Got a 1099?
Your deductions are already inside.
PrivateBooks turns your bank and credit-card statements into tax-ready books — pre-loaded with the write-offs people in your line of work actually claim. It runs entirely on your own computer. No account, no cloud, no bank login, nothing uploaded.
No sign-up — there's no account to make. Open it and you're working in under a minute.
- 0
- bytes sent to the cloud
- 8
- professions with deductions pre-loaded
- 578
- built-in sorting rules
- once
- you pay — no subscription
Why PrivateBooks exists
Your finances shouldn't have to leave your desk
just to get done.
Most bookkeeping apps ask for your bank logins and ship every transaction to a company's servers. PrivateBooks doesn't. It's an ordinary app on your computer that stores everything in one local file and never makes a single network call. Your numbers stay yours — we couldn't see them if we tried.
How it works
Tax-ready in four steps.
Built for business owners, not accountants. No jargon, no blank chart of accounts.
What kind of work do you do?
Driver, delivery, freelancer, creator, cleaner, handyman, tutor, pet sitter — pick yours and answer three plain questions. PrivateBooks sets your books up pre-loaded with the deduction categories people in your line of work actually claim, each mapped to its real Schedule C line.
No tax research required.
Drop in your statements.
Download a CSV or PDF from your bank — the same file you'd download anyway — and open it. PrivateBooks reads the columns automatically, handles US and European number formats, and skips anything you've already imported, so re-importing is always safe.
CSV or PDF, any common layout.
Confirm — in plain English.
Everything is sorted already. You only check the few it wasn't sure about. Teach it a merchant once and it remembers forever; transfers between your own accounts are matched and kept out of your totals so the same dollar is never counted twice.
Teach it once, it remembers.
Hand off tax-ready books.
A Profit & Loss and a Schedule C summary where every line maps to a real line on the IRS form — ready for your preparer to copy straight across. Download the whole package as a spreadsheet bundle or a clean PDF.
Schedule C is the verified workflow.
Everything you need at tax time
Small, simple, and surprisingly complete.
“Am I tax-ready?”
A plain checklist tells you exactly what's left before your books are ready to hand off — no guessing.
Reports that make sense
Profit & loss, a cash-flow chart, your top vendors, and recurring subscriptions you forgot you're paying for.
Mileage & home office
Log business trips and your home-office square footage; PrivateBooks estimates the deduction using IRS rates.
The platform's cut
Rover, Wyzant and the rest keep their fee before you ever see the money. Book the gross and the fee separately, so you don't pay tax on income you never received.
Split a charge
One purchase that was part business, part personal? Split it across categories — the parts always add up exactly.
Lock a filed year
Close a tax year and PrivateBooks protects it, so a stray edit or re-import can't change a number you already filed on.
Back up & restore
Your books are one file you own. Back it up, move it to a new computer, and pick up exactly where you left off.
Answers where you need them
A “?” next to anything unfamiliar opens a plain-English explanation, and the full help centre works offline like everything else.
See the shape of your year
Where your money came from — and went.
A clean cash-flow chart shows money in versus money out, month by month, so you can see at a glance whether the business is bringing in more than it spends. Transfers between your own accounts don't muddy the picture.
One charge, more than one thing
Split a purchase in seconds.
Bought supplies and something personal on the same receipt? Divide the charge into parts, each with its own category. PrivateBooks keeps the original for your records and makes sure the parts add up to the penny.
No accounting degree required
Answers right where you need them.
A little “?” next to anything unfamiliar opens a plain-English explanation, and a full help centre is one click away — written for business owners, not accountants. It works offline, like everything else.
Pricing
Pay once. That's the whole model.
You're already paying subscriptions for things that used to be one-off purchases. Bookkeeping shouldn't be another one.
- Every v4 update included
- Unlimited businesses, accounts & transactions
- Every feature — nothing behind a “Pro” tier
- Your data stays on your computer, always
Coming to the Microsoft Store for Windows. A free, unsupported legacy edition (v3.4.2, macOS) stays available in the meantime.
Questions
Good to know.
What does it cost?
Where does my data live — does anything go to the cloud?
Do I have to connect my bank or enter a login?
Do I need to know accounting?
I got a 1099 and never tracked anything. Is it too late?
What do I hand my accountant?
Which computers does it run on?
Is this tax advice?
Ready when you are
Get your books ready for tax time — privately.
Open it and you're working in under a minute. No account, no bank login, nothing to upload. Your bookkeeping stays exactly where it belongs: with you.
PrivateBooks produces a bookkeeping summary to assist tax preparation. It is not tax advice — review with your tax preparer before filing.