quints¶

Plain-text accounting for Swiss micro-companies — GmbH, AG, or Einzelfirma — on top of beancount and Fava.

Swiss VAT (MWST) returns under the effective or the Saldosteuersatz method, the registration threshold, Bezugsteuer, QR-bill invoicing, statutory KMU statements, official BAZG FX rates. The things a Swiss micro-company actually has to do, from its first invoice before it is VAT-registered to its last return, on a ledger you own as text.

quints is deterministic and machine-readable by design, so an AI coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, …) can drive it: the agent proposes bookings, quints checks and reports. It never calls a model itself. See Working with AI agents.

Install¶

uv tool install quints        # or: pipx install quints / pip install quints
quints --help

Python 3.11+ (uv installs it if missing). Typst — for the PDFs — comes bundled. Nothing else to install.

Sixty seconds¶

quints init my-books --samples --yes    # drop --yes to answer the questionnaire
cd my-books
quints check
quints vat report -p 2026-Q3

That's a runnable project with a sample quarter booked and a VAT return on screen. Getting started walks through a real setup: the legal form, whether you are VAT-registered, and the VAT method.

quints init scaffolds sample books, quints check validates them, and quints vat report prints the VAT return

By the job¶

You need to	Run	Guide
Know whether you must register for VAT	`quints vat liability`	Register, switch method, deregister
File a VAT return	`quints vat report -p 2026-Q3`	File your VAT return
Record a registration, method switch or deregistration	`quints.toml` → `[entity]`, `[[vat.change]]`	Register, switch method, deregister
See who owes you	`quints receivables`	Invoicing
See what you owe	`quints payables`	Import statements
Send a QR-bill invoice	`quints invoice <invoice.yaml>`	Invoicing
Check an IBAN and its BIC	`quints iban`	Invoicing
Pick QRR or SCOR for your QR-bills	`issuer.yaml` → `bank.<CCY>`	Payment references
Book bank/PSP activity	`quints import ubs <statement.mt940>`	Import statements
Year-end statements	`quints report statements --year 2026`	Statutory reports
Close the year	`quints close check --year 2026`	Close the year
Keep FX rates right	`quints prices sync`	FX rates

Every command in these docs is executed by the test suite against the shipped example project. If a documented command breaks, CI fails before you see it. Every legal rule a page relies on is footnoted to its source — the article in the law, the ESTV publication, the standard — so you can check it applies to you.

quints is not tax or legal advice, and it comes without warranty (GPL-2.0, sections 11–12). You, or your Treuhänder, stay responsible for what you file and sign.

The building blocks¶

quints is assembled from standalone PyPI distributions — quints, beangulp-mt940, beangulp-yapeal, beangulp-wise, beangulp-stripe, beanprice-bazg — each usable on its own in any beancount setup. Installing quints pulls them all in. Source: github.com/sealambda/quints.