What it does
TBRail is an Excel add-in that checks a trial balance for the faults that break a consolidation: out of balance by entity and by currency, duplicate codes, unreadable amounts. Findings are written back into your own workbook. The diagnostics are free, permanently, with no account and no key.
Eight checks on the trial balance itself
Tells you it does not balance, and shows it per entity and per currency rather than as one total that hides which one broke. Finds duplicate account codes within an entity. Lists accounts your chart-of-accounts map does not cover, when you supply a map. Flags balances on the side you would not expect, as something to look at rather than as an error.
Nothing is dropped quietly
Catches account codes that are empty, whitespace only, absurdly long, or carrying invisible control characters, without imposing a house format on the codes you do use. Reports any amount it cannot read instead of dropping the row, because a silently dropped row can make an unbalanced trial balance look balanced.
Findings land in your own workbook
Every finding is written into a sheet in your workbook, one row per issue, with the row it came from. Point it at your sheet and it works out which columns are the account code, the name, the amount or the debit and credit pair, the entity and the currency, finding the header row underneath a title block instead of assuming the first row. Override anything it gets wrong, and save the mapping to reuse next month.
Arabic and Latin script, handled throughout
Account codes and names in Arabic, or mixed with Latin script, are handled throughout: they read correctly, they survive the round trip into the issues sheet, and TBRail will tell you when two codes are the same number written in two different digit scripts, which is a duplicate that a plain text comparison cannot see.
Where it runs
TBRail needs Excel's JavaScript API at version 1.7. That is a low bar deliberately, and it means the add-in installs and runs on Excel for Windows (Microsoft 365), Excel on the web, Excel for Mac, and on perpetual Office 2019 and 2021, which support the same API level. Version 1 is supported on Excel for Windows (Microsoft 365) and Excel on the web, with Excel for Mac supported on a best-effort basis. Perpetual Office 2019 and 2021 will run it, and we simply do not commit to supporting them in version 1. That is a statement about where we answer questions, not a technical restriction on where the add-in works.
The diagnostics are free, and stay free
Every check above is free to use, permanently, with no account, no licence key and no time limit. A separate tie-out module matches intercompany balances against a map you supply, writes the elimination entries that implies, and keeps an eight-point tie-out checklist that never passes a manual check for you. It is unlocked by a licence key and it never blocks anything: a run that is not entitled refuses and writes no sheet at all, rather than writing half a sheet.
No screenshot right now. Every image here uses synthetic data only, and has to match what the software currently does. Until a frame passes both tests, this space stays empty.
Questions
What happens to the free checks if a paid licence lapses?
Nothing. Every free check keeps working. Anything the tie-out module has already written into your workbook stays there, fully readable, and can still be re-run through the free diagnostics. A lapse never takes back work you have already done.
Does TBRail send my trial balance anywhere?
No. TBRail reads your workbook in place and sends none of it anywhere. Excel loads the add-in's code from our asset host and loads Office.js from Microsoft's own network, which is how every Office add-in works, and neither request carries anything from your file.
Privacy
What it collects: Nothing. What leaves your machine: Nothing from your workbook. TBRail reads your trial balance in place and writes its results back into the same file. Excel loads the add-in's code from our asset host and loads Office.js from Microsoft's own network, which is how every Office add-in works and neither request carries anything from your file. If you buy the tie-out module, activating your licence key sends the key, a machine identifier, the product id and the version, and nothing else.
Read the full TBRail privacy page Read the TBRail licence agreement
Questions or problems: support@hardboundstudio.com. A person reads every message.