If you are reading this in October and your books are a mess, we have good news. You are not late yet. You still have about three months before the year closes, and that is plenty of time to get caught up without panicking.
We talk to business owners all over the Phoenix area, from Apache Junction out to Mesa, Gilbert, Tempe, Chandler, Scottsdale and Fountain Hills, and the story is almost always the same. Work got busy, the bookkeeping slid, and then one skipped month turned into six. Nobody meant for it to happen.
Here is how we would spend the next three months if we were in your shoes.
Why October beats January
Catching up in January is possible, but it is the hardest month to do it. Your contractors want their forms, your tax preparer wants your numbers, and every other small business in town is asking their bookkeeper for the same thing at the same time.
Doing the work now means you have time to track down the missing receipt, call the bank for an old statement, and ask questions without a deadline breathing down your neck. It also means you get a real look at your profit while you can still do something about it before December 31.
Start with bank reconciliations
Bank reconciliations are the foundation. Until every bank account, credit card and loan account matches your records line for line, nothing else you print out can be trusted.
This is usually where we find the surprises. Duplicate transactions, personal spending that slipped into the business account, payments that were never recorded, deposits that got booked twice. None of it is unusual, and all of it is fixable.
We work in QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Pro Desktop, and we have been doing this for more than fifteen years, so a stack of unreconciled months does not scare us.
Chase down your accounts receivable now
Open invoices do not get easier to collect as they age. The longer an invoice sits, the more likely the customer has forgotten the job entirely.
Our accounts receivable work means knowing exactly who owes you what, how long it has been outstanding, and sending the reminders so you do not have to be the one making awkward phone calls. Even a few collected invoices before year end can change how your December looks.
Tidy up accounts payable
The flip side matters too. Unrecorded bills make your business look more profitable than it really is, and then the shortfall shows up later at the worst possible moment.
With accounts payable handled properly, you know what is actually owed, what is already paid, and what is coming due. That is the difference between guessing at your cash position and knowing it.
Payroll and contractor paperwork
If you have employees or you pay contractors, January arrives fast.
Form 1099-NEC is generally filed by January 31 of the year following the tax year for nonemployee compensation, and a copy goes to the recipient by that same date. If the deadline lands on a weekend or holiday it moves to the next business day, so the exact date shifts from year to year. We will confirm the current date that applies to you.
The part people underestimate is the prep work. You need correct names, addresses and tax ID numbers for every contractor, and those are much easier to collect in October than in the last week of January. Our payroll processing service keeps those records current all year so the deadline is just another Tuesday.
Know your filing dates before they arrive
Deadlines depend on how your business is set up. Partnerships and S corporations operating on a calendar year generally file in mid March, while calendar year C corporations generally file in mid April.
Sole proprietorships and LLCs taxed as sole proprietorships generally follow the April date as well.
This is general information, not advice for your specific business. Talk to us about your situation and we will help you line up the right dates with your tax preparer.
Financial reporting that actually tells you something
Once the cleanup is done, the reports mean something again. A profit and loss statement, a balance sheet, a cash flow summary. These are the numbers you use to decide whether to hire, whether to buy equipment, whether that one customer is really worth the trouble.
Because we come from an IT and software background, we can also pull data from the other tools you already use and build custom reports around it. If you want to see revenue by job, by location or by service line, we can usually make that happen.
A simple plan for the next three months
- October: reconcile every account and find the gaps
- November: clean up accounts payable and accounts receivable, confirm contractor records
- December: final reconciliations, review reports, close the year cleanly
Let’s get your books ready
You have time. You will not have time in February. If you are behind and you want someone to take it off your plate, CR Bookkeeping Services LLC works remotely with business owners across Apache Junction, Mesa, Gilbert and the rest of the Valley.
Give us a call or book a time with us, and we will take a look at where things stand and tell you honestly what it will take to get caught up.
Sources
- IRS: Information return reporting backs up the January 31 filing and recipient copy date for Form 1099-NEC
- TurboTax: Penalties for missing the 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC filing deadline backs up the weekend and holiday shift to the next business day
- Paychex: Filing your business income tax return backs up the general March and April filing dates by entity type
- Block Advisors: Business tax filing deadlines backs up the April date for sole proprietorships and LLCs taxed as sole proprietorships