Setting up your accounting shouldn’t take days. Here’s how to go from zero to a live P&L report in under 10 minutes.
Step 1: Create your account
Head to stage.profitastic.io/register and sign up. You’ll get a 7-day free trial with full Pro access — no credit card needed.
Once you’re in, you’ll be prompted to create your first business. Fill in your business name, type, and timezone. You can always update this later under Settings.
Step 2: Connect your bank
Go to Banking in the left sidebar and click + Connect bank. This opens Plaid — a secure service used by millions of financial apps.
Search for your bank, log in through Plaid’s interface (Profitastic never sees your login credentials), and select the accounts you want to sync.
Transactions from the last 12 months will import automatically. This usually takes 30–60 seconds.
Step 3: Set up your Chart of Accounts
Profitastic seeds a default Chart of Accounts for you — 60+ standard accounts that cover most small businesses. Go to Chart of Accounts to review them.
If you have industry-specific categories you need, add them here. The most common additions are:
- Specific expense categories (e.g. “Advertising — Google Ads”)
- Separate revenue streams (e.g. “Consulting Revenue” vs. “Product Sales”)
Step 4: Categorize your transactions
Go to Banking and you’ll see your imported transactions. Each one needs to be assigned to a GL account (e.g. “Meals & Entertainment” or “Software Subscriptions”).
Pro tip: Use Rules. Go to Settings → Rules and create rules like:
- If description contains “AWS” → assign to Software Expense
- If merchant name contains “Uber Eats” → assign to Meals & Entertainment
Once rules are set, future transactions categorize themselves automatically.
Step 5: View your P&L
Go to Reports → Profit & Loss. Set your date range and click Run report.
You’ll see:
- Revenue — all income accounts with their totals
- Cost of Goods Sold — direct costs (if applicable)
- Gross Profit — revenue minus COGS
- Operating Expenses — all expense accounts
- Net Income — the bottom line
That’s it. Your books are live.
Next steps: Set up recurring invoices, invite your accountant, or connect a second bank account if you have one.