I’m a certified bookkeeper who builds databases, and I built a base for owners who keep their own books. Sharing the structure, because the design choices are the part that took longest.
Every transaction needs only two links: one to an Account (the chart of accounts) and one to a Bank Account. Category, tax line and bank balances all come from those two. Vendor and invoice links are optional and only feed the 1099 and invoice pages. Two links is the most I’ve found an owner will reliably keep up with.
The chart of accounts carries the tax line. Each account record holds its Schedule C line, so picking the account is the only categorizing the owner does, and the tax totals group themselves.
Transfers are their own type (Income, Expense, Transfer), so money moved between your own accounts doesn’t inflate income or expenses.
Interface pages do the “alerts”: This Month, Unreconciled, Open Invoices (oldest due first, with days past due), Tax Prep Ready (expenses grouped by tax line) and 1099 Candidates. They’re filtered views, not notifications, which I think is the honest way to describe them.
It ships with fictional sample data so every page shows something on first open, and the first setup step is deleting it. Sample rows count against the free plan’s record limit.
I’d like to hear from anyone keeping business books in Airtable: how did you handle opening balances, and where did your setup break first?
Disclosure: I sell this base, so read it knowing that.