Sealed Accounting Ledger Technology — sealedledger.com
========================================================
https://sealedledger.com  ·  https://thereconciliator.com
part of the ubiquitous.llc family


WHAT THIS DOES
--------------
Sealed Ledger reads your QuickBooks Desktop company file and produces
a sealed, tamper-evident archive bundle (.zip) on your Desktop.

The bundle contains:
  - A SQLite database with your full QBD capture (every entity QBD's
    qbXML interface exposes — customers, vendors, invoices, bills,
    checks, payroll records, reports, and more)
  - A cryptographic seal anchored by a third-party RFC 3161 timestamp
    authority (FreeTSA), so the archive's integrity can be
    independently verified at any time in the future
  - Standalone verification scripts (verify.js for Node, verify.sh
    for bash) that any auditor or attorney can run with standard tools
  - A LIMITATIONS.txt that documents what was captured and how

Your QuickBooks data NEVER leaves your machine during this process.
The bundle is created locally and stays on your Desktop until you
choose to share it.


WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH THE BUNDLE
-------------------------------
Once you have your sealed bundle, you can:

  1. Keep it as a forensic-grade archive of your QBD data
     (audit-defensible record that survives even if QuickBooks
     Desktop is no longer installed or supported)

  2. Upload it to thereconciliator.com for migration complexity
     analysis ("clarity") — get a detailed report on what's involved
     in moving your data to QuickBooks Online or another system

  3. Upload it to sealedledger.com for professional services:
     cleanup, migration, fresh-start, or decommissioning of your
     QuickBooks Desktop file

You decide what to do with the bundle. Nothing is uploaded
automatically.


BEFORE YOU START
----------------
1. Make sure QuickBooks Desktop is installed on this machine
2. Open QuickBooks Desktop and open your company file
3. Confirm your company name appears in the QuickBooks title bar


HOW TO USE (IMPORTANT)
----------------------
1. Extract this folder (right-click → "Extract All")
2. Open the extracted sealedledger folder
3. Double-click: sealedledger.bat
4. A console window will appear showing progress


FIRST RUN: QUICKBOOKS PERMISSION PROMPTS
----------------------------------------
You will see TWO prompts from QuickBooks the first time you run
Sealed Ledger:

STEP 1:
"Application Certificate" / Integrated Application prompt

- Select: "Yes, whenever this QuickBooks company file is open"
- Click: Continue


STEP 2:
Security warning about unsigned application

"This application is not signed with a digital certificate..."

- Click: YES


Then:
- Click: Done


These steps allow Sealed Ledger to safely read your data and
generate the bundle.

If you click "No", the bundle will not be created.


CONTINUE
--------
5. Wait for the run to finish (typically 2-5 minutes; larger
   company files take longer)
6. Find your sealed bundle on your Desktop. The filename pattern is:
     qbdsnapshot-<your-company>-<date>-bundle.zip
   For example:
     qbdsnapshot-Acme-Construction-2026-05-15-bundle.zip

IMPORTANT: Do NOT run sealedledger.exe directly — use the .bat file.


WHAT'S IN THE BUNDLE
--------------------
Open the .zip and you'll see:

  snapshot.db            The sealed payload — a SQLite database with
                         your full QBD capture. This is the only
                         cryptographically sealed file in the bundle.

  manifest.json          External declaration of the seal — records
                         snapshot.db's SHA-256 hash and the RFC 3161
                         timestamp token from FreeTSA.

  manifest.json.sha256   Convenience checksum for spot-checking.

  verify.js              Standalone Node.js verifier (any Node 14+).
  verify.sh              Bash + openssl verifier (no Node required).

  freetsa-cacert.pem     FreeTSA's root certificate for offline
                         verification of the timestamp.

  README.txt             Inside-bundle readme for the auditor or
                         future reader.

  VERIFY.md              Step-by-step verification instructions.

  LIMITATIONS.txt        Auto-generated per-bundle scope and
                         methodology disclosure.

Anyone with the bundle can independently verify it. They don't need
Sealed Ledger software, an internet connection, or an account. Just
standard tools (Node, openssl, sha256sum) that have been stable for
decades.


NEXT STEPS — TWO SERVICE PATHS
------------------------------
Both services are available from the ubiquitous.llc family.

PATH 1: Migration Clarity Analysis
----------------------------------
Upload your bundle at:
  https://thereconciliator.com

The Reconciliator analyzes your bundle and produces a detailed
migration-complexity report. Results typically appear in under
2 minutes.

Useful for: deciding whether to migrate, scoping a migration project,
or understanding what's actually in your QuickBooks file.


PATH 2: Professional QuickBooks Services
----------------------------------------
Upload your bundle at:
  https://sealedledger.com

Sealed Ledger provides professional QuickBooks Desktop services:

  - Cleanup       — fix data issues, reconcile accounts
  - Migration     — move your data to QuickBooks Online or another
                    system, with signed-off trial-balance parity
  - Fresh Start   — start a new clean file using your sealed
                    archive as the audit-trail record
  - Decommission  — retire your QuickBooks Desktop installation
                    while preserving an audit-defensible record
                    of everything that was in it

You decide what to do with the bundle. Nothing is uploaded
automatically.


TROUBLESHOOTING
---------------

"QuickBooks Desktop is not open"
→ Open QuickBooks Desktop and make sure a company file is loaded,
  then run sealedledger.bat again.

No QuickBooks permission prompt appeared
→ Close and reopen QuickBooks, then run sealedledger.bat again
→ Make sure a company file is open

Nothing happens when you double-click
→ Make sure you are running sealedledger.bat (not the .exe directly)

Windows shows a security warning
→ Click "More info" → "Run anyway"

Sealing failed
→ Make sure:
  - QuickBooks Desktop (not QuickBooks Online) is installed
  - A company file is open
  - You are running this on Windows (Mac not supported)
  - Your machine has internet access (required for the third-party
    timestamp — the seal call is the only step that uses the network)

The .zip didn't appear on my Desktop
→ Check that the run actually completed (look at the console
  output for "Sealed Ledger capture complete.")
→ The bundle lands wherever sealedledger.exe was running from —
  if you ran the .bat from somewhere other than the extracted
  folder on the Desktop, the .zip will be in that location


Still having trouble?
→ admin@ubiquitous.llc


PRIVACY
-------
Sealed Ledger runs locally on your machine. Your QuickBooks data
NEVER leaves your machine during bundle creation.

The only network call made by Sealed Ledger is to FreeTSA (a
public, free RFC 3161 timestamp authority) to obtain the
cryptographic timestamp anchor. Only a SHA-256 hash of your
snapshot.db is sent — NOT the file itself, NOT any of your
QuickBooks data. The hash is a one-way fingerprint that cannot
be reversed to recover any information about the underlying data.

If you choose to use the upload paths at thereconciliator.com or
sealedledger.com, that is a separate, explicit action you take.


ABOUT SEALED LEDGER
-------------------
Sealed Ledger is part of the ubiquitous.llc family of QuickBooks
tools alongside The Reconciliator.

Each Sealed Ledger archive captures every entity QuickBooks
Desktop's qbXML interface exposes, with per-entity completeness
signals: pagination-verified for volume entities, cross-foot-
verified against QBD's reporting engine for the master-data
spine (Customer, Vendor, Account, Item), and count-recorded
with provenance for the remainder. Tamper-evident via
per-row SHA-256 hashes and an RFC 3161 timestamp token from
FreeTSA.

The archive is designed to be self-defending: an auditor,
attorney, or future-you reading this years from now does not
need to trust Sealed Ledger or any other vendor. The .db
file is the evidence; the verifiers use only standard tools
that have been stable for decades.

This bundle works even when QuickBooks Desktop is no longer
installed, no longer supported by Intuit, or no longer
available at all.


Sealed Accounting Ledger Technology · sealedledger.com
The Reconciliator · thereconciliator.com
part of the ubiquitous.llc family · admin@ubiquitous.llc
