TaxHacker: Self-Host an AI Accounting Assistant for Freelancers, Free and Private (2026 Guide)
TaxHacker is a free, open source, self-hosted AI accounting app for freelancers. Upload receipts and invoices, let AI extract the data, and keep your financial info 100% private.
Freelance bookkeeping is a time sink. You manually type receipt data into spreadsheets, or you pay $20 to $50+ per month for cloud accounting software that uploads your sensitive financial documents to third-party servers. For indie hackers and small businesses who want automation without the privacy cost or the monthly fee, there has been no good option.
TaxHacker, developed by Vasily Zubarev (vas3k), is a free, open source, self-hosted AI accounting application built for freelancers, indie hackers, and small businesses. You upload photos of receipts, PDF invoices, or bank statements, and the built-in AI reads the documents, extracts accounting data (line items, merchant names, tax amounts, dates), and organizes it into a structured database. Because it runs entirely on your own Docker server, your financial data never leaves your machine.
In this guide, you'll learn what TaxHacker is, who it's for, and how to deploy it on your own server in under five minutes.
What is TaxHacker?
TaxHacker is a self-hosted AI accounting application built specifically for freelancers, indie hackers, and small businesses. Instead of manually typing expense data into spreadsheets or relying on expensive, privacy-invasive cloud accounting software, TaxHacker uses large language models (LLMs) to automate the entire data extraction process.
You simply upload photos of your receipts, PDF invoices, or bank statements, and the built-in AI will accurately read the documents, extract crucial accounting data (like line items, merchant names, tax amounts, and dates), and organize it into a structured database. Because it is fully self-hosted via Docker, your sensitive financial data remains completely private on your own server.
Who is it for?
- Freelancers and indie developers: Solo workers who want to automate their bookkeeping and save time during tax season without paying high monthly subscriptions.
- Privacy advocates: Business owners who refuse to upload their sensitive financial documents and client invoices to third-party cloud SaaS providers.
- Digital nomads: Expats and travelers who deal with multiple currencies and need an accounting tool that can automatically convert historical exchange rates on the fly.
- Data tinkerers: Users who want the flexibility to create custom database fields and write their own AI prompts to extract highly specific data points from their documents.
What makes TaxHacker different from cloud accounting software?
- Local LLM support: You are not locked into OpenAI or Google. You can route the AI extraction through a completely local model via Ollama or LM Studio, ensuring zero data leakage. Your financial documents never leave your server.
- Historical currency conversion: Automatically detects the currency on a foreign invoice and converts it to your base currency using the exact exchange rate from the date of the transaction, even for 14 different cryptocurrencies.
- Flexible schema: Unlike strict accounting apps, TaxHacker acts like an AI-powered Excel sheet. You can create unlimited custom fields and tell the AI exactly how to populate them via custom prompts.
- Line-item splitting: Automatically separates multi-item receipts so you can easily distinguish between tax-deductible business expenses and personal purchases on the same bill.
- Free and open source: The entire application is free and open source. No monthly subscription, no per-user pricing, no cloud dependency. You only pay for your own LLM API usage (or use free local models via Ollama for zero cost).
What you need before you start
- Operating system: Any OS that supports Docker (Linux, macOS, or Windows with WSL2).
- Hardware: Minimum 2 GB RAM. If you plan to run local AI models (like Ollama) for document parsing, 16 GB+ RAM and a dedicated GPU are highly recommended.
- Software: Git, Docker, and Docker Compose installed on your host machine.
- API keys: An OpenAI, Mistral, or Google Gemini API key (unless you are exclusively using local LLMs via Ollama, in which case no API key is needed).
Step-by-step installation
Step 1: Clone the repository
Begin by downloading the official TaxHacker source code to your machine or server:
git clone https://github.com/vas3k/TaxHacker.git
cd TaxHacker
Step 2: Configure environment variables
TaxHacker uses an environment file to securely store your database passwords and API keys. Copy the provided example template and open it in your preferred text editor:
cp .env.example .env
nano .env
Inside the .env file, set your secure passwords and paste in your preferred AI provider's API key (for example, OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...). If you are using Ollama, point the API URL to your local instance.
Step 3: Launch the Docker containers
With your environment variables set, deploy the full stack (which includes the Next.js frontend and PostgreSQL database) using Docker Compose:
docker-compose up -d
Step 4: Access your accounting dashboard
Give the database a moment to initialize, then open your web browser and navigate to the TaxHacker web interface:
http://localhost:3000
From here, you can start uploading your PDFs and images to test the AI data extraction pipeline.
Common errors and how to fix them
| Error | What it means | How to fix it |
|---|---|---|
| Port 3000 or 5432 is already in use | Another service on your computer is occupying the ports TaxHacker uses for its web interface or database. | Open docker-compose.yml and change the host port bindings (for example, change "3000:3000" to "8080:3000"). |
| Poor OCR / extraction results | The AI is struggling to accurately read messy, crumpled, or handwritten receipts. | Small local models often struggle with complex vision tasks. Switch your backend to a high-tier multimodal model like GPT-4o or Gemini 1.5 Pro for significantly better accuracy. |
| Database connection refused | The Next.js container tried to start before the PostgreSQL database was fully initialized. | Simply restart the application container by running docker-compose restart app to re-establish the connection. |
TaxHacker vs commercial accounting software
| Feature | TaxHacker (self-hosted) | Commercial SaaS (QuickBooks, Dext) |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly software cost | 100% free (you only pay API token costs, or zero with Ollama) | $20 to $50+ per month |
| Data sovereignty | Absolute privacy (hosted on your own hardware) | Financial data is owned and stored by the provider |
| Customizability | High (create unlimited fields and AI prompts) | Low (restricted to predefined software features) |
| Bank integrations | Manual CSV import only | Direct automated bank feed syncing |
| Best for | Privacy-conscious freelancers who want AI automation | Teams who want automated bank feeds and zero setup |
Bottom line: TaxHacker solves one of the most frustrating aspects of freelance bookkeeping: manual data entry. By allowing you to securely host your own AI document parser, it acts as an intelligent, automated assistant that structures your financial life without compromising your privacy to a cloud conglomerate. If you're a freelancer paying for QuickBooks or Dext and want to cut costs while keeping your financial data private, TaxHacker is the best free open source option available.
3 alternatives worth checking out
- Actual Budget (actualbudget.org): A super robust, privacy-focused open-source personal finance app based on the envelope budgeting method. It is excellent for managing cash flow but lacks the automated AI receipt-scanning features of TaxHacker.
- Invoice Ninja (invoiceninja.org): A leading open-source platform tailored primarily for invoicing, quoting, and basic expense tracking. While highly professional and feature-rich for client-facing billing, it requires manual input for expenses.
- Firefly III (firefly-iii.org): A popular, self-hosted personal finance manager. Firefly III is incredibly detailed and strictly rule-based, perfect for those who want granular control over every penny, though it has a much steeper learning curve than TaxHacker's AI-assisted approach.
Found this guide useful? Check out more free alternatives and open source projects on Sudo Scout.
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