Download Balanced Sum
Free to download, free to keep. A complete double-entry accounting system in a zip file that runs entirely on your own computer — here's exactly what you need and what you're getting.
Version 2.0.2 · released August 9, 2026
Download Balanced Sum 2.0.2 (.zip)Windows 10/11 · no account required · see requirements below before you start
What's in it
One install, as many companies as you like, and nothing held back behind a paid tier — there isn't one.
The ledger and the reports
Real double-entry underneath. Profit & loss for any date range; balance sheet, trial balance and A/R and A/P aging as of any date you pick. The profit & loss and balance sheet print straight to PDF. Click an account on a statement and you get that account's transactions.
Transactions and the chart of accounts
A full register of everything posted, filterable by date, account, type, amount or memo text, with per-account running balances and a CSV download of whatever you're looking at. Add, rename, or retire accounts yourself; start from one of eight ready-made charts for different kinds of business.
Customers, invoices, vendors, bills
Invoice customers and record payments (full, partial, or with a credit); enter bills, pay them, and print checks on voucher or three-per-page stock. Optional sales tax with your own rates, exempt customers, and a report of what you owe the state.
Bank statements and year-end
Import statements as .csv, .ofx or .qfx and work down the list — Balanced Sum suggests the match, you confirm it, nothing is categorized behind your back. Close each year against a trial balance and lock it so it can never be edited again. A backup is written when you start the app, at most once a day, to Documents\Accounting Backups on your machine.
A way in from your old software
Bring your full history across from QuickBooks Desktop, Sage BusinessWorks, Sage 50, Xero, Wave, FreshBooks — or anything that can export its general ledger to CSV or Excel. How switching works →
What it doesn't do
No payroll. No automatic bank connections — you import statement files yourself. One currency. Balanced Sum doesn't currently ship a Mac, Linux, or phone build. Stock is tracked at average cost only, in one location, with no serial or lot numbers, no landed cost, no barcode scanning, and no work orders or overhead in a build.
What you'll need
Balanced Sum isn't a website — it runs on your machine, which means a short one-time setup before your first launch. There is exactly one thing to install, and no reboots. Budget 10–15 minutes the first time, most of it waiting on downloads. After that, starting the app is one command.
64-bit. Balanced Sum doesn't currently ship a Mac or Linux build.
Runs the application itself. Free, from nodejs.org — takes a couple of minutes to install, and it's the only thing you install yourself.
The database (PostgreSQL) isn't something you install — Balanced Sum fetches it the first time you start the app, about 25 MB, and keeps it in its own folder. That's the only launch that needs to be online.
Full, copy-pasteable setup instructions are in the GETTING-STARTED guide included in the download. It's written for someone comfortable installing software and typing commands into PowerShell, not a professional developer.
If you get stuck, email support@balancedsum.com — tell us which step you're on and what it said on screen. Setup is the hardest part of a program that runs on your own machine, and it's the mail we most expect to get. Please don't attach any of your books; see the contact page for what actually helps.
What you're downloading
A single zip file
Unzip it anywhere, run one setup command, then npm run app to start it.
Well under a couple of megabytes — the zip ships source code, not
node_modules; your one-time setup command downloads dependencies.
One download on the first run, then it's yours
The zip doesn't contain the database. The first time you run Balanced Sum it fetches PostgreSQL — about 25 MB, from balancedsum.com — checks it against a published checksum, and unpacks it into its own folder on your machine. Nothing is installed system-wide and nothing else is changed. We'd rather tell you that plainly than have you discover a progress bar you weren't expecting.
After that first launch, running Balanced Sum needs no internet connection at all. Your
books live in %LOCALAPPDATA%\BalancedSum on your own disk — not in
the zip, not in the cloud — which is also why updating the app can't touch them.
Free updates
Balanced Sum runs a version check when you start the app — at most once a day, quietly, and only if you're online. It asks balancedsum.com for the list of released versions and sends nothing with the request; you can switch it off completely by blanking out UPDATE_FEED_URL in your .env. Exactly what that request does and doesn't contain is spelled out on the privacy page. It never breaks anything if you're offline, and Settings always shows you the version you're on. Updating is your call: download the new zip, follow the steps in UPDATING.md, and your books — which live in the database, not the zip — are untouched the entire time.