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Getting Started with Zenaris

Zenaris is a second brain for solo consultants and freelancers: invoicing, quotes, time tracking, expenses, notes, and an AI assistant that watches your inbox for work that hasn't been billed.

This guide walks through the essentials — setting up your business details, adding a client, logging work, and sending your first invoice.

Set Up Your Business

Go to Settings → General and fill in your business name, address, default hourly rate, and currency. This information appears on every invoice and quote you send.

While you're there, you can also:

  • Add your logo under Branding so it shows up on your PDFs
  • Add your social profiles under Social Media for email signatures
  • Set your timezone so due dates and reminders line up correctly

Add Your First Client

Open Clients in the sidebar and click Add New Client. Add a contact name, email, and default hourly rate — everything else (address, tax ID, notes) is optional and can be filled in later.

Track Time and Tasks

Use Tasks to log billable work against a client, either from the table view or the Kanban board. Each task tracks hours and rate, and completed-but-unbilled tasks show up on your dashboard so nothing gets forgotten.

Need to jot something down that isn't billable? Use Todos instead — a separate, personal list that stays off your invoices.

Create and Send an Invoice

From Invoices → Create Invoice, pick a client, then either add line items manually or pull in completed tasks with one click. Zenaris calculates the subtotal, tax, and total automatically, and generates a clean PDF you can send straight to your client.

Log Expenses and Rebill Them

Open Expenses and click Log Expense to record a business cost — attach a receipt, tag it to a client, and mark it billable. Billable expenses show up alongside unbilled tasks the next time you create an invoice for that client, so reimbursable costs never fall through the cracks.

Notes and Your Knowledge Base

Use Notes to keep a running knowledge base — meeting notes, project context, anything you'd otherwise lose in an email thread. Notes can link to a specific client or project, and AI semantic search means you can ask "what did I promise Acme?" instead of guessing the exact words you used.

Connect Your Email for the AI Assistant

The AI Assistant reads your inbox (Gmail or IMAP) to surface invoices you forgot to send, follow-ups you meant to write, and clients who've gone quiet. It never sends or drafts email on its own — it only proposes suggestions that you review and act on yourself.

To connect an account:

  1. Go to Settings → Email Integration
  2. Click Add Provider and choose Gmail or IMAP
  3. Authorize access (Gmail is read-only) or enter your IMAP credentials

Good to know: Zenaris can never send or draft email from your account — the AI assistant only ever proposes reply text that you copy out yourself.

Connect an AI Assistant via MCP

Zenaris also runs its own MCP server, so AI assistants like Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, and ChatGPT can read your clients, invoices, tasks, and time entries directly — and log time or create tasks by describing your day instead of filling out a form. Read access is the default; anything that changes your data is a specific, approved action.

Go to MCP Server in the sidebar for setup instructions for your AI client of choice — sign in once, no API key to manage.

Set Up Recurring Invoices

For retainer clients, create a recurring template under Recurring with a frequency (weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly). Zenaris generates and marks the next invoice as due automatically, so retainer billing never slips.

Next steps

Once the basics are in place, explore: