A tax file used to be all-or-nothing for the binder. You can now scope it — to certain account-type sections, and on a multi-property binder to certain properties — so a corrected piece of a return can be re-imported without clobbering the parts already sitting in your tax software.
Why you would use it
Once part of a return is in your tax software, a full tax file overwrites all of it. A preparer who has fixed only the P&L, or corrected only one rental property, had to take the whole file and let it land on top of work already imported and reviewed.
Scoping the download means you send exactly the piece you changed.
Where the controls are
Open Download Tax File as usual. The modal now carries a scope step above the download action. Every tax engine shows it; Drake presents the same picker inside Drake's own download modal.
Scope by account-type section
Available on every binder. Tick the sections you want the file to contain:
Revenue
Expenses
Assets
Liabilities
Equity
Property Lines
TOTAL
The common case: you have corrected the income statement, so you download Revenue and Expenses only and re-import — and the balance sheet already keyed into the return is left exactly as it is.
Scope by property
This picker appears only when the binder actually has properties. It is a multi-select, so "properties 2 and 4" is as easy as one property.
The properties are listed in the same order as the Property Report and the Form 8825 view — column A, B, C, D — so the picker and the reports never disagree about which property is which.
It works on both kinds of multi-property binder: one trial balance imported per property (serial or manual), and properties merged in from Xero or QuickBooks Online.
Property numbers are preserved
If you export property 3 on its own, it arrives in your tax software as property 3. It is not renumbered to 1 — which would overwrite property 1 on import, the exact harm this feature exists to prevent.
The two axes combine
They are independent filters over the same set of rows, so "Expenses, property 3 only" is a legitimate download. Pick sections, pick properties, or pick both.
The default is everything
Leave the controls alone and you get the whole binder, exactly as before. Nothing about your existing download habit changes.
A scoped file says it is scoped
A partial file that looks complete is how half a return gets imported without anyone noticing. So the modal states the scope before you download, and the filename carries it — a scoped file is distinguishable from a full one after it has left Tallyfor.
If the file comes out smaller than you expected
An account only reaches a tax file if it carries a tax category the chosen engine can address. Accounts left at Select a category are not exported, and a binder that is entirely uncategorized produces a near-empty file. If a download looks short, check the Trial Balance view for uncategorized rows first.
Related
Filter the trial balance to one property
Zero-balance accounts are excluded from tax export files
Tax Mapping File Not Downloading Properly or Is Empty