Behind on the books with a tax deadline coming? Catch up in this order.

The books stopped in March. Or last summer, or the year before. Now there is a filing date on the calendar, your CPA is asking for numbers, and the backlog looks like one enormous job.

It isn't one job. It is a sequence, and doing it in the right order is what gets you to the deadline with numbers you can trust. Here is that order.

1. Start from the date, not the backlog

Work backwards. Your CPA needs the figures some time before the filing date, not on it, so ask them now when they need the books. Then measure the gap: how many months are missing, and how many accounts.

As a guide from TechBrot's own catch-up engagements: three to six months behind typically clears in two to three weeks; twelve to twenty-four months in four to six; a multi-year backlog in eight to ten. Getting statements back from a bank account you closed, or a payroll provider you no longer use, can take longer than the entry.

If those numbers don't fit before your CPA's date, say so now, not the week before. Whether to extend is your CPA's call, and one thing is worth knowing before that conversation: an extension is for filing, not for paying. The IRS is plain about it for individual returns: the extension is only for filing the return, and tax owed is still due by the original date.

2. Get every statement before you enter anything

Make a list of every account the business used in the period: each bank account, each credit card, each loan, the payroll provider, the payment processors. Then get a statement for every month for every one of them.

It is tempting to start entering what you have and fill gaps later. Don't. A month you can't finish because a statement is missing blocks every month after it, because each reconciliation starts from the one before.

3. Reconcile in date order, one month at a time

Enter a month, reconcile every account for that month to its statement, and only then open the next. If a month doesn't reconcile, stop and find out why before moving on. A difference carried forward doesn't shrink; it hides inside every later month.

The rule that matters most: never plug a difference. Forcing a reconciliation to balance with an adjusting entry gets you to the next month faster and leaves the problem in the books your return is built on.

4. Give your CPA what they need first

Your CPA does not need perfect books for every small categorization question. They need the totals the return is built from, and they need them to be right:

• A profit and loss and a balance sheet for the year.
• Every bank, card and loan account reconciled to its statement through year-end.
• Payroll totals that agree with the payroll provider's reports.
• Sales tax collected, and what was filed.
• Owner draws and contributions, kept out of income and expense.
• Equipment and vehicle purchases, with dates and amounts.

What can wait until after the deadline: tidying the chart of accounts, rebuilding bank rules, setting up the monthly routine that stops this happening again.

5. The mistakes that cost most when you rush

• Counting transfers as income. Moving money from savings to checking is not revenue; neither is a loan.
• Paying the card twice. A card payment from the bank shows up in both feeds. Record it once, as a transfer.
• Mixing personal spending into the business. Pull it out as owner draws now, not in a question from your CPA later.
• Skipping the loan statement. Principal and interest have to be split, or the interest deduction and the loan balance are both wrong.

When to hand it off

Do it yourself if the backlog is a few months, the accounts are few, and every month reconciles first time. Get help when months won't reconcile, when the months that exist turn out to be wrong as well as the missing ones (that is a cleanup first), or when the arithmetic in step 1 doesn't fit the calendar.

A catch-up engagement is priced per month of backlog as one fixed fee, quoted in writing before any work starts, with a timeline you can check against the filing date. If the books are roughly current and you just need the hand-off list, the tax-season checklist is the shorter read.

TechBrot does the operational bookkeeping and hands your CPA a file they can file from.