Columnwell

Frequently asked

Questions about Columnwell

Straight answers, including what isn't built yet.

What's built today

  • Household budgets with rollover
  • Goals and sinking funds
  • Net worth snapshots
  • Debt payoff (snowball and avalanche) feeding the runway
  • 13-week cash runway
  • Low-balance and large-transaction email alerts
  • Multi-entity books with intercompany "due from/to" mirroring
  • QuickBooks Online ZIP/XLSX archive import with trial-balance tie-out
  • Chart of accounts
  • Invoicing: PDF, email, recurring drafts, sales tax
  • Profit & loss, balance sheet, cash flow and the rest of the Reports page, accrual or cash basis
  • Household partner sign-in: your spouse or partner gets their own login to the household books
  • Stripe payment collection (checkout, webhooks, refunds) — self-serve setup for new customers is coming
  • Email bills inbox with routing and undo — for new customers after launch
  • Two-person payout approval (record only, never moves money)
  • 1099 year-end summary
  • Contracts that turn into invoices
  • Receipt OCR in the browser
  • Statement reconciliation
  • Categorizations learned from you, with provenance and undo
  • Frozen, hashed export packages for your accountant
  • General ledger, trial balance and journal CSV downloads for each company
  • Approval-first reminders for overdue invoices
  • TOTP two-factor sign-in with cookie sessions

What's coming next (not built yet)

  • Plaid bank connections (SimpleFIN works today)
  • The ColumnWell Solo plan: household plus one company
  • A mobile app
  • Business-partner sign-in to company books

Questions

What exactly does QuickBooks import cover?

You upload your QuickBooks Online ZIP or XLSX report export. Columnwell rebuilds a trial balance from it and ties it out against your own numbers before anything is considered imported. Your full history is preserved — nothing is overwritten or restated.

How do bank feeds work?

Today, bank feeds come from SimpleFIN, a flat $15/yr you pay directly to SimpleFIN (not to us). Access is read-only — Columnwell can see transactions and balances but can never move money. Plaid support is planned but not built yet.

Are my companies' books kept separate?

Yes. Your household and every LLC keep fully independent ledgers. When money genuinely moves between them, it's tracked with an explicit intercompany "due from/to" entry on both sides — nothing is ever silently merged.

How secure is this?

Sign-in uses TOTP two-factor authentication with cookie sessions. Bank connections are read-only. No feature moves money without a human approving it — payouts specifically require two different people: one to propose, a different one to approve.

What's your refund policy?

Full refund on request, any time before Operator launches — and automatically if it isn't live by [REFUND DATE]. Refunds are issued from Stripe.

Who's behind Columnwell?

Columnwell is built by Crucible Lab LLC, and it runs the real books of 102:18 INC and its family of companies today.

What happens to my books if Columnwell shuts down?

You get at least 90 days' notice by email and full access to export everything before the service stops: every transaction, every file, and each company's general ledger and trial balance as CSV. We stop charging you when we give notice and refund any prepaid time you can't use. It's written into our Terms.

Why don't you charge per company?

Because it costs us almost nothing to run one more set of books. Your household and every company share one workspace and one price: Solo for one company, Operator for up to three, and Operator Pro for four to ten.

Do you offer a discount for ministry families?

Yes. Pastors, missionaries and ministry staff families get 30% off any plan at launch. Email us where you serve and we'll apply it to your subscription. Columnwell keeps books for households and businesses; it doesn't do church or nonprofit fund accounting.

Can my spouse or business partner get their own login?

Your spouse or partner can. Add them as a household member and they get their own login to the household books, never your company books. Coming Sign-in for a business partner to company books is planned but not built yet.

Can my accountant get access?

Yes. Add your accountant as a member with the accountant role and they sign in with their own login to see the books, reports and invoices. You can also hand them a frozen, hashed export package.

Still have a question?

Email [REPLY-TO EMAIL], or see founding pricing.