The reader

Dropping files on entries

Drop a file on its journal entry and the board reads it into a draft. This page covers what it reads, what it refuses, and what the guards mean when they hold your file.

What the board reads

You dropWhat happens
Excel (.xlsx, .xls, .xlsm)Any tab layout. The journal tab is found among the others; a workbook holding two different entries gets a tab picker instead of a guess.
CSV / TSV / TXTRead directly.
PDFRead when it carries a real text layer. A scan with no text layer is refused rather than guessed at.
Screenshot or photoRead by OCR. The draft carries a permanent amber flag: check every figure, a picture can misread a digit.
Email (.msg, .eml)Treated as an envelope: the attachments come out, the most readable one is drafted, and a picker lets you switch.

Every figure shows its work

Each drafted line carries a derivation sentence back to the exact cell it came from:

$33,269.30 → 6011115 Salary-Hybrid Sales
sheet Misco, row 26, under 1104-Pacific / 675-Hybrid Sales
from 07.17.2026 - Payroll Entries - West.xlsx

A number you cannot trace is a number you cannot review. On this board there are none.

The guards

The wrong-entry hold

If the file's accounts barely match the entry you dropped it on, the board computes the draft, shows it, and HOLDS it, naming the entry it actually matches. Export stays blocked until you move the file or press "It belongs on this entry, use it."

The multi-journal workbook

A workbook carrying more than one journal names the other tabs with one-click pick buttons. Two entries stacked on one tab are refused with the row number, because merged entries balance and match nothing.

The zero that looks correct

A workbook with labels but empty debit and credit columns is refused loudly, never attached as a zero. A zero entry that balances looks exactly like a correct entry that balances, and that is precisely why the board will not create one.

The standing rule

The AI drafts. A human confirms. Nothing posts to the ledger on its own. Everything on this page tightens attention on that rule; nothing replaces it.