numbers. If it doesn't have data, it says so. You'll appreciate that.
Where to go next
- Finance recipes — every monthly close + GST + AR flow
- Reference → Finance scoring — how the score is computed
- Plans & tokens — what each AI action costs (you might be the one watching this number)
If you've worked with a few founders, you know that the difference between an organised business and a panicked one isn't the accountant — it's the visibility between you and the founder. That's the thing thola is built to give you.