Tieout is a trial balance and tax workpaper app being built for solo CPAs and small tax firms. Import from QBO, CCH, Excel, or CSV. Map to any return type. Run your AJE review workflow. All on your own machine. Currently in early access.
What is Tieout? Tieout is a trial balance and tax workpaper desktop application in development for solo CPAs and small tax firms. It's designed to import trial balances from QuickBooks Online, CCH, Excel, or CSV, run an adjusting-journal-entry review workflow, and map accounts to Form 1040, 1120, 1120S, 1065, 1041, and 990 — without a cloud subscription or enterprise contract. Currently in early access — join the waitlist below.
Built by CPA-firm operators who got tired of paying five figures per seat for software that was designed in 2003.
Auto-column detection reads QBO exports, CCH trial balance files, Excel workbooks, and any CSV. No manual mapping for standard formats — it finds the debit, credit, and account columns automatically.
Draft, submit, review, and approve adjusting journal entries. Each AJE moves through Draft → Pending Review → Approved or Rejected — with a full audit log on every state change. Know who touched what and when.
Tieout ships with tax-line mappings for every major return type. Map a trial balance account to a Form 1120 line in one click. Customize any mapping per client.
Generate P&L and Balance Sheet views with current-year, prior-year, and variance columns side-by-side — formatted for workpaper presentation without any extra export steps.
Compare your workpaper numbers against the filed return line-by-line. Each variance is automatically flagged as Material, Minor, or Match — so the reviewer can focus where it matters.
Tieout is a desktop application — no data ever leaves your hard drive. No cloud sync, no third-party servers. Important when you have NDA obligations or client confidentiality concerns.
Representative UI using sample data. The real app uses your imported trial balance and maps to your return type.
| Account | Trial Balance | AJEs | Adjusted TB | Tax Line | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Assets | |||||
| 1000 · Cash & Equivalents | 42,150 | — | 42,150 | Sch L Ln 1 | ✓ Match |
| 1200 · Accounts Receivable | 18,200 | (500) | 17,700 | Sch L Ln 2 | ✓ Match |
| 1300 · Prepaid Expenses | 3,100 | (3,100) | — | Sch L Ln 5 | ◆ Draft |
| 1500 · Fixed Assets, Net | 94,200 | 2,200 | 96,400 | Sch L Ln 10 | ● Review |
| Revenue | |||||
| 4000 · Gross Receipts | (284,500) | — | (284,500) | Form 1120S Pg 1 Ln 1a | ✓ Match |
| 5000 · Cost of Goods Sold | 198,500 | — | 198,500 | Form 1120S Pg 1 Ln 2 | ✓ Match |
| Expenses | |||||
| 6100 · Officer Compensation | 72,000 | — | 72,000 | 1120S Ln 7 | ✓ Match |
| 6300 · Depreciation Expense | 18,400 | 2,200 | 20,600 | 1120S Ln 14 | ● Review |
| 6500 · Rent & Occupancy | 24,000 | — | 24,000 | 1120S Ln 15 | ✓ Match |
Representative UI — sample data only. Your actual trial balance imports from QBO, CCH, Excel, or CSV.
CCH Engagement and Thomson Reuters Workpapers were built for national firms billing $5M+/yr. Tieout was built for the rest of us.
The AICPA counts roughly 44,000 CPA firms in the US — most of them sole proprietorships or firms under 10 people (AICPA, Trends in the Supply of Accounting Graduates). Enterprise workpaper software is priced for the other end of that range.
| Tieout | CCH Engagement | Thomson Reuters Workpapers CS |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price (per user/yr) | $948/yr ($79/mo) | $1,500–$2,500+ | $2,000–$4,000+ |
| Unlimited clients | ✓ | ✗ per-client fees | ✗ per-client fees |
| QBO direct import | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| AJE workflow with review states | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Tax mapping pre-seeded (all 6 return types) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Data stays local (no cloud) | ✓ | ✗ cloud-hosted | ✗ cloud-hosted |
| No per-seat upsells or modules | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Works without an enterprise IT team | ✓ | sometimes | sometimes |
| Mac support | ✓ | ✗ Windows/browser | ✗ Windows primary |
Pricing estimates based on publicly available information as of mid-2025. Enterprise pricing varies by firm size and contract. CCH and Thomson Reuters are trademarks of their respective owners. Tieout is not affiliated with or endorsed by either company.
No per-entity fees. No locked-in annual contracts. Cancel anytime. Annual billing saves two months.
Pricing shown reflects planned early-access rates. All plans will include a 14-day free trial, no credit card required to start.
Export your TB from QuickBooks Online, CCH, Excel, or any CSV. Drag it into Tieout. Auto-column detection maps the debit, credit, and account columns — usually without any manual setup.
Create adjusting entries against the trial balance accounts. Submit for review. The reviewer approves or rejects each entry — with a comment and audit timestamp on every action.
Pre-seeded tax mappings connect your adjusted TB accounts to the correct form lines automatically. Override any mapping per client. View the totals flow to the return before it's prepared.
Load the filed return. Tieout compares your workpaper numbers line-by-line, flags Material, Minor, or Match variances, and gives you a reviewable output for the file.
Tieout is a desktop application — your client data never leaves your hard drive. The app stores everything locally in an encrypted database on your machine. There is no cloud sync, no backup to our servers, no third-party storage.
This is a deliberate design choice, not a limitation. CPA firms have strict confidentiality obligations. We decided early that the safest place for your client data is the machine you control.
You are responsible for your own backups (local drive, your own encrypted backup solution, etc.).
Tieout ships with pre-seeded tax-line mapping for all of the following:
You can customize any mapping per client. Client-specific overrides are saved and persist across the engagement year.
Yes — Tieout is being built as an Electron desktop app for both macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Windows 10/11. Builds aren't public yet; join early access and you'll get the install link the moment they're ready. No browser extension, no web login required once installed.
Tieout imports from:
Auto-column detection handles most standard formats automatically. If your column names are non-standard, a simple mapping step lets you point Tieout at the right columns — takes under a minute.
It means exactly what it says. Your subscription covers every client engagement you work on — there are no per-entity fees, no per-return charges, no "bundles" that cap you at 25 or 50 clients.
If you have 200 S-corp clients, that's one flat subscription. No surprises at billing.
Every adjusting journal entry moves through a defined state machine:
Every state change is logged with a timestamp and the user who made it. The audit log is retained for the life of the engagement and can be exported.
Solo is designed for single-preparer practices. One login, all your clients, full feature access.
Team adds multi-user access (up to 5 seats), role-based permissions so only designated reviewers can approve AJEs, and the ability to assign review responsibility across staff. It's built for firms where there's a defined preparer → reviewer workflow and you need the system to enforce it.
If you're not sure which fits, start with Solo — you can upgrade anytime.
Tieout is in early access. Join the waitlist now — no credit card, no cost — and you'll get a 14-day free trial with full feature access the moment builds are ready.
Enterprise workpaper platforms like CCH Engagement and Thomson Reuters Workpapers CS typically run $1,500–$4,000+ per user per year, often with per-client add-on fees. Tieout is $79/mo ($948/yr) for the Solo plan or $149/mo ($1,490/yr) for Team — flat rate, unlimited clients, no per-entity charges. See the comparison table above for a side-by-side breakdown.
If you're a solo preparer or small firm paying enterprise prices for features you barely use, Tieout is built specifically for that gap — TB import, AJE review workflow, and tax mapping to all 6 major return types, without the per-seat licensing or IT overhead those platforms assume. It won't replace CCH/TR for a 50-person firm, but for 1-10 preparers it covers the core workpaper workflow at a fraction of the cost.
Yes. The trial balance import, AJE workflow, and P&L/Balance Sheet views work independently of tax mapping — you can use Tieout purely for write-up and workpaper review and skip the return-mapping features entirely. Many solo preparers use it for both.
Because Tieout stores everything locally on your machine, your client files and workpapers stay on your hard drive whether or not you keep subscribing — canceling stops access to the app itself, not your data. Export your trial balances and reports before canceling if you want copies outside the app database.
No, day-to-day. Since your data is stored locally, importing trial balances, running AJE review, and mapping to tax lines all work offline. An internet connection is only needed for license verification and software updates.
Two more tools from the same builder, aimed at the same accounting-firm workflow.
Tieout is in early access. Join the waitlist and you'll get a 14-day free trial the moment builds are ready — or book a 20-minute call now and we'll walk through where things stand.