Austin bookkeeping, from a CPA alternative.

What a close is asking for

A download is a picture of the file on the day you pulled it. A closed month is quieter than that. The statement and the file finish on one shared number for that month. Every leftover item has a name, a date, and a person who will clear it. Personal spending is out of profit. A deposit sits in the month the work was delivered when the cash arrived later, or earlier, than the work.

We review the bank feed against the statement, match what matches, and reconcile until the difference is zero. A transfer is not a new customer. A personal card swipe is not a supply. When those two get left in, the profit looks healthier than the cash, and the return inherits the story.

Owners who keep a shop, a studio, or a small crew in Austin usually feel this in the second week, when the statement arrives and the file still shows last month as open. The relief is ordinary. The month has a last line, and you can see that it happened. That is the standard we hold the file to before we talk about the return.

The Congress Avenue Bridge lets the bats out at dusk, and we can all appreciate that show the way any Texan would. The night's card sales still belong to that month, and we pull the local tax out before the total looks richer than the work was.

Payroll setup, and who presses the button

Payroll setup is the registrations, the provider, the pay items, and the deposit rhythm. You run the provider after that. The login that sends the pay belongs to that provider, not to us. The distinction matters on a Friday when someone is waiting on a deposit and the question is whose login actually sends it.

If the business is profitable and there is no retirement plan yet, the conversation is about what the year can still support, not about a product. If owner pay has been a draw all year with no decision behind it, December is late and November is kinder. We would rather set the pay while the year is open, because the return can only report the pay that was already decided.

About 55,000 students move with the semesters at UT Austin, a calendar every Texan can name without living next to the campus. A payroll file still has to be ready before the first Friday of that rush, the same kind of date we will not miss on a close.

Get the provider live, get the items right, then let the months carry the amounts into the return. A payroll file that starts in October cannot invent the summer.

Decisions that only exist before December ends

Estimated tax is a rhythm, not a surprise. What has been paid in gets set next to what the closed months say the year is becoming. September is a useful true-up because the last quarter can still change. Once January arrives, the year it reports has already finished and the choices are locked.

What the owner takes home is decided in that same sitting. A sole owner who has been profitable and has never separated pay from profit is not stuck, but the split has to be chosen while the year is open. That choice gets made with the closed months on the table. We do not invent a savings figure, and we do not promise an outcome. The promise is that you will see the choice before the year closes, in sentences, with the bank beside it.

A penalty notice is a different mood. The worry is real, and the first job is to read what the notice actually asks for. Sometimes the months already contain the answer. Sometimes a fact was missing. Whatever list of records the notice prints is the list we collect with you. An examination stays yours to attend, and this practice does not go in as you.

The Austin Marathon has started every year since 1992, a long effort Texans recognize without needing a bib. A year of estimates asks for that same patience, and September is when we can still change the pace.

Three ways a good month lies

The first lie is a deposit booked as income before the work is delivered. The cash is real. The month is not finished. If you count it early, this month looks strong and next month looks empty, and the sales tax follows the wrong month too.

The second lie is personal spending left inside profit. Groceries, a flight that was not the business, a transfer to a personal account coded as a supply. The file still reconciles, which is the trap. The bank matches. The story does not. We pull those out so profit is what the business did.

The third lie is a difference nobody named. Two dollars or two thousand, a leftover is a leftover. It gets a name or the month stays open. That rule is how January stops being a pile and starts being a month someone owns.

Eeyore's Birthday Party has filled Pease Park on the last Saturday of April since 1963, a costume day Texans can picture from any county. That Saturday's deposits still need the month they belong to, or we are left holding an item nobody claimed.

The file, the statements, and a calendar link

Send the file, the bank statements for the open months, and a note about how current you think it is. If payroll is already on a provider, say which one. If it is not, say so, and setup is its own piece of work. We would rather decline a year that cannot be brought current than pretend a monthly close can start on top of it.

The conversation is a video call. The books are shared. The calendar link is on the booking page. No room in Austin is part of the offer. The month still receives its closing line on the date the two of us pick.

If you only have one question, the form on this page is enough. If you want a time, the dates are on the calendar.