For small CPA firms and bookkeeping practices
One receipt covers a whole closed period. Show one schedule later without showing the rest.
A firm's closed workpaper set for a single period is sealed together in one step. Any single schedule can be proven part of that set on any future date.
What this means for you
- Your workpapers never leave your device.
- One receipt covers the closed workpaper set for the period.
- Show one schedule later without showing the rest.
How it works
Each workpaper gets a fingerprint — a 64-character code that changes if a single byte of the file changes. The fingerprints are computed on your own machine, not uploaded.
The fingerprints for the period are combined into one fingerprint for the whole folder. That combined fingerprint is the only thing the office sees.
The combined fingerprint is anchored to the Bitcoin chain. Anyone, on any future date, can confirm the folder existed by the moment of that block — and that a single schedule was part of it — without ever seeing the other workpapers.
For the technically curious
Show the cryptographic detail
The natural unit is one folder per closed period, anchored at the moment of partner sign-off. The folder contains the trial balance, the supporting reconciliations, the bank statements, the schedules, the analytical procedures, and the signed engagement materials. The period may be a month, a quarter, or a year, as the firm's close cycle dictates.
The desktop or browser tool computes a SHA-256 fingerprint of each workpaper, binds the relative path into a leaf hash, and assembles the leaves into a Merkle tree whose root is submitted to the OpenTimestamps calendars. The workpapers themselves never leave the firm's device. A firm with multiple clients anchored on the same date produces one folder receipt per client, per period; each receipt is independent and binds only the workpapers in its own folder.
Two years after a return is filed, a partner-level review questions one schedule. The firm produces an inclusion proof for that schedule in the anchored closed-workpaper folder for the relevant period. The unrelated reconciliations, the client's other accounts, and the firm's other clients' workpapers from the same period are not exposed by the proof. The receipt does not establish that the schedule was correctly prepared; it establishes that the schedule, under the recorded relative path, existed by the time of the recorded Bitcoin block.
The office persists, per anchored closed-workpaper folder, the Merkle root, the canonical ordering rule applied, the per-leaf relative paths, the per-file SHA-256 digests, the per-file byte sizes, the Bitcoin attestation for the root, and, when supplied, an optional partner signature under a did:key identifier or a capture-credential issued under a published trust list. CPA-license-number metadata, where supplied, is recorded as an attribute on the signature, not as a claim of accreditation by the office.
Questions
Where do my workpapers go?
Nowhere. The fingerprints are computed on your own machine. The office only ever sees the combined fingerprint for the folder.
Is this a substitute for workpaper-retention obligations?
No. The retention obligations imposed by professional standards, by the state board of accountancy, and by the applicable tax authority remain the responsibility of the firm.
Does the receipt say the return was correctly prepared?
No. The receipt records that the workpaper set existed by the recorded Bitcoin block. The professional judgement applied to the engagement remains the responsibility of the firm and its licensed partners.
Can the firm anchor multiple clients' folders on the same date?
Yes. Each client's workpaper folder is anchored separately and receives its own receipt. A proof drawn from one folder does not disclose anything about another.
Orphograph anchors evidence of existence; it does not certify authorship, ownership, or legality. Each user retains responsibility for the underlying files, their consent to capture, and their handling under applicable law. The office is not a law firm, not a regulated medical-records system, not a qualified electronic trust service, and not a legal or financial advisor. No claim of compliance with any board of accountancy, professional-standards body, or tax-authority requirement is asserted; independent attorney review experienced in accountant-professional-liability matters is required before any productized claim of workpaper-integrity utility.