Tax season doesn’t start in March. It starts the afternoon your bookkeeper1 asks for a bank statement and you realize it’s in a drawer, an old email, or an account you stopped using in June. Here’s the list, with the reason behind each item, so you only have to gather it once.
Start with the money in and outPull a statement for every account the business touches: checking, savings, credit cards, and the PayPal or Stripe balance you forgot about. Download all twelve months. Banks only keep online statements for so long, and rebuilding a missing month from memory is how mistakes get in.
If you’ve mixed personal and business spending, say so now. Highlight the personal charges, or just tell us which card they’re on. Sorting that out later costs more time than sorting it out today. If the year is already a tangle, here is how we catch up a messy year of books2.
Then the paperwork people forgetLast year’s return, so the carryover numbers match. Any 1099s you’ve received. A list of the contractors you paid enough to need a 1099, with legal names and addresses. A signed W-9 for each one saves you a week of chasing in January.
Rules change, and your preparer has the final say on what applies to you. Treat this as the gathering list, not tax advice.
Don’t skip the big purchasesBought a vehicle, a laptop or equipment this year? Keep the invoice and the date it went into use. Your preparer will ask for both, usually in a hurry.
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