Mercury Books is a full double-entry accounting solution built into your Mercury account. It brings your transactions, journal entries, reconciliations, and financial reports into the same place you already do your banking*.
This article explains what Books does, how to set it up, and how to decide whether you want to run your books yourself or work with a bookkeeper.
What Mercury Books does
- Supports cash and accrual accounting on a full double-entry ledger
- Syncs every Mercury checking, savings, and credit account automatically — including closed accounts, so you have your full history
- Connects to external bank and credit card accounts through Plaid
- Connects to Stripe, PayPal, and Gusto so sales, fees, payouts, and payroll post to your books without manual entry
- Pulls in your Mercury invoices and bills, and keeps payment matching in sync between Books and Mercury Invoicing
- Auto-reconciles your Mercury accounts continuously, because they live in the same system as your books
- Categorizes transactions automatically using AI, similarity matching, and rules you define
- Produces a Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow, and General Ledger you can filter, drill into, and export
Getting into Books
Books appears in the left-hand menu of your Mercury dashboard. You can also go straight there at app.mercury.com/books.
To move back to your banking dashboard, use the product switcher in the top left corner.
Getting started with Books
Getting started with Books is near instant after making two decisions:
- Select your accounting basis — cash to track money when it moves, or accural to track revenue and expenses when they’re earned or incurred.
- Choose a chart of accounts template based on your entity type, or import your own as a CSV
Mercury will automatically set your start date: Nearest date between Jan 1 2025 or date of incorporation. This can be edited via Settings post-set up.
Note: You need a role with the all accounts, accounting, invoice creation, and recipient management permissions. The first two are required to open Books at all; without the other two, payment matching and vendor records won't work. See our Sharing access to your books article.
Once setup is complete, Books opens on your home page with your cash, revenue, and expense insights for the period.
Finalizing Books set-up
After getting into Books, there are a few additional steps to pull in non-Mercury data and invite any bookkeeper users who you’d like to collaborate with.
Bringing your non-Mercury data over
Books is designed around a clean cutover rather than a full historical migration. The recommended approach is to close your last period in your current system, set your entry start date to the first day of the period you want to start in Books, and bring over your chart of accounts.
- Import your chart of accounts as a CSV during setup, or start from one of Mercury's templates
- Import transactions for accounts Books can't connect to directly using Transactions > + Import transactions
- Record opening balances as of your cutover date with a manual journal entry
For a step-by-step walkthrough, see our Moving to Books from QuickBooks Online or Xero article.
Do you need a bookkeeper?
No. Plenty of founders run Books entirely on their own, and the product is built to work that way. Choose whichever path fits how you work today:
- Do it yourself — you categorize transactions, create journal entries, reconcile, and pull your own reports
- Bring your own bookkeeper — you invite the bookkeeper or accountant you already work with into your Mercury account
- Get matched with a bookkeeper — Mercury introduces you to a partner bookkeeping firm that fits your business
The path isn't permanent. You can start on your own and add a bookkeeper later, or bring one in from the start and take more of it on yourself over time. Learn more in our Working with a bookkeeper in Mercury Books article.
Note: If you get matched with a bookkeeping firm, that firm sets its own pricing and you pay the firm directly. Bookkeeping services aren't included with Mercury Books.
FAQs
Does Books replace my accountant?
Depends how comfortable you are. Books does the mechanics well enough that a lot of founders handle it themselves. For the judgment calls — unusual transactions, accounting method, taxes — most people still want an accountant in the loop.
Can I use Books if I bank somewhere else too?
Yes. You can link external bank accounts and credit cards through Plaid, and import transactions by CSV for any account Plaid doesn't support.
Does Books support multiple currencies?
Not currently. Books works in USD, and non-USD invoices don't sync into Books.
Can I use Books for more than one business?
You can access Books for every business that has a business banking account with Mercury.
How much does Books cost?
Books is free through December 31, 2026. Starting January 1, 2027, Books will cost $35/month. It's a separate subscription — not included in Mercury Plus or Mercury Pro. See mercury.com/books for details.
*Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC.