What it is

Crater is an open-source web and mobile application for tracking expenses and payments and for creating professional invoices and estimates. The web application is built with Laravel and VueJS, while the mobile applications are built with React Native. It lives in the PHP and Laravel ecosystem, is distributed under the AGPL-3.0 license, and is positioned as an open alternative to QuickBooks and FreshBooks.

The concrete problem it solves is invoicing and expense tracking for individuals and small businesses that do not want to depend on proprietary accounting subscriptions. It provides invoice and estimate creation, payment recording, expense tracking, a customer portal, and recurring invoices in a self-hostable package, with native Android and iOS clients for working away from the browser. The repository carries 8,347 stars and 1,710 forks, and the topics list confirms its focus on invoices, payments, Laravel, PHP, and Vue.

Key capabilities

• Create and send professional invoices and estimates, with the ability to edit the email before sending an invoice.
• Track expenses and payments against customer records.
• Manage multiple companies from a single installation.
• Configure recurring invoices for repeat billing.
• Offer a customer portal where clients can view their documents.
• Accept payments through a Stripe integration.
• Apply white labeling to invoice, email, and consumer portal themes, and add custom fields to invoices and estimates.

Who uses it and how

• Freelancers and small businesses that need invoicing and expense tracking without a paid subscription.
• Teams running several legal entities, using the multiple-companies feature to keep books separate.
• Service providers with subscription-style billing, using recurring invoices and the customer portal.
• Businesses that want branded documents, using white labeling and custom fields.
• Mobile-first users who invoice and record payments through the Android or iOS app.

Getting started

The README points to installation steps at docs.craterapp.com, a user guide, a developer guide, and API documentation at api-docs.craterapp.com. Crater is available as a Docker image, ships with an installation wizard and email configuration, and can also be downloaded from craterapp.com/downloads.

When to use it — and when not to

Crater is a reasonable fit when the goal is self-hosted invoicing and expense tracking as an alternative to QuickBooks or FreshBooks, and the README lists an installation wizard, email configuration, and a Docker image to ease deployment. A self-hoster must still operate the Laravel application and its supporting services, and the roadmap shows that vendors and bills, inventory management, payment reminders, debit and credit notes, time tracking, and payroll are not yet delivered. The project also shows 425 open issues and no push since August 2024, so anyone depending on it should weigh maintenance activity before committing.