Tax Center & TXF Export

Everything tax season needs in one place — readiness checks, Schedule C mappings, full-year report packages, and a TXF file your tax software can import directly.

Where to find it: Open Kantivo and look for Tax Center in the sidebar under Accountant Tools.

Overview

The Tax Center collapses tax-season prep into four tabs:

Dashboard — annual snapshot at a glance
Readiness Check — automated verification of your books
Tax Categories — assign IRS Schedule C lines to your accounts
Generate Package — export PDF, CSV, or TXF

Dashboard

The Dashboard tab shows top-line annual numbers: gross revenue, total deductions, net income, total assets, total liabilities, and transaction count. Use the year selector to switch between tax years.

Readiness Checks

Run the automated checks before generating your tax package. Six tests confirm the books are clean:

Transactions recorded — at least one transaction exists for the year
Books balanced — debits equal credits across all accounts
No draft transactions — every entry is posted
1099 vendors have TINs — flagged vendors have a Tax ID on file
Fiscal year closed — year-end close has been run
Company info complete — name, address, EIN populated

Tip: Readiness checks are advisory — you can still generate a package or TXF even if some checks throw warnings. But clearing every flag before filing is how you avoid round-trips with your accountant.

Tax Line Mapping

The Tax Categories tab connects every income and expense account to a line of your tax return. It opens on the 🔗 Visual map; ☰ List switches to the original one-dropdown-per-account table.

Choose your return

Use the Tax return selector at the top. It is saved for the company and remembered every year.

Return	Who files it
Schedule C (Form 1040)	Sole proprietors and single-member LLCs
Form 1120-S	S corporations
Form 1065	Partnerships and multi-member LLCs
Form 1120	C corporations
Form 990	Tax-exempt organizations (Part VIII revenue and Part IX functional expenses)

Nonprofit companies start on Form 990; every other company starts on Schedule C. Each account holds one connection, so if you change return, accounts connected under the previous one show connected on another return until you reconnect them.

Connecting accounts

Your accounts are on the left with this year's totals; the return's lines are on the right with the total each one will carry.
Drag an account onto a line to connect it, or click the account and then the line.
Drag a connected account to a different line to change it; × on the account disconnects it.
Accounts shown in red are not connected. The bar at the top counts them and shows the activity they would leave off the return.
Hover over an account or a line to highlight its connections. Use Not connected, With activity and the search box to narrow the list.

Suggested connections

✨ Suggest connections reads your account names and proposes lines for accounts that aren't connected yet, shown as dashed green lines. Connect all saves them; Dismiss discards them. Suggestions never replace a connection you've made, and balance-sheet accounts are never suggested.

Common Schedule C Mappings

Account type	Schedule C line
Advertising & Marketing	Line 8 — Advertising
Vehicle expenses	Line 9 — Car & Truck Expenses
Contractor payments	Line 11 — Contract Labor
Business insurance	Line 15 — Insurance
Office supplies	Line 18 — Office Expense
Rent / lease	Line 20b — Rent (Other Property)
Utilities	Line 25 — Utilities
Payroll / wages	Line 26 — Wages

Generating a Package

The Generate Package tab lets you tick which reports to include and pick an output format:

Open Generate Package
Tick the reports you want — Income Statement, Balance Sheet, Trial Balance, etc.
Pick PDF or CSV
Click Generate Tax Package
A progress bar shows each report being compiled
The file downloads when ready

Sending to Your Accountant

You can email the finished package to your accountant without leaving Kantivo. What lands in their inbox is a private web address, not an attached file — so the documents lapse after 30 days and stay under your control until then.

The steps

Choose your reports as usual
Press 📤 Send to my accountant
Fill in their name and email, plus a note if you have something to tell them
Press Preview the email
Read what you are about to send; edit the subject line to taste
Press Send it

Kantivo remembers who you sent to, so next year the form arrives pre-filled.

On their end

Your accountant gets your note, a list of the reports enclosed, and a button to the documents. No sign-up, no licence, no password — the link opens and the files download. Making somebody register to read their own client's paperwork would be a poor introduction, so we don't.

Turning the handover into an invitation

Tick Also invite them to connect to my books and the email carries a short code as well. They install Kantivo, open Accountant Access, type the code, and from then on they are working in your live books rather than a set of exports.

Doing this enables relay access, which is what removes the VPN requirement — while it is on, your books are reached via the Kantivo relay service. Switch it off in ⚙️ Company Settings whenever you wish, and disconnect individual accountants whenever you wish.

Watching and revoking

Look at Sent to accountants on the same tab to see what you have sent and what has happened to it. Withdraw link removes the documents there and then. Files already downloaded remain in your accountant's possession — revoking closes the door, it does not un-send.

Status	What it tells you
Not opened yet	Delivered, but the link has never been clicked
Opened	They have looked at the page
Downloaded	At least one document has been taken
Withdrawn	You revoked it; documents deleted
Expired	The 30 days ran out

Reports

Report	Contents
Income Statement	Full-year P&L: revenue, COGS, expenses
Balance Sheet	Year-end snapshot of assets, liabilities, equity
Trial Balance	Every account with debit/credit totals
Cash Flow Statement	Operating, investing, financing cash movements
Expense Breakdown	Expenses grouped by Schedule C line
General Ledger	Full transaction detail by account
Chart of Accounts	Account list with types and balances
AR/AP Aging	Receivables and payables by aging bucket

Tax Trial Balance

The Tax Trial Balance card on the Generate Package tab downloads the year's pre-closing trial balance with each account's tax line, for your preparer.

Connect your accounts in Tax Categories, including the balance sheet if you file Form 1120-S, 1065, 1120 or 990.
Open Generate Package. The card shows the return, whether debits equal credits, and any accounts still missing a tax line (they export as NOT CONNECTED).
Click Excel (.xlsx) or CSV. Whole dollars is on by default; any rounding difference appears as its own line.

Column	Contents
Account number / name / type	From your chart of accounts
Debit / Credit	Income and expense accounts: the year's activity. Balance-sheet accounts: year-end balance before this year's closing entry.
Tax line	The line on your return, e.g. "1120-S Sch L 1 · Cash" or "Line 18 · Office expense"
Tax line key	A stable code for the line, useful for importing

If earlier years were never closed, their income is carried into equity as "Retained earnings: prior years not yet closed", so the file always balances. The CSV is attached automatically when you use Send to my accountant.

Return Worksheet

Filing your own business return in TurboTax Business, H&R Block Business or a similar desktop program? Those programs take figures one screen at a time, not a trial balance. The Return Worksheet card on the Generate Package tab gives you each figure, already totalled.

Connect your accounts in Tax Categories. On Forms 1120-S, 1065, 1120 and 990, connect the balance sheet too.
On Generate Package, click View / print to read it on screen and print or save it as a PDF, or CSV to download.
Work down the worksheet in your tax program, confirming each check figure as you reach it.

Section	What you get
Income, COGS, deductions	Each line of the return in form order, the amount to enter, and the accounts behind it
Schedule L / Part X	Beginning-of-year and end-of-year columns, as the return asks
Check figures	Total income, total deductions, ordinary business income, and whether the balance sheet balances at both dates
Not connected	Accounts with no tax line, in red, so you can see what would be left off

Unclosed prior years are folded into retained earnings, partners' capital or net assets (depending on the return), so the balance sheet ties out either way. The worksheet also travels with Send to my accountant.

These are book figures. Tax adjustments such as depreciation differences, the 50% meals limit or officer-compensation splits are not applied; enter those in your tax program. Review equity connections as well: "Owner's Equity" is suggested as retained earnings, yet on an S corporation a capital contribution usually belongs on Capital stock or Additional paid-in capital.

TXF Export

Kantivo exports a .TXF (Tax Exchange Format) file that imports straight into TurboTax, H&R Block, TaxAct, or any tax software supporting TXF.

What's TXF?

TXF is the long-standing standardized text format for moving tax data from accounting software into preparation software. Each record carries a reference code mapping it to the exact IRS form and line.

Exporting

Open Tax Center → Generate Package
Scroll to TXF Export (below the PDF/CSV options)
Click Export TXF File
The .txf file downloads with your company name and tax year in the filename
Open your tax software's import feature and load the file
Review imported amounts against your books

Before Exporting

Assign Schedule C lines to your accounts in Tax Categories first
Only accounts with both a tax line mapping and non-zero activity get included
Unmapped accounts are skipped — Kantivo reports how many were left out

Tip: Map every income and expense account before exporting. Anything without a Schedule C assignment is dropped from the TXF file.

Importing in Tax Software

Software	Steps
TurboTax	File → Import → From Accounting Software → browse for .txf
H&R Block	Import → Other Financial Software → select .txf
TaxAct	Import → TXF file

Important: TXF export currently supports IRS Schedule C (Profit or Loss from Business) for sole props and single-member LLCs. Always verify imported data in your tax software before you file.

Duplicate Contractors on the 1099 List

Migrations bring across whatever the old system was holding, and older files often hold one contractor under two spellings — say "Reyes, Marcus" alongside "Reyes, Marcus J". Kantivo reads those as two people and keeps a separate running total for each, so a single contractor's year arrives at tax time cut in half.

The consequences are not cosmetic. Where both halves clear $600 you would transmit a pair of 1099-NEC forms against one Social Security number. Where neither half clears it, the contractor drops off the filing list altogether and goes unreported.

Merging the totals for filing

Go to Tax Center → 1099 Filing → Vendor Setup.
Locate the surplus spelling — whichever one should not appear on the form.
Use its Same person as menu to nominate the contractor who will receive the 1099.

The two running totals combine on the spot. You will see the merged amount in the YTD column, the folded-in spelling named beneath the contractor on the dashboard, and — in the Details view — a note against each payment recording which spelling it was entered under.

No records are rewritten. Both contractor records remain in place, and every bill, cheque and journal entry stays attached to whichever one you originally used. Only the 1099 arithmetic changes, and switching the menu back to "separate contractor" restores the two totals exactly as they were.

Resist the temptation to remove or deactivate the surplus record instead. Inactive contractors are omitted from the 1099 list, which means those payments disappear from the reckoning rather than joining the other total.

Duplicates Kantivo finds for you

When two records carry an identical tax ID, Kantivo raises it unprompted — one tax ID is one recipient as far as the IRS is concerned — and the 1099 dashboard names the records involved. Since it is the spellings that differ in these cases, this alert is usually how the duplicate is discovered at all.

Spellings are compared as well, which matters when the tax ID is blank on one of the records. Vendor Setup opens with a tally — "6 contractors may be listed twice" — and every suspected record carries, on its own line, the name Kantivo thinks it matches plus a Link control. Choosing it merges that pair onto one 1099 immediately, with the YTD column redrawing so the combined figure is visible right away.

Matching is written to survive the mess a migration leaves behind: a suffix like "(agt)" is discarded before comparing, reversed forms such as "Reyes, Marcus" and "Marcus Reyes" are treated as one name, and middle initials are disregarded. This is aimed squarely at files built under a system that refused to let a vendor and an employee be spelled identically, forcing every contractor in under a slightly altered name.

Nothing merges on its own. Everything here is a proposal awaiting your decision — unrelated people do sometimes share a name — so a proposal you reject needs no action, and any merge you make can be returned to "separate contractor" at will.

Tips

Before Tax Season

Run readiness checks in January for the prior year — catch issues early
Set Schedule C mappings once and they carry forward forever
Resolve every Fail item before generating the final package
Close the fiscal year before producing the final export

Working With Your Accountant

PDF package = professional handoff
CSV = your accountant wants raw data for their workpapers
TXF = you're filing yourself in TurboTax-style software
Glance at the dashboard before sharing — you know your business best

Troubleshooting

"This package is too large to send." 6 MB is the ceiling. General Ledger Detail is the usual culprit — leave it out and send the rest, or download the whole thing and pass it on yourself.

The link is not working for them. Check Sent to accountants. Expired or Withdrawn links cannot be revived; send a new package instead.

TXF shows 0 records

Confirm accounts have Schedule C mappings in Tax Categories
Confirm transactions exist for the selected year
Confirm mapped accounts have non-zero balances

Package shows $0 amounts

Confirm transactions exist for the selected year
Confirm you're viewing the correct company
Confirm transactions are posted, not in draft

Readiness says "books not balanced"

Open the Trial Balance to find the imbalance
Post an adjusting journal entry to correct it

Mappings not saving

Confirm you're logged in as Admin or Accountant
Refresh the page and re-select

Reminder: The Tax Center is only as good as the books behind it. Year-round bookkeeping discipline produces a clean tax package; messy books produce a messy package.