FileClearFileClear on your desktop
An icon that is always there, the outstanding count on it, and the same calendar you already have.
Checking for the current version…
What it adds, and what it does not
The dock icon carries what is outstanding, so the number is in front of you without opening anything. The sections have keyboard shortcuts. Links out to CRA and to the registries open in your own browser, where the address bar is visible.
What it does not add is a second copy of the rules. Every rate and every deadline in FileClear is a claim about the outside world that was true on the day it was typed, and rates move every January. The whole design of the web application exists so that a correction reaches everybody the next morning rather than only the people who happen to update. A desktop build carrying its own copy of the rules would hand that back: somebody still running last spring’s version would be quietly wrong about a rate that changed, with nothing on screen to say so.
So the arithmetic stays on the server and the app is a window onto it. Every change we make reaches your desktop the moment it is deployed, with nothing to install. The app itself updates separately and rarely, in the background, and installs when you quit rather than interrupting a return.
Where your data lives
In one place, and not on your Mac. Your books, your company details and what you have ticked off are held in FileClear’s database and reached over HTTPS by the app and the browser alike. The app keeps no copy: it stores nothing but the cookie that says you are signed in.
So there is nothing to sync and nothing that can disagree. Enter an expense in the app and it is on the website when you reload it, because both are looking at the same record rather than at two copies being reconciled. The same is true across machines, and it is why a deadline you tick off on a laptop is ticked off on a phone.
Signing in is per device, the way it is for any app. The session lasts thirty days and survives quitting, so it is one sign-in rather than one a day, and signing in to the app does not sign you out of the browser.
Without a connection
It says so, plainly, and explains that the deadlines are worked out when you look rather than stored. Your email reminders are unaffected either way: they are sent from the server on its own schedule and do not need this app to be open, or installed.
Requirements
macOS 12 or later. One download runs natively on Apple silicon and on Intel, so there is nothing to choose between and nothing that runs under Rosetta. It is signed and notarised by Apple, so it opens the way any other Mac application does.
Windows
Not yet. A Windows build exists and works, but shipping it needs a code signing certificate, and without one Windows shows a full screen warning before it will run. That is a poor first screen for a product about tax, so it waits. The web version is the same product and works in any browser on Windows today.
Prefer the browser?
Then use the browser. fileclear.ca is the same product and always the current version. The desktop app exists because some people would rather have an icon than a tab, not because the web version is second best.