The Longtom guide
Everything Longtom does, page by page. The screenshots are a made-up business.
Getting started
Install
Longtom is in the Microsoft Store. Install it, then open it from the Start menu. It runs on Windows 10 and 11.
It needs one thing you probably already have: a coding AI on the command line, such as Claude Code, Codex, GitHub Copilot or Cursor. Longtom uses it, on your own plan, to read and write. There is no Longtom account and no API key to paste.
The first start
The first page asks where your inbox should be: a folder where you put anything that needs dealing with. Longtom suggests Longtom Inbox on your desktop; change it or browse to another. It gets its own icon so you can find it. Leave the second box ticked for a Longtom shortcut on the desktop.
Press Continue, or Not now to do it later from Documents.
Then choose the country the business is in. Everything tax-shaped follows from it, so it is the one question Longtom insists on. Everything else is optional.
Moving to a new computer? Choose Put a business back instead. See Backups and a new computer.
Process: the AI does the work
Longtom is built so the AI deals with what comes in. You put things in the inbox, mail and calls arrive, the bank sends lines, and Process sends all of it through your AI, which decides what each thing is and what to do with it.
Press Process at the top of the window, or Process now on Home, or Process now from the tray icon. Each run:
- checks your mail, from wherever the last check stopped,
- checks your phone line for texts and voicemail,
- checks your bank feed,
- reads every file in your inbox folder.
For each item the AI decides: books (a receipt or invoice: booked), documents (a letter, contract or notice: named and filed), support (a customer: a ticket), or not the business's. A file in the inbox moves to Filed or Not filed afterwards. Nothing is deleted.
When it runs
Open Drop folder on the Process card to choose:
- As things arrive (the default): each source is checked on its own while Longtom runs.
- Every hour or Once a day: everything together. A day missed is caught up when Longtom next starts.
- Only when I press Process.
Newsletters and auto-replies are set aside without asking the AI, to save your plan. Untick the box to have the AI read every message.
An email with a PDF or photo attached is read from the attachment: the invoice is the thing, the email only covers it.
Home
Home shows the last Process run, what needs you, the money this month, and what your AI did this week. Anything that needs a decision links straight to the page that makes it.
Press Ctrl K, or the search box, to jump to any page, document, customer or setting.
Connecting mail, phone and bank
Settings → Mail. Connect any mailbox by IMAP, or sign in with Microsoft for Outlook and Exchange. Add more than one: a reply goes back out of the mailbox the message arrived at.
Routine support replies can go out on their own; anything less clear-cut waits for you with the reason on the ticket. Settings → Mail decides how far that goes: Draft everything, Send routine replies (the default) or Send every reply. Nothing is ever sent to a tax authority or a registry.
Phone
Settings → Phone. Connect a Twilio or Telnyx number. Texts and voicemail become tickets, the same as email, and voicemail is transcribed on your own computer.
For Telnyx voicemail, set the number's TeXML voice URL to https://longtom.app/telnyx/voicemail.xml. Telnyx keeps texts for about ten days, so a computer that is off longer than that misses some.
Bank
Books → Import. Starling and Mercury connect directly. Every other bank works by dropping its statement export (CSV, OFX, camt.053 or MT940) in the inbox or on the Import page.
Support
Every customer message becomes a ticket, whether it came by email, text or voicemail. The AI classifies it, links it to the customer and their orders, and drafts a reply.
For a bug in your own product, Longtom can hand the ticket and your repository to your AI. A fix comes back as a branch for you to review, never merged by itself. Support → Fixes lists them.
Customers shows everyone who has bought or written, with their orders, licences and conversations.
Books, sales and tax
Overview shows the current period in your tax return's own labels and what still needs you.
Transactions is the ledger. Choose an account for a line once and the rule is learned for the next import.
Tax returns are prepared for you to lodge yourself, at your authority's own portal. Every figure links to the lines it came from. Mark a return lodged once you have done it.
Deadlines lists every filing and payment date for your country. Reports gives the profit and loss and the trial balance, and exports the ledger as CSV or OFX for an accountant or another package.
Sales and insights
Sales lists orders, licences, reviews and store payouts. Invoices and credit notes are made in your country's form.
Your business
Setup is the path for your country: the registrations, in order, what each costs and which blocks which. Mark each step as you go. It is done once.
My country holds the rules Longtom knows for where you are, each with the date it was last checked against the authority. Country data updates on its own when a rule changes.
Decisions compares the real options for each choice a business of one has to make (banking, payments, hosting, structure) on what they cost you, in money and time.
Legal drafts your privacy policy, terms and the answers to security questionnaires from what Longtom knows about your business. Products holds what you sell, its sites and domains.
Documents
Everything filed and everything Longtom wrote, in one folder under names you can read, sorted by the date each document carries. It works without Longtom running.
Ask
Ask is your AI with Longtom's knowledge and tools: ask how the books stand, have it file something, prepare a return, or add a deadline. It may prepare a filing; it never marks one lodged, and it cannot read your secrets.
Your AI
Settings → AI lists the coding CLIs found on this computer. Choose one with Use this; Check runs a quick test. Each has a sensible default model, and the list shows the models that CLI offers if you want another.
Secrets and the lock
Passwords and keys Longtom uses live in a vault encrypted by Windows for your account, never in the database. Settings → Secrets lists them. Show reveals one, with Copy; it hides again after 30 seconds.
Lock
Optional. Open Lock on the same page, choose a PIN and whether it guards the whole app or only the secrets, and how long before it locks again when you are away. Lock now locks at once.
Forgot the PIN? Forgot it? takes your recovery key and removes the PIN. Processing carries on while Longtom is locked.
Backups and a new computer
Longtom backs up every day. On a computer with OneDrive, backups go to OneDrive\Longtom Backups, with your documents and your recovery key beside them, so a new computer can get everything back on its own. Choose any other folder on Settings → Backups.
A new computer, or a dead drive
- Install Longtom and sign in to the same OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive or iCloud.
- Open it. Home says Welcome back and names your business.
- Press Bring it back. Longtom restores and restarts, and your saved passwords unlock by themselves.
A backup somewhere else? Choose Put a business back and point it at the file.
Online backup
An optional add-on: an encrypted copy in Longtom's own storage, up to 5 GB, that only your recovery key opens. Turn it on from Settings → Backups.
Price and subscription
Longtom is free until a hundred days after your first booked income. Then it is US$99.99 a year or US$11.99 a month, through the Microsoft Store. Online backup is US$39.99 a year or US$4.99 a month.
Stop paying and you keep everything: books, invoices, documents, exports and backups. New processing stops.
Health and the window
Settings → Health checks that the install actually works: the database, the vault, your AI, the filing calendar and the backups, each with a fix when it is not right.
Closing the window keeps Longtom running in the tray, so the schedule carries on. Right-click the tray icon for Open Longtom, Process now and Quit Longtom.
Taking your books with you
Everything is in one folder you own, %APPDATA%\Longtom, and it stays when Longtom is uninstalled. Books → Reports exports the ledger as CSV or OFX for your country's usual accounting package, and the records pack (Books → Reports) is one zip an accountant or a tax office can read.