About

# Books should show their work.

Why Trifold exists, what we hold to, and who's behind it.

## Why Trifold exists

Small schools, studios and non-profits take real money from real families, and they keep their books in spreadsheets or in software that asks to be trusted. When a parent needs a receipt for a state program, or a board needs to see the month, the answer is usually “trust me”.

We think the books should show their work. Every number should open to the payments behind it, every payer should hold a receipt they can check, and every month should carry a seal anyone can verify, without asking us.

## Principles

-   **Show the work.** Every total traces to events. Every claim on this site is something that ships, or it says Next or Later.
-   **Open formats, source-available engine.** Your books export in open formats. The receipt and seal formats and the verifier are Apache-2.0. The engine’s source is public on GitHub and free to self-host; each release becomes Apache-2.0 two years after it ships.
-   **Never paywall verification.** Checking a receipt or a seal is free for anyone, on every plan, forever.
-   **Durable over clever.** Append-only events, replayable books, fixed rules for every number. AI may explain and propose; it never computes a number.

## Trifold provides tfd

**Trifold** is the company and the hosted service. **tfd** is the engine: it turns Stripe events into double-entry books, signs receipts and seals months. Self-hosters can run it directly. Rifo, the assistant (say it “REE-foh”), is on the roadmap.

How tfd is licensed:

| Part | License |
| --- | --- |
| tfd engine and CLI | FSL-1.1-ALv2. Source-available and free to self-host. Each release becomes Apache-2.0 two years after it ships |
| Receipt and seal format, spec and verifier | Apache-2.0 |
| Test vectors | CC0-1.0 (public domain) |
| Hosted Trifold service, Rifo and the witness | Proprietary |

## The founder

\[Founder name and a short note, written by the founder. Placeholder until approved.\]

## Contact

Write to us at [hello@trifold.app](mailto:hello@trifold.app), or [request early access](https://trifold.app/early-access).

## Every payment, signed. Every month, sealed.

Books **✓**·Receipt **✓**·Stripe **✓**

[Get early access](https://trifold.app/early-access) [Verify a sample receipt](https://trifold.app/verify)

Design partners: founder onboarding, free during the pilot.