Frequently asked questions

No. PrivateBooks is written for owners rather than accountants. Built-in rules suggest categories, uncertain rows stay in Review, and a year-specific checklist explains what is left. Its output is an organized bookkeeping calculation for you and your tax preparer to review — not a filed return or professional approval.

Entity type is how the business is treated for taxes. PrivateBooks currently performs its versioned 2025 Schedule C calculation only for sole proprietors and single-member LLCs. Partnership, S-corp, and C-corp modes organize neutral bookkeeping summaries for a preparer; they do not calculate or certify Forms 1065, 1120-S, or 1120. Choose the type that matches your real setup and ask a preparer if you are unsure.

An EIN is the IRS Employer Identification Number — a federal tax ID for a business, written like 12-3456789. In PrivateBooks it's completely optional: the EIN field is just there to label this business, and you can create and use everything without one. If you have it handy you can type it in, otherwise leave it blank.

No problem — the tax year field is optional, so you can leave it empty and add it later by editing the business. For most small businesses it's simply the calendar year (for example, 2025). If you do enter one, type it as a four-digit year; only a whole number is kept.

Yes. On the welcome screen, click "Or try a demo" and PrivateBooks loads a sample business with example accounts and statement data into the local app. Loading it again reopens the same demo instead of duplicating it. This describes current development behavior; no verified public installer is available yet.

No, and there's nowhere to type them. PrivateBooks does not connect to your bank or ask for a login. You add an account name and type, then choose statement files (CSV or PDF) that you downloaded yourself. The app reads those files locally and does not automatically upload them to PrivateBooks.

Add every account the business actually spends or receives money through, so all the activity gets captured. That usually means your business checking, any business savings, and each business credit card, plus a payment processor like PayPal or Square and a loan or line of credit if you have one. If you sometimes pay business costs in cash, add a Cash account too.

Checking is a regular bank account money flows straight in and out of. A credit card is borrowed money you pay back later, so paying the card isn't itself an expense. A payment processor (PayPal, Square, Stripe, Venmo for business) holds your money like a mini bank account between sales and payouts. PrivateBooks has a built-in PayPal / Square / Stripe account type — just pick it when you add one, and import its statement like any other account.

Because a payment to your credit card just moves money from checking to the card; it isn't a new business cost. When PrivateBooks sees a card payment leave checking and an equal amount land on the card, it links the two as a transfer so the same dollar isn't counted twice. Your real deductible expenses are the individual purchases you made on the card, not the monthly payment.

Yes, anytime. On the business overview you can add a new account, click Edit to rename one or fix its type, institution, or last 4 digits, and use the ✕ to remove one. Removing an account also deletes its imported transactions (you'll get a confirm prompt first), and if any of those fall in a tax year you've already closed, PrivateBooks will ask you to reopen that year first.

Log into your bank or credit-card website and look for Download, Export, or Activity, then choose CSV (sometimes called "Comma delimited" or "Spreadsheet"). A PDF statement works too. Save the file somewhere easy to find, then pick the matching account and choose it on the Import screen.

CSV is more reliable and is the recommended choice. PrivateBooks reads the common CSV layouts for you, whether your bank uses a single Amount column or separate Debit/Credit columns, and handles dollar signs, commas, and dates automatically. PDF import works with the statement PDFs you download from your bank's website — not scans or photos of paper statements — and is best-effort because bank layouts vary. When a PDF can't be read safely, the preview says exactly why (password-protected, scanned, or no transaction rows) and what to do instead. Either way, you review everything in the preview before anything is saved.

"Flip signs" reverses every amount in the file, swapping money-in and money-out. It's mainly for credit-card exports that list charges as positive numbers, when PrivateBooks treats money-out (spending, charges) as negative. If the preview shows your spending as "money in," go back to the Import screen, tick (or untick) Flip signs, and preview again until the directions look right.

PrivateBooks fingerprints transactions by date, amount, and description and shows previously imported matches in the preview before saving. This helps prevent repeat imports while keeping genuinely identical rows from the same file. Inspect the preview and statement coverage yourself: duplicate detection cannot prove that every statement or row is present.

The preview explains why a PDF couldn't be read. A scanned or photographed statement has no real text to extract; a password-protected PDF can't be opened at all (open it with the password in your PDF viewer and save an unlocked copy first); and a summary or notice page simply has no transaction rows on it. The fix is usually to export a CSV from your bank instead — it's more reliable anyway. If you only have a paper statement, add those transactions by hand with the "Add a cash, check, or missing transaction" form on the Import screen.

The SHA-256 source hash identifies the exact bytes in the local file you selected. If you enter the opening and closing balances printed on that statement, the balance check compares them with the arithmetic for readable, eligible rows. A matching result still does not prove that the file covers the whole statement period, that every row was readable, or that the account was independently reconciled to your bank. Keep the original statement and review coverage with your preparer.

PrivateBooks applies a category when a built-in or owner-created rule matches and leaves unmatched rows in Review. Confirm unresolved rows and spot-check suggested categories against the source record. A manual choice saves when you choose it, is protected from later rule runs, and briefly offers Undo.

A transfer is money moving between two of your own accounts — like paying your credit card from checking, or shifting cash to savings. PrivateBooks matches an equal-and-opposite pair across your accounts and marks both sides as a transfer, so the same dollar isn't double-counted. Transfers aren't income or a deduction, so they're deliberately kept out of your income, expense, and net-profit totals.

When you tick learn before choosing a category, PrivateBooks creates an editable merchant rule for future matches. It also applies your reviewed choice to other still-uncategorized rows from the same merchant — you'll see a note like "applied to 3 similar." Transfers, owner draws, and other excluded categories are never learned this way because they depend on matching facts, not only a merchant name.

Yes — open a transaction and use split to divide one charge into two or more parts, each with its own category (for example, a $200 store run that's $150 supplies and $50 personal). The parts must add up to exactly the original amount. The original is kept for your records but excluded from totals, and each part counts on its own. Transfers and credit-card payments can't be split.

Just pick the right category from the dropdown on that row; it saves instantly and is marked manual, which the app never overwrites when it later runs its categorization rules. To fix similar transactions too, tick learn before you change it — that teaches the merchant and applies your choice to other uncategorized rows from the same place. Already-categorized rows aren't changed automatically, so review those yourself.

Yes. After an ordinary category save, Undo appears on that same Review row for a short window. Transactions entered by hand can be opened to edit their source details or removed; PrivateBooks keeps a local before/after history and shows a Restore action for a removed manual row. Imported bank rows stay locked as source evidence, so correct their category, split, note, or receipt instead of rewriting the statement facts.

Schedule C is the IRS form sole proprietors and single-member LLCs use to report business profit on their personal 1040. PrivateBooks calculates it only for explicitly supported tax years and shows anything that still needs review. If you're a partnership, S corp, or C corp, PrivateBooks provides neutral bookkeeping totals for your preparer; it does not calculate or certify Form 1065, 1120-S, or 1120.

Net profit is your income minus your cost of goods sold minus your business expenses — roughly the number your business income tax is based on. For Schedule C filers it's labeled "Net profit — Schedule C, Line 31." Only categorized, business, non-transfer transactions count, so anything still uncategorized is left out of the total until you review it.

When a supported sole-proprietor business shows a profit, PrivateBooks can illustrate an optional annual 25–30% cash-reserve band using simple arithmetic. It does not use recorded payments or tell you what or when to pay, and the band may be too high or too low. Use Form 1040-ES (and any state method) with your expected income, deductions, credits, prior payments, and circumstances, then confirm with your preparer.

Mileage uses the IRS standard mileage method: you log your business trips and PrivateBooks multiplies each trip by that year's official cents-per-mile rate to estimate a deduction. The home-office tool uses the IRS simplified method — $5 per square foot, capped at 300 sq ft (so $1,500 maximum). Both are estimates to help you and your preparer; if we don't have an official rate on file for a given year, the app tells you rather than guessing.

No. PrivateBooks organizes your books, performs a versioned Schedule C calculation for supported years, and flags unresolved choices, but it does not file anything. The P&L keeps the full cost of business meals while the 2025 Schedule C calculation applies the standard 50% limit; review exceptions and final figures with your preparer. The bookkeeping workflow has no PrivateBooks cloud service, telemetry, or automatic financial-data upload.

Closing locks a specific year so its transactions and deduction-helper choices can't change until you reopen it. It stores the bookkeeping totals, exact tax lines, tax rule-set version, and a SHA-256 digest of the supporting inputs. A supported Schedule C year cannot close while a calculation issue remains. This protects the numbers you handed to a preparer from a quiet edit or duplicate import.

Yes. Reopening lifts the lock but keeps the prior snapshot in append-only close history. When you close again, PrivateBooks records a new snapshot and shows exactly which bookkeeping totals and tax lines changed; it never rewrites the earlier event.

On the Reports page, pick one year and click Download tax package for a Schedule C business, or Download bookkeeping package for a partnership or corporation. Schedule C packages include the transaction ledger, P&L, versioned tax calculation, support-scope notes, vehicle Part IV support, mileage support, home-office inputs, and a README. Partnership/corporation packages include neutral bookkeeping totals for the preparer, not calculated Form 1065/1120-S/1120 returns. Prefer paper? Print / PDF opens a clean printable version. Review final figures with your preparer.

Use Tax readiness to see what PrivateBooks can prove from the records currently in the app. A passed built-in checklist means those imported transactions are categorized and the supported calculation has no known blocking issue; it does not prove that every bank statement was imported, that balances reconcile, or that a professional independently reviewed the books. Confirm statement coverage and final figures with your preparer before filing.

Your local app data folder contains a SQLite database, receipt attachments, settings, and recovery data. PrivateBooks has no cloud bookkeeping service, telemetry, or automatic financial-data upload, and the makers cannot inspect your books. Official help/IRS or release-status links connect only when you open them; an app store handles its own purchase, install, and update traffic.

No. There's no account, no password, and no sign-in screen. You just open PrivateBooks and start working — because everything is local, there's nothing to log into.

Go to the About page and click "Back up my data." That downloads one dated .privatebooks-backup archive containing a consistent database snapshot, every attached receipt, a versioned manifest, and SHA-256 integrity hashes. Save it somewhere safe; a good habit is to back up before tax time and after a big import.

On the old computer, click "Back up my data" and copy the resulting .privatebooks-backup archive to the new machine using storage you control. On the new computer, install PrivateBooks, open About, expand "Restore from a backup," choose that archive, and confirm. Your books and attached receipts move together. Older database-only .db backups remain readable, but they cannot contain receipt images.

Store builds use their own local data folder and do not silently scan or move the direct-download edition's files. In the direct-download app, open About and choose "Back up my data." Then open the store build, go to About, choose Import existing PrivateBooks data, and select that .privatebooks-backup archive. Database-only .db files are not accepted for this store migration path because they cannot carry receipt files.

PrivateBooks keeps books in its local data folder and has no cloud bookkeeping service, telemetry, or automatic financial-data upload. Protect the computer with its normal login and disk encryption, and keep backups in storage you control. Before restore, PrivateBooks checks archive paths, sizes, SHA-256 hashes, receipt references, and SQLite integrity, then creates a pre-restore recovery archive. Those controls reduce risk; they do not make the computer, backup location, or anything you choose to export or share automatically safe.