FallAccount Trades
Live: sjgant80-hub.github.io/fallaccount-trades
A sovereign accounts app for UK builders, plumbers, sparkies, plasterers and other sole-trader trades.
A proper business. Ivan's tool. Yours after you fork it.
One HTML file. Opens in any browser. Lives on your phone. Your data never leaves your device.
not subscription-based. No login. No cloud. No telemetry. No nonsense.
Live demo: drop your GitHub Pages URL here once enabled
What it does
| Workflow | Time | What you do |
|---|
| 📸 Snap a receipt | 5 sec | Photo at Screwfix → auto-categorised → logged |
| 🚐 Log a journey | 10 sec | "Mr Smith's → Travis Perkins, 12 miles" → HMRC rate auto-calculated |
| 🔨 Start a job | 30 sec | "Kitchen refit — Mr Smith, TBA quoted" |
| 📤 Invoice it | 1 min | Job marked done → invoice generated → CIS deducted automatically |
| £ Tax position | live | Income, expenses, mileage, CIS — running total all year |
| 📑 MTD quarterly | 2 min | Pick the quarter → generate the figures → download |
Built for actual site use
- Big buttons — usable with gloves, dirty hands, fat fingers
- High contrast dark mode — readable in sun, in a basement, at six in the morning
- Works offline — no signal in a basement? Still works.
- Mobile-first — designed for one-thumb use on a phone
- Print-ready invoices — generate a clean PDF, send via email/WhatsApp/text
Built for actual trades
- CIS handling both directions — receiving (subcontractor) and paying (contractor). Most apps cock this up.
- Simplified vehicle expenses — 45p first 10k miles, 25p after, baked in
- UK 2025/26 tax engine — personal allowance, basic/higher/additional bands, PA taper, NI Class 4 (used as 2026/27 proxy)
- VAT settings — standard rate, flat rate scheme (9.5% labour-only or 14.5% general construction)
- "Set aside £X per month" — divides estimated tax bill by months remaining until Jan 31
How to use it (5 minutes)
On your phone
- Open the link in your phone's browser (Chrome on Android, Safari on iPhone)
- Tap the share/menu button → "Add to Home Screen" (looks and acts like an app after that)
- Tap "Add receipt" → snap a photo or type the vendor + amount → done
That's it. No account, no email, no card.
First time
- Open Settings (cog icon, top right)
- Set your brand name and mark (one letter — Ivan would put "I")
- Set your CIS status (none / 20% / 30% / gross)
- Set your VAT status (none / standard / flat rate)
- Optionally paste a free Gemini API key for smart photo-of-receipt scanning (get one here — completely free, stays on your phone)
Daily
- Add receipts as you go (Screwfix, Toolstation, Travis Perkins, fuel, etc.)
- Log mileage between jobs
- Create jobs to track materials + labour + travel against quoted price
- Invoice from finished jobs in one tap
Monthly
- Tap Home dashboard — check the "Set aside for tax" number
- Tap Tax → check the running position
Quarterly
- Tap Tax → Generate quarterly report
- Pick the quarter (Q1 = Apr-Jul, Q2 = Jul-Oct, Q3 = Oct-Jan, Q4 = Jan-Apr)
- Download the numbers
- Send to your accountant, or submit via HMRC's MTD portal
Sovereignty — what this actually means
Every other accounting app stores your data on their server. You pay a monthly fee. If you stop paying, you lose access. If they get hacked, your receipts get leaked. If they get bought by a bigger company, the terms change overnight.
FallAccount Trades stores everything on your phone — IndexedDB and localStorage. We have no server. We cannot see your data. We cannot lose your data. We cannot sell your data. There is no "we" — the file is yours.
- ✅ Works offline indefinitely
- ✅ Survives our company dying / disappearing
- ✅ Survives the internet going down
- ✅ Survives any platform shutting us down
- ✅ Backup via JSON export — keep on USB or email to yourself
- ✅ Restore by importing the JSON — your phone restored exactly
The trade-off: if your phone dies and you didn't back up, the data goes with it. Same as a paper notebook in your van getting wet. Back up monthly. There's a button for it.
For trades-mates: forking your own
Got mates who'd want one? Three options:
Option 1 — free favour
Help your mate make their own copy. Five minutes of clicking. They get their own version with their brand name on it. You earn a beer.
Option 2 — set it up for them (TBA–TBA cash)
- Fork this repo to a new repo with their name (e.g.
dave-plastering/my-accounts)
- Drop their logo / brand in via Settings
- Enable GitHub Pages on their repo
- Send them the link to bookmark
- Hand them a printed copy of the intro doc
- An hour's work · cash in hand · they get a tool they'd otherwise pay TBAnth forever
Option 3 — refer them
Send them to whoever made yours. They'll get one set up. You earn a credit.
For developers: how this is built
Architecture
- Single HTML file — ~65 KB, no build step, no npm
- Vanilla JS — no React, no Vue, no framework
- IndexedDB for persistence with localStorage fallback
- BroadcastChannel for cross-tab + mesh interop (
fall-signal prime 31)
- Konomi licence shim baked in (sovereign tier, no gate)
- Optional Gemini Vision for photo-of-receipt parsing (T3 cascade)
Stack
- HTML + CSS + JS in one file
- Syne headings via Google Fonts
- System UI body font for fastest load
- PWA manifest baked into the HTML via data: URL (no separate files needed)
Files
fallaccount-trades/
├── index.html # the deliverable · 65 KB · single file
├── README.md # this file
├── FOR-IVAN.md # the human-friendly intro (rename for your audience)
├── LICENSE # MIT
└── .gitignore
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
