Bookkeeper QuickBooks ProAdvisorOctober, before the return is drafted

By October the early estimates have been paid or missed. Contractor forms for the prior January are long gone. The months that had statements can already be matched. A file that reaches October with no close at all is not a surprise we scold. It is a file that starts with September, or with whichever statement you can find, and moves forward and backward from there.

Nothing about October on this page is a season, a festival, or a place. It is a point on the federal calendar, the same week in every state.

Some choices are still open in October because the return is not drafted and the year is not over. Equipment has to have been placed in service, not merely wished for. A retirement contribution follows the plan you actually have, not a plan we invent on a call. An election follows the federal window, and if the window has shut we say it has shut.

We will not backdate a story to create a choice. Months that already match are simply what the year did. October is useful because there is still time to decide what has not happened yet, and no time to rewrite what already did.

One statement. The most recent month you can put your hands on. If it matches, we look at the month before. If it does not, we stay there until it does. October is late enough that this work matters for the return, and early enough that we are not drafting the return in the same week.

The program mark is not part of this decision. A listing does not change what October can still do. The month does.

Bring the latest statement you can find, even if October itself is not the messy month. We start where the paper is. The federal calendar only tells us the window is still open.