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Arkrel

For self-employed people, especially if you are behind

Behind on your bookkeeping? Turn a year of statements into a tax-ready report

Upload or email your bank and credit card statements. Arkrel sorts every transaction by merchant, with rules that remember, and builds your year into a report you can hand to your accountant.

Try one statement freeSee a sample report

How it works

Three steps, from a folder of statements to a finished tax report.

1

Upload or email your statements

Drag in a year of PDF bank and credit card statements, or forward them to your own email-in address. Photos and scans work too.

2

Confirm merchants once

Transactions are grouped by merchant, not shown one row at a time. Confirm a merchant once and the rule remembers it for next time.

3

Get your books and tax report

Every transaction sorted, a My year page, and a tax-ready report: P&L, Schedule C totals and likely deductions, ready to hand to your accountant.

What you get

Real product screens, built from the same sample data you can explore on the full sample report.

Confirm merchants

10 decisions left

Sample data

  • Staples

    Category: Office expense

    $46.75

    Confirm

  • Adobe Creative Cloud

    Category: Office expense

    $54.99

    Confirm

  • amazon.com

    Needs a category

    $49.99

    Confirm

  • ATM Withdrawal

    Cash: business expense or personal?

    $200.00

My year

Contoso Retail LLC (sample)

Sample data

Income

$842.10

Deductions so far

$252.19

Net profit

$589.91

10 merchant decisions left before this year is done.

Schedule C (sample)

Tax-ready report

Sample data
Line 1 Gross receipts or sales$842.10
Line 18 Office expense$54.99
Line 9 Car and truck expenses$48.20
Line 17 Legal and professional services$149.00
Net profit$589.91

See the full sample report before you sign up.

Working with an accountant? See how to share your books with them.

Who it’s for

Self-employed people who handle their own money.

  • Freelancers and consultants who bill clients directly
  • Gig, rideshare and delivery drivers
  • Independent contractors and tradespeople
  • Online sellers and small e-commerce shops
  • Anyone self-employed who is behind on their own books

The usual alternatives

What catching up your own books usually costs, and what can happen when someone else holds your data.

Hiring a bookkeeper to catch up

  • A bookkeeping firm typically charges $300 to $500 for a catch-up if you are 1 to 3 months behind, and $3,500 to $8,000 or more if you are a year or more behind, since price scales with both how far behind you are and how complex the books are.

    https://etisson.com/blog/catch-up-bookkeeping-pricing

  • A separate cost-guide breakdown shows the same pattern: catch-up bookkeeping runs roughly $150 to $1,200 or more per month behind, depending on complexity, so a backlog of a year or more routinely reaches into the thousands of dollars before a single tax form is filed.

    https://sdocpa.com/catch-up-bookkeeping-cost-guide

Handing your books to a service that could shut down

Bench, a bookkeeping service used by more than 35,000 US small businesses, shut down abruptly on December 27, 2024, cutting customers off from their own financial data right before tax season, before being acquired days later.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/30/bench-to-be-acquired-after-abruptly-shutting-down/

With a paid plan for the year, Arkrel exports your tax report and accountant files (QuickBooks CSV, Xero CSV, and OFX) any time, and your accountant can get a read-only share link, so your books are never stuck inside one company’s app.

Checked 2026-09-30.

Simple pricing

Try one statement free. A one-time catch-up gets a full tax year done; a monthly plan keeps you caught up after that.

See pricingTry one statement free

Frequently asked questions

I have a whole year of statements. Where do I start?
Upload every statement for the year, or forward them to your Arkrel email-in address. Confirm each merchant once by category, and Arkrel sorts every transaction, flags anything missing, and builds your tax-ready report.
What does "confirm merchants once" mean?
Transactions from the same merchant are grouped together, so instead of categorizing 40 individual Amazon charges one at a time, you confirm the merchant once and the rule applies to every matching transaction, including future ones.
What do I actually get at the end?
A "My year" page with every transaction sorted by category, a tax-ready report (profit and loss, Schedule C totals, likely deductions), an export for your accountant or tax software.
Is the first statement really free?
Yes. Upload or email one statement and see your sorted transactions and a preview of your year for free. Catch-Up unlocks the full tax report, exports, 1099 entries, and accountant sharing for the tax year you purchase, for 12 months from payment settlement. Autopilot unlocks them for the current calendar year.
What if I use my bank account for both business and personal spending?
Arkrel flags likely personal spending (like groceries) and owner's-draw transfers instead of counting them as business expenses, and a large or equipment-looking purchase always goes to review instead of being auto-expensed.
Can my accountant see this too?
Yes. With a paid plan for the year, share a read-only link with your accountant, or export your books directly. See the Share with your accountant page.