Isn't a spreadsheet free?

The file is free; the time isn't. A spreadsheet reconciliation is roughly half a day for a ~4,000-line account, every month, by hand. Clearing Solo is $199/year and the matching pass runs automatically, so your time goes to the handful of exceptions it flags, not the thousands of lines it already cleared.

Can I bring my existing spreadsheet workflow into Clearing?

Yes. Clearing reads the same CSV or Excel bank and ledger exports a spreadsheet workflow already uses — there's no template to rebuild, and nothing breaks when your bank changes its export format.

Clearing vs. a spreadsheet

Automatic matching vs. a workbook you rebuild every month.

A spreadsheet reconciliation clears the easy lines the same way Clearing does — a lookup, a sum, a color to flag what's off. The difference shows up on the other 20%: splits, high-volume accounts, and proving why a match was right months later.

Clearing, A spreadsheet compared by task
The job	Clearing	A spreadsheet
Split and partial matches	One deposit against five invoices, a part-payment, or a check that cleared a month late.	A lookup matches one value to one value. Splits get done by hand, or not at all.
High-volume accounts	Built for the busy operating account. Thousands of lines in a single pass.	Slow to open, easy to break. One bad sort and the reconciliation is quietly wrong.
Where the data comes from	A CSV or Excel export from any bank, including international accounts with no feed at all.	Anything you can paste in, and you rebuild the formulas every month.
Why it matched	The confidence score and the signals behind it, so a match is one you can defend.	The formula, if you can still read it. Nothing records why you accepted a line.
Getting better over time	Learns each client's patterns from your corrections and proposes more every month.	Last month's workbook, copied forward. It never learns.
Closing the period	A named sign-off that seals the period. Any change after it shows.	Nothing seals it. Any cell can change afterward and nothing shows.

Split and partial matches
Clearing
One deposit against five invoices, a part-payment, or a check that cleared a month late.
A spreadsheet
A lookup matches one value to one value. Splits get done by hand, or not at all.
High-volume accounts
Clearing
Built for the busy operating account. Thousands of lines in a single pass.
A spreadsheet
Slow to open, easy to break. One bad sort and the reconciliation is quietly wrong.
Where the data comes from
Clearing
A CSV or Excel export from any bank, including international accounts with no feed at all.
A spreadsheet
Anything you can paste in, and you rebuild the formulas every month.
Why it matched
Clearing
The confidence score and the signals behind it, so a match is one you can defend.
A spreadsheet
The formula, if you can still read it. Nothing records why you accepted a line.
Getting better over time
Clearing
Learns each client's patterns from your corrections and proposes more every month.
A spreadsheet
Last month's workbook, copied forward. It never learns.
Closing the period
Clearing
A named sign-off that seals the period. Any change after it shows.
A spreadsheet
Nothing seals it. Any cell can change afterward and nothing shows.

Questions, answered

Isn't a spreadsheet free?: The file is free; the time isn't. A spreadsheet reconciliation is roughly half a day for a ~4,000-line account, every month, by hand. Clearing Solo is $199/year and the matching pass runs automatically, so your time goes to the handful of exceptions it flags, not the thousands of lines it already cleared.
Can I bring my existing spreadsheet workflow into Clearing?: Yes. Clearing reads the same CSV or Excel bank and ledger exports a spreadsheet workflow already uses — there's no template to rebuild, and nothing breaks when your bank changes its export format.

Get Clearing Solo — $199/year See the full comparison