Bookkeeper QuickBooks ProAdvisorA year, told as months

As January ends, contractor forms for the prior year go out. That work is only as good as the vendor list kept during the year. A list rebuilt in a panic in January misses people and misstates amounts. We would rather the list be a byproduct of the monthly close.

Partnership filings and S corporation filings share one federal day in March, the fifteenth. An individual filing uses one federal day in April, the fifteenth. The dates are federal. Crossing a state line does not move them. A March that still disagrees with the bank is a month the return should not quietly swallow.

Estimated tax goes out four times in the year. The useful version is built from months that have already stopped moving, plus a careful note about the months that have not. If the bank feed was never tied to a statement, the estimate is a guess wearing a deadline.

We do not print a percentage on these pages and call it safe. What counts as safe depends on last year's figure and on the months this year has already finished. The close is how we know what this year is doing.

By October, most of the year can be closed if the statements exist. The return is not drafted yet. Some choices can still be made with the closed months in view: the shape of a retirement contribution, equipment that was actually placed in service, an election whose federal window is still open. We will not invent a choice you do not qualify for. We will say which window is still open and which one has shut.

December is for finishing the list, not for discovering that March never matched. A year imagined this way is dull on purpose. Dull months are the ones a return can use.

If you want a picture of your own year, start with the month you can document today. The calendar above is only the federal skeleton. Your file supplies the muscle, and we do not invent a month you cannot show.