Help Us Help You

I love my clients. Truly. I also spend a non-trivial amount of my time chasing them for information they promised me weeks ago. So in the spirit of saving us all some headaches, let me share a few things that make my life (and theirs) easier when we work together.

This isn’t a lecture. Think of it as a field guide to getting the most value out of your bookkeeper or accountant.

1. Get us documents on time.
   • If I ask for last month’s bank statement, I need it in a few days, not a few weeks.
   • The longer you wait, the more of my time you burn when I do get it, because I have to refresh my memory and chase down related items.
2. Don’t wait until tax season to ask questions.
   • If you have a question about a deduction, a new hire, a piece of equipment you’re thinking about buying, ask in June. Not April.
   • The best tax planning happens during the year, not after it ends.
3. Tell us about big changes.
   • New partner? New state? New product line? New loan? Buying a building? Let us know.
   • We can’t advise on things we don’t know about, and finding out after the fact always costs more.
4. Stop paying for personal expenses from the business.
   • I know. I see you. And so does the IRS if we ever get audited.
   • If you need to take money out, take an owner’s draw. Don’t route your vacation through business expenses.
5. Label your receipts.
   • “Lunch, 6/12, discussion with Client X about their project” takes ten seconds to write and saves me an hour of guessing in July.
6. Respond to questions.
   • If I email you asking which account something should go to, please answer. I genuinely cannot guess correctly 100% of the time, and a wrong guess shows up in your financial statements.
7. Keep your software access current.
   • If you change passwords or disconnect an integration, let us know.
   • Broken bank feeds create gaps that take hours to fix.
8. Be honest about your goals.
   • Want to sell the business in three years? I’ll manage your books differently.
   • Planning to take on investors? Different again.
   • The more I know about what you’re building toward, the more useful my advice becomes.

Here’s where AI automation helps: modern accounting platforms now send automated reminders, flag missing receipts, and generate document request lists. Tools like these cut down on the back-and-forth considerably. But they can’t replace communication about your business goals, your plans, and the context behind the numbers.

We’re on the same team. The more you help us help you, the more time we spend actually improving your business, not reconstructing what happened in March.