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Legal

Terms of Service

Last updated: October 8, 2026

These are the terms on which Crosstie, Inc. licenses its software to accounting and tax practices, and the terms for using this website. A firm with a signed subscription agreement is governed by that agreement first.

These terms cover two things: use of this website, and use of the software by a firm that subscribes to it.

If your firm has signed a subscription agreement with Crosstie, that agreement governs your use of the software and prevails over these terms wherever the two differ. These terms apply in full to this website, and apply to the software to the extent a signed agreement does not address the point.

1. Who you are contracting with

Crosstie, Inc., a Delaware corporation (“Crosstie”, “we”). Crosstie licenses practice-management software and tax preparation software to accounting and tax practices on a subscription basis.

Crosstie, Inc.
8 The Green, Suite B
Dover, DE 19901
United States

In these terms, “Firm” means the accounting or tax practice that subscribes, “Authorized User” means a person the Firm permits to use the software under the Firm’s subscription, and “Client Data” means the Firm’s client records, documents, tax return information and other information the Firm or its clients put into the software.

2. What Crosstie provides: software, and only software

What Crosstie provides is a licence to use and access software, and the hosting of that software.

Crosstie is not your accountant, tax adviser, attorney, agent or fiduciary, and does not hold itself out as any of them. Crosstie does not prepare returns, does not review a Firm’s work, does not exercise professional judgement for a Firm or on its behalf, and does not render tax, accounting, legal, audit or actuarial services or advice to a Firm or to a Firm’s clients.

Nothing in the software, in its documentation, on this website, or in any support message from Crosstie is professional advice, and none of it may be relied on in place of the Firm’s own professional judgement. Where the software presents a diagnostic, a suggestion, a default treatment, a calculation or a prompt, it is an aid to the preparer’s judgement and not a substitute for it, and the preparer is free to disregard it.

This does not mean Crosstie disclaims its own software. Crosstie is responsible for the service working as its documentation describes, and for correcting defects in it. That is a software obligation. What Crosstie is liable for if it fails in it is set by sections 10 and 11 and nowhere else.

3. The Firm is the preparer of record

The individual who signs a return as its preparer, and the Firm, are the preparer of that return. Crosstie is not a preparer of any return, does not sign any return, and is not identified as a preparer on any return.

A Firm’s work for its clients is governed by the rules that apply to the Firm, which may include Treasury Department Circular No. 230 (31 C.F.R. Part 10), the preparer penalty provisions of the Internal Revenue Code (including 26 U.S.C. §§6694, 6695, 6713 and 7216), the record-retention requirement of 26 U.S.C. §6107, and the rules of the state boards and professional bodies that regulate the Firm. Those obligations are the Firm’s. They run to the Firm’s clients and to the taxing authorities, not to Crosstie. These terms neither add to them nor reduce them, and they are not altered by which software the Firm used.

The Firm reviews every output it relies on. Before relying on, filing, or giving a client any return, computed figure, form, workpaper, letter or report the software produced, the Firm will review it for accuracy and completeness. The Firm, and not Crosstie, decides whether an output is correct. An output is not verified merely because the software produced it.

4. Electronic filing

The Firm holds its own EFIN. The Firm is responsible for obtaining and maintaining its own Electronic Filing Identification Number and its own authorization as an electronic return originator, and for all of its obligations as an authorized IRS e-file provider. A Firm may not use, and Crosstie will not provide, an EFIN or e-file authorization of Crosstie’s.

Crosstie is not the ERO and not the transmitter. Crosstie does not act as a Firm’s electronic return originator, intermediate service provider, transmitter or reporting agent, and does not file, transmit or submit any return to the IRS or to any state or local authority on a Firm’s behalf.

Current status. The tax product is in development and Crosstie is not authorized by the IRS to transmit returns. The software does not provide electronic filing of income tax returns, and no Firm should rely on it to file one. Crosstie makes no commitment as to whether or when it will obtain any such authorization. If and when Crosstie makes electronic filing available, it will tell Firms in writing what the functionality is, what authorization supports it, and what role each party has in a filing.

Forms 5500-EZ and 5500-SF are filed with the Department of Labor through EFAST2, not with the IRS, and are governed by the dates and conditions stated elsewhere on this site, including that Crosstie does not yet hold EFAST2 certification.

5. Subscription and payment

Fees. A Firm pays the per-user fee for each Authorized User licence, and the fee for each add-on it subscribes to, at the rates and billing frequency stated on its order or in its account. Fees are in US dollars and are exclusive of sales, use and similar transaction taxes, which are the Firm’s responsibility; where Crosstie must collect such a tax it will add it to the fee.

Payment. Fees are charged through Stripe. The Firm authorizes Crosstie to charge the payment method on file on each billing date for all fees then due, and is responsible for keeping a valid payment method on file. Card and bank details are held by Stripe under Stripe’s own terms; Crosstie does not store full card or bank account numbers.

Changes in fees. Crosstie may change its fees with effect from the start of a renewal term, on written notice before the renewal date. A Firm’s fees do not change during a term, except for licences or add-ons it adds.

Non-payment: new work pauses, records stay available. If a payment fails or a fee falls overdue, Crosstie may, after written notice and an opportunity to cure, suspend the Firm’s ability to begin new work — creating new client records, starting new returns, producing new output. Crosstie will continue to give the Firm read access to, and the ability to export, its existing Client Data and work product, so that the Firm can meet its professional, record-retention and client obligations. Full access is restored promptly on payment. Crosstie will not withhold a Firm’s Client Data as a means of collecting a fee.

6. Acceptable use

A Firm and its Authorized Users will not:

  • share login credentials, or let anyone other than an Authorized User use the Firm’s subscription;
  • use the software to prepare returns for anyone other than the Firm’s own clients, or resell, sublicense or provide it as a service to another practice, except under a written arrangement with Crosstie;
  • copy, modify, translate, decompile, disassemble or reverse engineer the software, or attempt to derive its source code, except to the extent the law permits despite this restriction;
  • probe, scan or test the security of the service, circumvent any access control or usage limit, or access another customer’s data or any part of the service the Firm is not authorized to reach;
  • upload malicious code, or anything unlawful or infringing;
  • use the service to send unsolicited bulk messages, or in breach of the laws that govern email or text messaging;
  • use the service to break any law that applies to the Firm, or any rule of a body that regulates it; or
  • remove, obscure or alter any proprietary notice in the software.

Crosstie may suspend access immediately, with notice, where a Firm’s use threatens the security or integrity of the service or another customer’s data, and will limit any such suspension to what the threat requires and restore access as soon as it is resolved.

7. The Firm’s data stays the Firm’s

Ownership. As between the Firm and Crosstie, Client Data belongs to the Firm — or, as between the Firm and its own clients, to those clients, as the Firm’s engagement provides. Crosstie acquires no right in Client Data beyond the limited right to process it in order to provide the service.

Crosstie processes it as the Firm’s service provider. Crosstie processes Client Data only to host and provide the service, to perform its agreement with the Firm, to provide support the Firm asks for, and to comply with law — and only on the Firm’s instructions. Crosstie acknowledges it receives tax return information as a person assisting the Firm in providing tax return preparation services, and will use and disclose it only as the rules permit such a person to do.

No other use. Crosstie will not use Client Data, including in de-identified, anonymized or aggregated form, to train, test or improve any machine-learning or artificial-intelligence model, to develop any product or feature, for analytics, benchmarking, research or marketing. Crosstie will not sell, rent or share Client Data, and will not disclose it to another customer.

Support access. Where a Firm asks for support, or Crosstie must diagnose a defect, Crosstie will access Client Data only so far as that purpose needs, and the application records that access.

The Firm’s own responsibilities. The Firm is responsible for its own compliance with 26 U.S.C. §7216, the FTC Safeguards Rule (16 C.F.R. Part 314) and any other privacy or data-protection law that applies to it; for obtaining any client consent the law requires; for the accuracy of what it records in the software; and for deciding who among its people may access what.

How Crosstie handles information, including the Google and Microsoft storage connections, is described in the Privacy Policy.

8. Crosstie owns the software

As between the parties, Crosstie owns all right, title and interest in the software in source and object form, its design and documentation, the Crosstie name and marks, and all modifications, enhancements and derivative works of any of them, together with all intellectual property rights in them. These terms grant a right to use the software and nothing more; Crosstie reserves all rights not expressly granted.

A Firm owns its Client Data, its work product and its own name and marks. Where a Firm’s branding is applied to the Firm’s deployment, that gives Crosstie no right in the Firm’s marks beyond what is needed to do it.

Feedback. If you send Crosstie feedback, comments or suggestions about the software, Crosstie may use them freely and without obligation to you. Do not include Client Data in feedback.

9. Availability and support

Crosstie aims to make the service available at all times, except during maintenance and for causes outside its reasonable control. Crosstie does not commit to any level of availability, uptime percentage or response time, and no service credit or other remedy is provided for unavailability. Crosstie would rather say that plainly than publish a number it cannot yet measure.

Crosstie may modify, update, add to or discontinue features. It will give reasonable advance notice of a change it expects to materially reduce core functionality, will try to schedule planned maintenance outside US business hours and away from the periods immediately before major filing deadlines, and may make urgent changes, including for security, without notice.

Support is provided to Authorized Users by email at hello@crosstietax.com during Crosstie’s business hours, on reasonable efforts. Support is assistance with using the software. It is not tax, accounting or professional advice, and section 2 applies to it. Crosstie does not commit to a response time or to fixing any particular defect.

Because no availability is guaranteed, a Firm should keep its own arrangements for continuing its practice if the service is unavailable, including its own copies of the Client Data and work product it needs to meet its professional and record-retention obligations.

10. Warranty and disclaimer

Crosstie warrants to a subscribing Firm that it will provide the service in a competent and workmanlike manner consistent with generally accepted industry practice for hosted software, and that the service will perform materially as its documentation describes. If it does not, the Firm’s remedy is for Crosstie to use reasonable efforts to correct the non-conformity and, failing that within a reasonable time, for the Firm to terminate the affected subscription and receive a refund of fees paid for the unused remainder of its term.

Except as stated in the paragraph above, the service and this website are provided “as is” and “as available”. Crosstie makes no other warranty of any kind, express, implied or statutory, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement or accuracy. Crosstie does not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, secure or free of errors, or that every output will be correct, complete or accepted by any taxing authority. Crosstie does not warrant that the service reflects every change in tax law, rate, form, schedule, instruction or filing requirement, or that it reflects them from any particular date — and section 3 applies: the Firm reviews every output.

No statement by Crosstie or any Crosstie representative, oral or written, outside these terms creates a warranty.

11. Limitation of liability

Except for the matters listed below, neither party is liable to the other for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue, lost goodwill, lost or corrupted data, or the cost of substitute services, even if advised of their possibility and regardless of the theory of liability.

Except for the matters listed below, each party’s total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to these terms or the service is limited to the fees the Firm paid Crosstie in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the liability.

Those limits do not apply to: a Firm’s obligation to pay fees due; either party’s breach of its confidentiality obligations; Crosstie’s breach of its obligations regarding Client Data in section 7; either party’s fraud, gross negligence or wilful misconduct; or any liability that cannot be limited by law.

The parties agree that the fees reflect this allocation of risk, and that each has had the opportunity to insure against the risks it bears.

12. Indemnity

By the Firm. The Firm will defend and indemnify Crosstie against any third-party claim — including by a client of the Firm or by a taxing authority — to the extent it arises from the Firm’s professional services, advice or judgement, from the Firm’s failure to review an output as section 3 requires, from the Firm’s breach of section 6, or from an instruction the Firm gave Crosstie that Crosstie followed. This does not apply to any claim to the extent it arises from a defect in the service, from Crosstie’s breach, or from Crosstie’s negligence, gross negligence or wilful misconduct.

By Crosstie. Crosstie will defend and indemnify a subscribing Firm against any third-party claim that the service as provided by Crosstie infringes that third party’s US patent, copyright, trademark or trade secret rights, provided the Firm gives prompt notice, lets Crosstie control the defence and settlement, and cooperates. This does not cover a claim arising from the Firm’s own marks or branding, from Client Data, from the Firm’s modification or misuse of the service, or from the Firm’s combination of the service with anything Crosstie did not supply. Crosstie may procure the right for the Firm to continue, modify the service to be non-infringing, or terminate the affected part and refund fees for the unused remainder of the term.

13. Term, termination, and getting your data out

A subscription runs for the term stated on the Firm’s order and renews automatically for successive terms of the same length unless either party gives notice of non-renewal before the end of the then-current term.

Either party may terminate for material breach that is not cured within 30 days of written notice describing it.

Export, at any time. Throughout the term, a Firm may export its Client Data and work product at any time, in a commonly used machine-readable format, without charge.

After termination. A Firm’s access continues for a transition period after termination takes effect, so that it can retrieve its Client Data and work product and move its practice to another system. Crosstie will not condition export on payment of anything other than fees already due. After the transition period Crosstie keeps the Firm’s Client Data for a further short period so the Firm can ask for it again, then deletes it from its active systems and will confirm the deletion in writing on request. Copies in routine backups are deleted in the ordinary backup cycle. Crosstie may retain Client Data longer only where the law requires it or where it is subject to a legal hold, and then only for as long as required.

A Firm’s record retention is the Firm’s own. The Firm is responsible for its record-retention obligations, including under 26 U.S.C. §6107, and should not rely on Crosstie’s systems as its record-retention system.

On termination the licence ends, the Firm stops using the software, and Crosstie decommissions the Firm’s deployment and stops using the Firm’s marks.

The exact transition and retention periods for a subscribing Firm are set by its subscription agreement with Crosstie.

14. This website

This website is provided for information about Crosstie’s products. Content on it, including dates, roadmaps and anything marked “coming soon”, “in development”, “beta” or “planned”, describes Crosstie’s current intentions and may change; it is not a commitment or a warranty. Comparisons with other products describe what those vendors published on the dates shown.

Joining the early-access list is not a purchase, an order, or a reservation of a licence, and places no obligation on either of us.

Do not use this website to attempt to gain unauthorized access to it or to anything connected to it, to interfere with its operation, or to collect information from it by automated means in a way that burdens it.

15. Confidentiality

Each party will use the other’s confidential information only to perform its obligations, will not disclose it except to its own personnel, professional advisers and service providers who need it for that purpose and are under confidentiality obligations at least as protective, and will protect it with at least reasonable care. This does not apply to information that is or becomes public without fault, was already rightfully known without restriction, is rightfully received from a third party without restriction, or is independently developed. A party may disclose where the law requires, after prompt notice to the other where lawful. These exceptions do not apply to Client Data, which section 7 governs.

16. General

Independent contractors. The parties are independent contractors. Nothing here creates a partnership, joint venture, agency, fiduciary or employment relationship, and neither party may bind the other. Crosstie is not a party to, and takes on no obligation under, any engagement between a Firm and the Firm’s client.

No third-party beneficiaries. These terms are for the benefit of the parties only. No client of a Firm, and no other person, has any right under them.

Raising a dispute. Before filing suit, the party raising a dispute will give the other written notice describing it, and the parties’ principals will confer in good faith to try to resolve it. This does not prevent either party from seeking injunctive relief at any time to protect confidential information, Client Data or intellectual property.

Governing law and forum. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. The state and federal courts located in Delaware have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of them, and each party consents to that jurisdiction and venue.

Assignment. Neither party may assign these terms without the other’s consent, except that either may assign them in full to a successor in a merger, acquisition or sale of substantially all of its assets.

Changes. Crosstie may change these terms. Where a change materially affects a subscribing Firm, Crosstie will tell the Firm. A change takes effect for a subscribing Firm at its next renewal, and for use of this website when posted. The date at the top shows when these terms last changed.

Entire agreement, and order of precedence. For a subscribing Firm, its signed subscription agreement with Crosstie, then its order, then these terms, in that order, are the whole of what is agreed about the software, and supersede any earlier understanding. If any provision is unenforceable, the rest stays in force.

Survival. Sections 2, 3, 5 (for amounts accrued), 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15 and 16 survive termination, along with anything that by its nature should.

17. Contact

hello@crosstietax.com

Crosstie, Inc.
8 The Green, Suite B
Dover, DE 19901
United States

Crosstie, Inc. is a Delaware corporation.