The return is a summary of months that already happened. If March is still open, the return is not ready, even when the software will accept a draft. We close the open month, then we draft.
Payroll setup has to be finished before wages go on that draft. If people were paid in cash or from a personal account, we want that said out loud. The return should match the way the year was actually lived.
We prepare the return for this one company. If you own something else, that is a different file, and we will not fold it in to make this one look larger.
A Wednesday that still has a month
El Fenix has served Tex-Mex since 1918, and the downtown room is known for a Wednesday enchilada special. We go for that Wednesday the same as you do. The lunch is a pleasure. It is not a filing system.
A Wednesday meal still belongs to the month the card was charged. We do not slide it into a later month because the special was good or because the receipt turned up in a coat pocket in June.
The same rule covers a show, a part, or a booth fee. The charge still belongs to the month the card was used, even when the receipt turns up later in a coat pocket. The return is still written from closed months, and a night out does not become its own ledger.
What the draft contains
You will see the income that landed, the costs we could tie to a month, and the wages if payday was set up. Items we could not tie sit on a short list, with the question next to them.
We read that list with you before the return is treated as finished. If you remember a deposit we missed, we put it in the month it belongs to, even when that month was one we hoped was done.
A refund can come out of that math. We do not lead with it, and we do not quote one on the phone. The draft is the thing you can check.
After you sign
When you are ready, you sign the return we prepared. We keep a copy of what you signed and of the months under it. A letter that arrives after the signature gets those same months pulled back out, and the reply covers what the letter asks to see. Sitting in the examination itself stays outside this scope.
If the notice is really a request for an opinion letter on the statements, that is the empty box again. We answer in writing and we hand over the closed months so a firm that signs can read a clean file.
Until then the useful step is the open month. Send it. The return gets easier when that month has a name. A notice that names a month we already closed is easier to answer than a notice that lands on a year with no month in it.
What the return still needs
Say which month is still open. If a notice already arrived, name the form on it.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.
