For sole proprietors, freelancers, and households whose spending is scattered across statements: LineByLine reads every line of the statement files you download from your own bank — never a bank login, ever — sorts each line into a category, separates business from personal, and keeps totals that reconcile to the cent. Repeat charges surface with their yearly cost. A local view, built only from the place you enter and your own categories, names concrete next checks near you. And when tax time comes, one click builds a packet — business totals mapped to Schedule C lines, gaps named on its cover — that you hand to a filer. Tax Prep prepares and organizes. It does NOT file, and it is not tax advice.
How it works
- Fetch a statement file from your own bank and bring it here — CSV only in this build; never a bank login, ever. One statement is enough to start, and your lines stay in this browser
- Every line is read and sorted: a category, a side (Personal or Business), and a confidence — Sure or Best guess. Nothing is dropped: rows that cannot be read are counted and named, never silently skipped
- Fix any line and LineByLine learns your rule for that merchant; lines no rule can place land in Only You Know — named, totaled, and always counted, never force-fit
- Business and personal stay separate — a line can be split by percent or amount, and the parts sum to the line exactly; transfers between your own accounts are flagged and excluded from spending, with the exclusion named
- Totals reconcile to the cent, in the open: money in minus money out equals the signed sum of every line; categorized lines plus Only You Know equals all lines; business portions plus personal portions equals every split line
- Recurring charges surface with their yearly cost and the math shown; the local view builds from the place you enter and your own categories, and names exactly what to check — it invents no local business, price, or rate
- One click builds your tax packet: a printable packet plus a full-lines CSV — a cover page stating coverage and gaps, business totals mapped to Schedule C lines in plain words, a quarterly estimated-tax picture labeled an estimate, and personal deductions surfaced for your preparer to judge
Tax Prep prepares and organizes — the canon
The standing canon for this product, carried on this door and in the app itself: Tax Prep prepares and organizes. It does NOT file, and it is not tax advice.
The packet carries the same boundary on its face — “Preparation only — not a filing, not tax advice.” LineByLine organizes your own numbers from the statements you fetched, so you or your preparer can file from them. It never files anything, and a counsel review of the tax-prep boundary stands before any public launch.
CSV only — stated plainly
Statement import is CSV, built end to end: upload a file, drag and drop it, or paste CSV text. The reader accepts a signed Amount column or separate Debit and Credit columns, quoted fields, dollar signs and commas, and amounts in parentheses for negatives. Your bank's “download transactions as CSV” is the file it reads.
PDF statement parsing is deliberately not built. PDF text extraction varies too much by bank to ship a guessing parser under the honest-numbers doctrine; it needs a per-format build and sample-based human review. The app says CSV only, plainly — PDF is never presented as supported.
There is no bank login anywhere in this product — no aggregator, no live pipe into your accounts, ever. You fetch your own statement files; LineByLine reads those, and your lines stay in your browser.
Totals that reconcile to the cent — no silent numbers
All math runs in integer cents, and the Reconciliation panel proves itself live: money in minus money out equals the signed sum of every line; categorized lines plus Only You Know lines equals all lines, by count and by sum; business portions plus personal portions equals every split line. A mismatch would show as a failure, not a rounded shrug.
Transfers between your own accounts are flagged and excluded from spending totals — and the exclusion is named in the reconciliation, so the counted total always reads as the raw total minus named exclusions. Refunds reduce the category they belong to and show as credits back, never hidden.
Verified, not just claimed: the app's own logic tests pass 50 of 50 and its browser tests pass 52 of 52 at phone and desktop widths, with totals reconciling to the cent — re-run fresh in the cycle that built this door.
Make more of it — local, from entered facts only
The local view is built from two things only: the place you enter (city, ZIP, state) and what is actually in your statements. It builds concrete next checks from your real categories — compare published prices on your top categories near you; line the published fee schedules of banks and credit unions near you up against the fees actually found in your lines; and help that exists where you live, such as the federal energy-assistance program and local help lines, framed as existing in your area, with eligibility always the program's call.
Live local data feeds are not wired: no published store prices, fee schedules, or rate pages are pulled in. The view stands at its honest seam — your entered location plus your own categories, naming exactly what to check — and it invents no local business, price, distance, or rate. Savings figures are estimates from your own spending pattern, labeled as such.
Where it stands — the honest state
LineByLine is built end to end and verified in test mode: a standalone web app whose state persists in your browser. No payment has been collected, and nothing is charged.
Pricing has not been decided. A reader-price proposal exists in the product's design records, labeled a hypothesis there; it has not been ruled on, so no price is stated on this page and there is nothing to buy here. When the founder rules, the price will be stated plainly.
Two pre-launch reviews stand, both the founder's to commission: a trademark clearance search for the name — clean at headline level, but descriptive and weak as a mark — and counsel review of the tax-prep boundary. A wedge validation with 25 Fort Collins sole proprietors, with its own pass and kill lines set in advance, also stands before launch; it is outreach, it has not been run, and it is not run from this page.
Today, this door does one honest thing: it takes the interest list.
Join the LineByLine interest list
This is an interest list — interest only. Leave your name and email, and we will write to this list when there is news about LineByLine. Joining does not create an account, does not upload any statement, and is not a purchase — pricing has not been decided, and nothing is for sale on this page.