Module
Workpapers Live
The workpaper is a trial balance, not a document list. Adjusting, reclassifying, federal-tax and state-tax entries (AJE, RJE, FTJE, STJE) post to their own columns, and eliminating entries (EJE) consolidate related entities. Schedules M-1, M-2 and L are built for the 1120, 1120-S and 1065, each in its own form’s layout. Schedule M-3, when it’s required or chosen, is built line by line through Parts I to III, with every amount traced to its accounts and entries and book-tax differences split into temporary and permanent. It comes with both products. With Crosstie Practice alone, you keep your own tax software and prepare the return there.
Coming soon Exporting a finished workpaper into the tax software you already use, so nothing is keyed twice.
- Incomplete, never confidently wrong. A figure that can't be supported isn't computed. You get the reason instead of a number.
- Tie-out to the return. For 1065, 1120-S and 1120 returns, the return's key totals as prepared are checked against the workpaper, and sign-off waits until every difference is explained.
- Filing-ready schedules. The workpaper’s schedules (L, M-1 or M-3, and M-2) are filing-ready only when every line is computed, no review flag is open, they tie to the return, and every sign-off level has signed. It’s worked out each time you look, so a figure that changes after sign-off takes it away. Page 1, Schedule K and the K-1s are still prepared in your filing software.
- Entries that know the entity. Suggested from the client's ledger, and sorted into book, reclassification and tax-only entries, with book-tax differences carried to Schedule M-1.
- A signed-off year stays signed off. Up to three levels, preparer, reviewer and partner. A signed-off or filed year is frozen. Reopening it takes a reviewer or partner and a stated reason, and every sign-off and reopen is logged with who, when and what changed. If one person signs two levels, the file says so.
One sandbox: Crosstie Practice with a fictional firm — clients, engagements, organizers, invoices, the client portal, the workpaper, and the firm’s own books (Accounting, the one paid add-on, available to firms early 2027). Nothing you do there is sent anywhere, and it resets every night.
Straight to the workpaper: a fictional S corporation’s trial balance (opens in a new tab) with its adjusting entries, the entries suggested for it, Schedules M-1, M-2 and L, and sign-off, all clickable.