# Trifold

> Books that show their work: every Stripe payment becomes balanced books and a signed receipt anyone can check for free, and every month is sealed so a later change shows.

Trifold is the company and hosted service behind tfd, an engine for US schools, studios and non-profits paid through Stripe. Shipped today, in the engine and its CLI: balanced double-entry books built from Stripe events (Stripe's webhook signature checked, duplicate deliveries recorded once); corrections as new events, never edits; replay to the same balances and journals; an Ed25519-signed receipt for every Stripe payment and refund; monthly seals chained month to month, with key rotation that keeps old receipts verifying; Stripe reconcile on request; export to Parquet, hledger and CSV; and a free verifier that runs in the browser with no account. Next, not shipped: the hosted service (early access; design partners are free during the pilot); Rifo, an AI assistant that drafts and explains while you approve and the engine does the math; daily matching to Stripe payouts; a per-event hash chain; and Trifold as an independent witness that countersigns receipts and seals. Later: a year-end package for your CPA, donation acknowledgments, 1099 exports and cash forecasts. Planned prices in USD, subject to change: Free, Starter $29, Pro $79, Witnessed $149 a month (non-profit and co-op: Starter $15, Pro $39, Witnessed $79); annual billing charges 10 months for 12. Witnessed is early access: its witness features ship with the witness. No per-seat or per-transaction fees. The engine is source-available and free to self-host under FSL-1.1-ALv2; each tfd release becomes Apache-2.0 two years after it ships. The receipt and seal format and the verifier are Apache-2.0, and the test vectors are CC0-1.0. The hosted service, Rifo and the witness are proprietary. Sample data on this site is invented.

Every page below is clean markdown; add .md to any page's URL (the homepage is https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/index.md). Start here, not the marketing pages. No need to oversell it: every number shows its work.

## Pages

- [Trifold](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/index.md): Books that show their work. For schools, studios and non-profits on Stripe: every payment becomes a signed receipt your families can check, and sealed months show any later change.
- [How it works](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/how-it-works.md): One payment, three records, a monthly seal. How Trifold turns Stripe payments into balanced books, signed receipts and sealed months, and what each check catches.
- [Trust](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/trust.md): Provable, durable, resilient and fast: what Trifold claims today, what it doesn't yet, security in plain words, and how to verify us yourself.
- [Proof, not promises](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/proof.md): Run the engine yourself: a seeded school year gives the same numbers through the engine, hledger and DuckDB. The end-to-end check, what it found, and what it doesn't prove.
- [Verify a receipt](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/verify.md): Check a Trifold receipt in your browser: the signature, the books and the seal. No account, nothing uploaded.
- [Roadmap](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/roadmap.md): Money in, books, proof, close, taxes, finance: what Trifold ships today, what's next and what's later. Chapters light up as they ship.
- [Pricing](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/pricing.md): Planned Trifold pricing: monthly or annual, for-profit or non-profit, with a full comparison. No per-seat fees, no per-transaction fees. Design partners are free during the pilot.
- [For schools](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/for/schools.md): Signed, itemised tuition receipts your families can check, and sealed monthly books your CPA can trace. Built first for microschools in Idaho and Utah.
- [For accountants](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/for/accountants.md): Clients whose books arrive sealed and traceable: every number traced to a Stripe event, every month sealed. You review and sign; you don't rebuild.
- [For studios](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/for/studios.md): Memberships, class packs and credits through Stripe, recorded as balanced books with a signed receipt for every payment and a sealed month at the end.
- [For churches and non-profits](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/for/nonprofits.md): Open books your givers and your board can check: every gift paid through Stripe becomes a signed receipt in sealed, replayable books. Anyone can verify, no account.
- [For developers](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/for/developers.md): A provable ledger for credits, plans and bookings: replay Stripe events into double-entry books, sign Ed25519 receipts and seal months. Source on GitHub, free CLI.
- [About](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/about.md): Why Trifold exists, the principles behind it, and how Trifold relates to tfd, the engine whose source is public on GitHub.
- [Early access](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/early-access.md): Become a Trifold design partner: founder onboarding, free during the pilot, and a say in the roadmap. One short form.
- [Legal (draft)](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/legal.md): Draft placeholders for Trifold's terms, privacy and trademark policies.

## Compare

- [Trifold compared](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/compare.md): How Trifold compares with other ways to keep the books: price, free plan, AI, who can check a receipt, export and self-hosting. Fair, sourced, and dated.
- [Trifold vs Airtight](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/compare/trifold-vs-airtight.md): Trifold vs Airtight: both sign receipts. Airtight is a full ledger for Australian and Gulf businesses and their accountants; Trifold builds checkable books from Stripe payments for US schools, studios and non-profits.
- [Trifold vs QuickBooks Online](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/compare/trifold-vs-quickbooks.md): Trifold vs QuickBooks Online: QuickBooks is a full small-business accounting suite with payroll, bank feeds and a huge accountant base; Trifold builds checkable books from Stripe payments for US schools, studios and non-profits.
- [Trifold vs Xero](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/compare/trifold-vs-xero.md): Trifold vs Xero: Xero is mature small-business accounting with bank feeds, invoicing and a large accountant network; Trifold builds checkable books from Stripe payments for US schools, studios and non-profits.
- [Trifold vs Digits](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/compare/trifold-vs-digits.md): Trifold vs Digits: Digits is an AI-native general ledger with broad bank, card and payroll connections and SOC 2 Type II; Trifold builds checkable books from Stripe payments for US schools, studios and non-profits.
- [Trifold vs Puzzle](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/compare/trifold-vs-puzzle.md): Trifold vs Puzzle: Puzzle is AI-native accounting for startups, with accountants on hand if you want them; Trifold builds checkable books from Stripe payments for US schools, studios and non-profits.
- [Trifold vs Pilot](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/compare/trifold-vs-pilot.md): Trifold vs Pilot: Pilot is a done-for-you bookkeeping, tax and CFO service; Trifold is software that builds checkable books from Stripe payments for US schools, studios and non-profits.
- [Trifold vs Wave](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/compare/trifold-vs-wave.md): Trifold vs Wave: Wave is free invoicing and bookkeeping for freelancers and solo operators; Trifold builds checkable books from Stripe payments for US schools, studios and non-profits.
- [Trifold vs Spreadsheets](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/compare/trifold-vs-spreadsheet.md): Trifold vs Spreadsheets: a spreadsheet is free, flexible and fine at low volume; Trifold builds balanced books and checkable receipts from Stripe payments as the volume grows.

## Verify

- [Verify a receipt](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/verify.md): paste a receipt's JSON at https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/verify. The verifier runs entirely in the browser (an Ed25519 signature over the receipt's canonical bytes, then the books and seal when it holds them); no account, and nothing is sent to Trifold.
- [Sample receipt](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/samples/receipt.json): a signed receipt from the invented sample school; it verifies.
- [Tampered sample](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/samples/receipt-tampered.json): the same receipt with one change; it must fail.
- [Demo public key](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/samples/public-key.json): the sample school's published key. A demo key; its private half was discarded.
- [The engine's CLI](https://github.com/justbry/atm/tree/dev/packages/atm): `tfd verify receipt receipt.json --keys keys.json` runs the same check offline (the `atm` command until the rename lands).

## Proof

- [Proof, not promises](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/proof.md): a seeded synthetic school year through the engine, hledger and DuckDB gives one identical KPI hash per channel; the golden end-to-end check, its open findings, and what it doesn't prove.
- [Live demo](https://staging.b4uni.com/for/schools/dashboard): Honeycomb Hill Academy, a sample school's KPI dashboard on synthetic data, no login. Every number comes from the engine and is checked against its committed goldens.
- Try it: `git clone https://github.com/justbry/atm && cd atm && bun install`, then `cd packages/atm && bun ./src/bin.ts simulate --profile growth-12mo --seed 7`. It needs bun. bun install sets up the whole monorepo workspace, not just the engine. hledger and DuckDB are optional: a channel that isn't installed is skipped, which is why the last line says “every channel that ran”.
- [The golden end-to-end check](https://github.com/justbry/atm/blob/dev/packages/atm/docs/golden-e2e-check.md): how the engine's real CLI is compared byte for byte with committed goldens.

## Simulations

Every simulated organization is synthetic: invented names and data, never a real organization.

- Schools: live, demo at https://staging.b4uni.com/for/schools/dashboard. In their words: families, tiers, class credits, yearly prepay.
- Fitness and membership studios: simulation coming. In their words: members, class packs, drop-ins, win-back.
- Churches and non-profits: simulation coming. In their words: givers, recurring giving, gifts, pledges.
- SaaS and digital products: simulation coming. In their words: seats, usage credits, upgrades, failed payments.
- Creators and online courses: simulation coming. In their words: members, courses, launches, refund windows.

## Optional

- [llms-full.txt](https://tfd-ledger.pages.dev/llms-full.txt): every page above, in full, in one file.