Certified Public Accountant Arlington AlternativeThe month we will stand behind
The month you last trusted is the one you can still picture. This page is about making the next month match the bank before anyone assembles a return.
Send the month.
What we count as finished.
We call a month finished when the cash figure in the books is the cash figure on the bank statement, the cards and loans agree, and every deposit has a category you would defend out loud. Uncleared items stay listed, with a reason, instead of being forced to zero.
The feed from the bank is a convenience, not a close. A downloaded line still has to be matched to the right customer, the right job, or the right owner draw. A rule that guesses wrong is how a quiet error survives until the return.
We do the match while the week is fresh. A transfer you can explain on Friday becomes a mystery by March. The mystery is what makes the later statements feel slippery.
Why the work lives in the close
Owners who type that phrase are usually tired of a year that only gets looked at once. The close is the habit that makes the once-a-year reading boring, in the good way. Boring means nothing in the cash account is a surprise.
A stadium weekend can double a week's deposits and still be an ordinary close if the batches are named. A quiet week closes the same way. The rhythm is the point. The size of the week is not an excuse to skip it.
If the bank and the books disagree, we say so in that month. We do not paper over the gap with a plug number. The gap is the work.
What you can send.
Bank statements, card statements, and the name of the file you already keep are enough to start. Passwords stay off the first note. If payroll amounts are already in a provider, the provider's name tells us where wages should land.
We will tell you if the file needs a cleanup before a monthly rhythm makes sense. Some years have a drawer of uncleared payments that has to be faced once. After that, the month is a month, not an archaeology project.
You should finish this page knowing the standard. Same cash, named deposits, open items listed on purpose. Anything softer than that is not a close we will sign our name to in conversation.
The items that keep a month open
An uncleared payment is the usual culprit. The bank has not seen it, the books have, and nobody has decided whether to void it or to wait. Leaving it unmarked means next month inherits a ghost. We mark it, with a reason, so the ghost has a name.
A deposit from a payment app is the other usual culprit. It lands in a lump that mixes three days and two kinds of sale. Splitting that lump back into the days it belongs to is dull work, and it is the work that makes the sales tax return tell the truth on the 20th.
Transfers to yourself are not revenue and they are not an expense. They are the company and the owner moving the same dollars. When that movement is coded as income, the month looks healthier than the bank account feels. We put the movement on the equity line it actually is.
Which month is still open.
Name the last month you trusted and what has piled up since.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.