Answers to specific things.

Numbering

Why doesn't my invoice number look like I expected?

Ochre allocates a document's number only when you press Issue — never when you start a draft. A draft's number stays empty until then, so the drafts you started and abandoned this month never used up a number; only the ones you actually issued did. That's usually why a number looks "further along" than the count of invoices you can see: it isn't missing anything, it's just counting issued documents, not drafts.

The sequence itself is closed: before handing out the next number, Ochre checks the existing ones for that document kind, and if it ever finds a gap in what's already been issued, it refuses to allocate rather than quietly padding over it. Numbers are never duplicated either. This isn't cosmetic — a clean, gap-free sequence is a legal requirement under some tax regimes (India's GST among them), so Ochre treats it as a compliance property, not a nicety.

One more shape you might meet: if you run Ochre on more than one device, invoices issued on the second device carry a short tag — INV‑KQM‑2026‑0001 instead of INV‑2026‑0001. Two devices that are both offline cannot agree on what the next number is, so each device after your first numbers within its own tag; your first device keeps plain numbers. The tag is stable — the same device and business always produce the same one — and it is how two offline devices can never issue the same serial twice.

iCloud sync

How does iCloud sync work, and what does it actually do?

iCloud sync is off until you turn it on, in Settings → Sync. The first time you switch it on, Ochre shows one confirmation, in its own words:

"Your books sync through your own iCloud — Ochre never sees them. One thing to know: if this device signs out of iCloud, iOS removes synced app data from the device. Ochre keeps an automatic local safety copy, and your books remain in your iCloud and on your other devices."

Everything moves through the private database inside your own iCloud account, readable only by your Apple ID — there's no Ochre server anywhere in that path. Because the sync engine attaches when Ochre launches, flipping the toggle takes effect the next time you open the app, not instantly.

The sign-out behavior quoted above is ordinary iOS behavior when an app's iCloud data is withdrawn, not an Ochre bug — and it's exactly why the automatic safety copy exists. If it ever happens, the next time your books look empty you'll see a "Your books are safe" screen with a one-tap restore, instead of being walked into onboarding.

Trial & pricing

How does the free trial work?

Ochre's free trial is 7 days, and Apple runs it — it's a StoreKit introductory offer on the Pro subscription, not something Ochre manages itself. You start it through Apple's purchase sheet, confirming with Face ID or Touch ID against the card already on your Apple ID. Nothing is charged for 7 days; after that it auto-converts to the plan you chose (monthly or yearly) unless you cancel first. That purchase sheet is what you see before issuing your first document — the trial has to start before you can issue.

While the trial is running, and for as long as you're subscribed, every feature works. If it lapses with no active plan, the only thing Ochre withholds is issuing new documents — everything you've already built stays fully yours: open it, print it, email it, export it, back it up.

You manage or cancel the trial and the subscription in Settings → Subscriptions on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac — not inside Ochre.

Three ways to pay: $11.99/month, $99.99/year (the default, better-value option), or $299.99 once for lifetime, no subscription at all. Lifetime is a one-time purchase, so it has no trial — Apple's free trials only exist on auto-renewing subscriptions. One purchase covers every device you own.

Backup

How do backups and restore work?

Ochre writes a passphrase-encrypted .ochre file automatically, on a cadence you choose (daily or weekly) when you open the app, and again on close if anything actually changed since the last one. It keeps a rolling set of recent archives and prunes the rest — no daemons, no background service; opening or closing the app is what runs it. You can also export a .ochre file by hand any time from Settings → Backup; it's encrypted by default too, with a toggle to turn encryption off for that one export if you'd rather not use a passphrase — the automatic archives are always encrypted.

By default those archives land in Ochre's own folder, but Settings lets you point them anywhere reachable through Files instead — Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, a NAS, a plain local folder. Ochre doesn't integrate with any of those services directly; it just writes an encrypted file wherever the Files picker points it. If that folder ever moves or stops resolving, Ochre falls back to its own folder for that run rather than failing silently, and Settings shows a plain notice to choose it again.

To restore, open Backup in Settings, pick a .ochre file — Ochre reads the file's header and asks for a passphrase only if that particular archive is encrypted — and choose Replace all or Merge. For an encrypted archive, the passphrase is the only key — Ochre can't recover it for you, so keep it somewhere safe.

Tax

How do I set up tax rates for my country?

Ochre asks one plain question the first time you set up a business: do you charge tax on your invoices? Say yes and it suggests a starting set of tax classes and rates for your country from a global catalog; say no and the tax layer disappears from your documents entirely. Either way, you can revisit it any time from Settings → Tax rates: add, edit, or delete tax classes freely. Every suggested rate carries the same quiet disclaimer the editor itself shows: "Starting values — confirm they're right for your business. Ochre doesn't provide tax advice."

For India specifically, Ochre knows the shape of GST — CGST/SGST/IGST splits, HSN/SAC codes on line items, and the wording that goes with them — because that classification only appears when the seller's business country is India; it never reaches the paper anywhere else. Outside India, the same tax-class editor works for whatever your own tax system calls its rates. Ochre suggests the starting numbers; confirming them for your business with your own advisor is still yours to do.

Language & currency

Can I invoice in a different language or currency than my own?

Every document has its own language, independent of your business's default — pick it from a per-document field any time and it overrides the default for that one document. Ochre prints in twelve languages: English, German, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Malay, and Tamil. Simplified and Traditional Chinese are kept as genuinely different languages, not one setting with a font swap. Arabic is the only one of the twelve that reads right-to-left, and Ochre mirrors the whole document layout for it automatically.

Currency is separate, and also set per document — bill in whatever currency the job calls for, and for a foreign currency Ochre pre-fills the exchange rate with the last one you used for that currency.

Dates and number formatting on the printed document follow the client's own billing country, combined with the document's declared language — not your device's region. In short: the printed labels change with the language you pick; date and number formatting follow the client's own country. That's what's confirmed — treat anything more specific about a particular language/region combination as something to check on the actual PDF before relying on it.

Recurring invoices

What's a recurring invoice, and how do I set one up?

A recurring invoice in Ochre is a subscription tied to one customer, amount, and currency, on a schedule — weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly. There's one way to create one: on an already-issued invoice, right-click it (Mac) or long-press it (iPhone/iPad) and choose Repeat, then pick the schedule. The first run is set one schedule step from today.

Ochre doesn't send anything for you automatically. Each time you open the app, any subscription that's come due materializes as a new draft invoice — same customer, same amount — sitting in your Documents list for you to review, adjust, and send yourself. If your device was closed for a while and more than one period came due, Ochre creates a single catch-up draft rather than flooding you with a backlog, and quietly advances the schedule past the periods it skipped.

Stripe payments

How do I take card payments with Stripe?

Card payments run through your own Stripe account — there's no Ochre account or server in the middle. In your Stripe Dashboard, go to Developers → API keys → Restricted keys and create one with write access to Payment Links. That's the only permission it needs.

Ochre only accepts that kind of key. Paste a secret key (sk_…) and it's refused, on purpose:

"That's a SECRET key (sk_…). Paste a RESTRICTED key (rk_…) scoped to Payment Links."

A secret key can move money, refund it, or read customer data; a restricted key scoped to Payment Links can't do much beyond create them, so a leak of it is a much smaller problem. A publishable key (pk_…) or anything else that isn't shaped like a Stripe key gets a plainer refusal:

"That doesn't look like a Stripe restricted key (rk_…)."

If the key you did paste is missing the one permission it needs, Stripe's own response names exactly which one, and Ochre shows that message back to you unchanged — so the fix is one step, not a guess. A test-mode key (rk_test_…) works too, and mints test links, if you want to try this before using it for real.

To add the key: in your business profile, turn on Accept card payments (Stripe), then paste it into the field beside the toggle. It's stored in the Keychain only — never written into a .ochre backup file, never synced through iCloud. That's deliberate: a secret that can be used to mint payment links shouldn't travel inside ordinary bookkeeping data, so a new device means pasting the key again, not restoring it.

The toggle is your own switch, and it's the only thing that turns this rail off. Ochre never disables it based on your country. If you're in a country where Stripe has no open sign-up for new accounts but you already hold one, paste the key anyway — it works exactly as it does anywhere else.

Once the key is saved, Ochre asks Stripe whether the account can actually take payments, and shows one line under the field. If everything's in order: "Ready to accept payments." If Stripe still wants something from you, it names what: "Finish setup in Stripe: …" For an account that hasn't started onboarding at all: "Your Stripe account isn't set up yet. Finish signing up in Stripe and this will clear." And if the account is genuinely just waiting on Stripe's own review, with nothing left for you to do: "Stripe hasn't enabled this account yet. There's nothing for you to do — they're still reviewing it." If the check simply couldn't run, the line shows nothing at all — not knowing is not the same as not working, so Ochre stays quiet rather than guess. There's a Check again button next to the line; Ochre doesn't check on its own in the background.

None of this ever blocks anything. Even the sternest of these lines never stops an invoice being issued or a payment link being minted — getting paid is never worth failing to invoice.

When you issue an invoice to a client in a different country from your business, with Stripe turned on, Ochre mints one payment link for the amount owed and prints it — with a QR code — on the invoice. That link doesn't expire, unlike Stripe's checkout sessions, which is why an invoice paid weeks or months later still works off the same link. A domestic invoice doesn't touch Stripe at all; that's a different rail. If the mint fails for any reason, Ochre doesn't wait on it — it falls back to whatever other payment method you've set up and issues the invoice regardless.

One thing Ochre doesn't do yet: it can't tell on its own when a Stripe link gets paid. If a client pays through Stripe, record that payment in Ochre by hand, the same way you would a bank transfer or a cheque.

Devices & reinstalls

I switched devices or reinstalled — where are my books?

It depends on what was turned on before you switched.

If iCloud sync was on: sign into the same Apple ID on the new device and open Ochre — your books mirror through your own iCloud account and arrive once sync catches up. A very large first sync can occasionally take a while with no visible progress; that's a known characteristic of Apple's sync framework, not Ochre losing anything, and the app never blocks you on it finishing.

If sync was off: your books lived only on the old device, and moving them is a file you carry yourself — export a backup from Settings → Backup, keep the archive somewhere, and import it on the new device.

Either way, your trial doesn't reset. Deleting and reinstalling Ochre doesn't hand you a fresh 7 days — trial eligibility is tracked by Apple, once per subscription group per Apple ID, not by anything Ochre stores. A second device or a freshly wiped one signed into the same Apple ID has already used its one trial.

One case Ochre genuinely can't paper over: signing out of iCloud, moving to a different Apple ID, or a full device erase with iCloud never turned on. That's where local-first data honestly doesn't follow you — there is no Ochre server copy anywhere else to fall back to. Ochre keeps an automatic safety copy for the account-change case specifically (look for "Your books are safe" on the next launch before assuming the worst), but the reliable answer is still your own backup file, kept somewhere you control.