3.0 KiB
3.0 KiB
Capability parity — GSheet+GDrive → wanderbooks
The parity target for the AI-first phase is not QuickBooks. It is the system actually in use today: the "Wanderland Labs LLC — Books" Google Sheet (double-entry accounts with live P&L, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow tabs, plus the Transaction Journal) together with the Drive folder, operated through an AI assistant. Every capability below must be reachable through MCP tools before the sheet retires.
Statuses: covered (built and tested), partial (built, known gaps listed),
specced (designed, not yet built), future (on the roadmap).
| # | Today's capability | wanderbooks equivalent | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Record a double-entry transaction (Transaction Journal row) | books.draft_entry / add_line / post_entry (engine: Ledger) |
covered |
| 2 | Chart of accounts | engine + books.chart (with live balances) |
covered |
| 3 | Live P&L tab | engine + books.profit_and_loss |
covered |
| 4 | Live Balance Sheet tab | engine + books.balance_sheet |
covered |
| 5 | Live Cash Flow tab | engine cash_flow (indirect) + books.cash_flow |
covered |
| 6 | Transaction Journal as append-only log | engine posting log + books.search_entries |
covered |
| 7 | Receipt storage in Drive | blob store + books.attach_receipt / link_receipt |
covered |
| 8 | Document filing by category (01 Formation / 02 Legal / 03 Tax / 04 Accounting) | books.file_document |
covered |
| 9 | Ad-hoc questions ("what did we spend on X?") | search_entries + reports; the AI itself is the query layer |
covered |
| 10 | Human review of what the assistant recorded | books.digest |
covered |
| 11 | CPA-ready export of the books | books.export (csv/json/xlsx/iif; xlsx is base64) |
covered |
| 12 | Company email filing (every company email → Drive folder) | out of books scope; the existing mail-filing automation keeps running unchanged | — |
Notes
- Row 9 is the quiet superpower of the AI-first design. The sheet answers questions with formulas the human must write; the MCP design answers them with an agent that already knows how to read a trial balance. The capability is "ask anything about the books," and the tool surface above is what makes it true.
- Row 10 (
books.digest) has no sheet equivalent — the sheet can't tell you what changed. This is parity plus: the new system is more reviewable than the old one, which is the point of the exercise. - Row 12 is deliberately excluded. Email filing is a mail problem, not a books problem; it stays where it is.
Cutover rule
The sheet does not retire on a date. It retires when all three hold:
- Every
speccedrow above iscovered(built, tested, golden-covered where reports are involved). - A full month of parallel run — every real company transaction recorded in both systems — diffs clean.
- Stephen says so.
The parallel run is the acceptance test. Until then the sheet is the system of record and wanderbooks is the shadow ledger; after, it inverts.