Astero Labs · experiment file nº 484subject: Inkbooks

proposal:

Paper time cards, straight into QuickBooks.

no apps for the crew. promise.

Photo the time cards your crew already fills out. Inkbooks reads the handwriting, matches names and job numbers to your QuickBooks, and posts the hours as job-costed time. Nobody in the field changes anything.

statusprototype, unbuilt
forOwners and office managers of 5-50 person trade and job shops on QuickBooks whose crews fill out paper time cards
price if built$99/month at launch
founding price$49/month, forever
waitlistLaunching this winter. Waitlist members get first access.

findings, if we build it:

Nothing changes in the field

No apps for the crew, no tablets in the truck, no taps to fudge. They keep writing the same cards they always have. The office stops retyping them.

Job costing you can finally trust

Hours land on the right customer and job as billable time, so your QuickBooks profit reports fill themselves. No more guessing whether the Johnson job made money.

Ten seconds of review, not two hours of typing

Every card shows up next to what Inkbooks read from it. Confirm, fix the odd field, post. Each entry keeps a link back to the card it came from, so disputes end with a photo.

Full disclosure: Inkbooks doesn't exist yet. This page measures whether it should. Sign up and you're voting yes. If we build it, you get it first and cheapest; if we don't, we'll tell you what happened. © 2026 Astero Software