Working With Your Existing Bookkeeper

How the work divides

• Your bookkeeper keeps the books during the year: entering and categorizing transactions, reconciling bank and card accounts, and producing the monthly reports.
• I work from those books for the tax work in my engagement: the returns, and any planning you engage me for separately.
• You answer questions about what transactions were for, and supply records only you have.

Year-end adjustments

When the books are ready for the return, some entries may need to change. Typical examples are the year's depreciation, a loan payment split between principal and interest, or a personal charge that belongs in owner withdrawals. The order is the same every time:

1. I propose each adjustment in writing, with the accounts, the amount and a one-line reason.
2. You approve it.
3. Your bookkeeper records it in the books.
4. I confirm it reached the final ledger before I finish the return.

That way the books and the return agree, and only one person changes the ledger.

Questions during the work

I send questions as one list, not one at a time. Your bookkeeper can answer some from the records. Others only you can answer, such as the purpose of a transfer or whether a purchase was personal. The list notes who answers each one.

Handoff checklist

For the same period, ask your bookkeeper for:

• Final trial balance
• Profit and loss statement and balance sheet
• Bank and card reconciliation reports through year-end
• Unpaid customer invoices and unpaid bills at year-end, if the books are on the accrual basis
• Loan statements showing year-end balances and interest paid
• Fixed-asset list with purchase dates and costs, and last year's depreciation schedule
• Detail of owner contributions and withdrawals
• Your payroll provider's year-end reports, if you have employees
• Open questions the bookkeeper already knows about

When the books need more than adjustments

If whole months turn out to be unreconciled, the right step is a cleanup before the return, not a long list of adjustments. That is a separate bookkeeping cleanup scope, and your bookkeeper can still be part of it.