Every fact ties to its source.
A Preparer drops a client's folder of tax documents into TracePrep. Each document's facts are confirmed beside the source page, and every value on the entry list for your tax software opens to its source in two clicks or fewer.
Tax prep, from the client's folder to cited facts
A number typed into tax software looks the same whether it came from the right box or the wrong one. TracePrep keeps the tie from each value back to its source.
Cited facts, page by page
The Preparer splits the folder into documents and names each one. The Preparer then enters each fact from its source page. Every fact records its source: the page it came from, or the Preparer's written reason.
Confirmed beside the source page
The Preparer confirms each document's facts beside its source page and corrects any value. A corrected fact keeps the prior value, who changed it, and when.
An entry list where every row has a source
TracePrep builds the entry list: every value your tax software needs, in order, each one cited. Each row carries the value of one fact or identity field, unchanged. No row is a total or a tax figure. A person keys your tax software from the entry list, and your tax software computes the return.
Every Study figure traces to a source, at field level.
A list of datasets at the back of a study tells you what was consulted. It does not tell you where this number came from. TracePrep records the tie one figure at a time, so your Reviewer can inspect a derivation instead of trusting it.
A source list is not a source
Most studies cite their data in aggregate. A public wage table, a methodology paragraph, a page of references. Read all of it and you still cannot answer the question that actually gets asked at review: where did this figure come from? The problem is not honesty. It is resolution. Evidence cited at the document level cannot be checked at the figure level. TracePrep records the tie at the figure level from the beginning, because a citation assembled after the fact is a reconstruction rather than a trail.
Five attributes on every figure
Each material figure in a Study carries five attributes. The source it came from. The occupation it was matched to. The geography it applies to. The period it covers. The transformation applied to get from the published value to the figure on the page. Five attributes, recorded at field level, on every figure. The Study does not present a number without them. That is the difference between evidence that is documented and evidence that is inspectable.
The evidence manifest is immutable
When a Study is finalized, its evidence is sealed into a manifest. The manifest lists every source snapshot the Study drew on, at the version it was drawn at. Public wage data gets revised. A finalized Study does not move with it. Three years from now the manifest still describes the evidence exactly as it stood on the day the Reviewer signed, which is the state anyone asking about that Study needs to see.
Why this matters
For the Reviewer
You review an entry list where each row opens to its page, and one filter shows the values the Preparer corrected or keyed. In a Study, you can inspect a derivation before you sign it. Open any figure, read its source, occupation, geography, period, and transformation, and decide. No rebuilding the analysis to find out whether it holds.
For the Firm
Each confirmed fact, its source, and every prior value stay in the workpaper your Firm owns. A question about a Study three years from now gets answered from the manifest instead of from memory. The evidence is still in the Firm’s hands, and it still describes what it described on the day of sign-off.
Questions
Where does each fact on the return come from?
Does TracePrep compute the tax or file the return?
What does "traceable at field level" actually mean?
Does TracePrep decide whether the compensation figure is correct?
What happens when the underlying wage data is revised?
Every number has a source.
One waitlist covers the TracePrep app and the TracePrep plugin. For a Reasonable Compensation Study, see how a Study is built.