When you merge subsidiaries into a parent binder with Consolidated Tax Trial Balance, or merge properties into a binder from QuickBooks Online or Xero, Tallyfor keeps a snapshot of the binder's own trial balance from before the first merge. The control that restores that snapshot used to be labelled Undo (or Unmerge). As of v3.25.77 it is called Rewind, and it asks you to confirm before it runs.
Why the name changed
"Undo" and "unmerge" both suggest reversing one step — taking one entity back out and leaving everything else alone. That is not what the operation does. It rewinds the trial balance to an earlier point in time and then re-pulls whichever sources are still merged.
The practical consequence is that work done after the first merge is not part of the snapshot, so it is not restored with it. Preparers who read the old label as "remove this one subsidiary" were surprised by that. The new name describes the engine honestly, and the confirmation dialog now spells out the cost before anything is written.
What Rewind does
Restores the binder's trial balance to its pre-merge snapshot — the accounts the binder had before any subsidiary or property was merged in.
Re-pulls any sources that are still merged, so their accounts come back in fresh.
Recreates the intercompany elimination accounts.
Rewinding the last remaining source restores the snapshot wholesale and clears it. Rewinding one of several sources rebuilds from the snapshot plus the sources that stay.
The confirmation step
Rewind no longer runs on a single click. A confirmation dialog names the operation, states that it returns the trial balance to its pre-merge state, and warns that grouping work done since the first merge will not survive. Nothing is written until you confirm.
What Rewind keeps
As of v3.25.77 a rewind carries the following forward onto the rebuilt accounts:
Per-account document links. Attachments you filed against an account stay attached to that account. Previously the uploaded files survived in storage but the binder lost its pointers to them, so they disappeared from the UI.
Per-account notes. Notes travel with their account through the rebuild.
Annotations on documents. These are keyed to the document rather than the account, and match back automatically.
The same protection now applies to the QuickBooks Online and Xero property-merge paths, which previously replaced the whole trial balance node and lost document links and notes with it.
What Rewind does not keep
Account groupings created after the first merge. Grouping lives in the binder's viewgraph, and the rebuild seeds from the snapshot's viewgraph. Groups you built while working the consolidated return are replaced by the ones that existed before the first merge.
Cross-entity structure. A category that holds, say, both subsidiaries' rent is a consolidated-view concept. It has no meaning once the entities are separated again.
Document-tag workpaper references attached to the removed rows.
How to work so you never need it
Finish merging before you start grouping. Add every subsidiary or property you intend to include, confirm the account list looks right, and only then build your groups and assign tax categories. Grouping is the one thing a rewind cannot give back.
Fix the source, not the consolidation. If a subsidiary's trial balance is wrong, correct it in the child binder and re-run the merge rather than rewinding the parent.
Treat Rewind as "start this consolidation over." That is the job it is good at. It is the right tool when you want a clean slate, and the wrong tool when you want to drop one entity from an otherwise finished return.
Removing one entity without rewinding
A separate Unmerge operation is in development. It will subtract one entity's contributed accounts from the live trial balance rather than rebuilding from a snapshot, so groupings, notes, document links and tax categories on the surviving rows are untouched. Until it ships, both the consolidation and property-merge controls say Rewind, because rewinding is what they do.
Where to find it
Open the parent entity's binder.
Click Tax Consolidation Groups in the right-hand inspector panel — or, for properties, open the Multi-Property panel.
Select the merged source you want to roll back.
Click Rewind and read the confirmation before you accept it.
If a rewind has already cost you work
Contact support from the in-app messenger. Document links can usually be reconstructed. Account groupings created after the first merge are not recoverable, so tell us as soon as you notice.
Related articles
Consolidated Tax Trial Balance — setting up consolidation groups and running a merge.