A client once arrived with a Walmart bag. Not a folder, not a box, a bag. We have seen worse, and the engagement went fine, because the bag is not the problem. The problem is the 11 months somebody spent not starting because they were embarrassed about the bag.
Here is the actual list, and it is shorter than most owners expect.
What gets us started
- Bank, credit card and loan statements for the full period, downloaded as PDFs from the bank. Not screenshots, not spreadsheet exports, because those lose the detail we reconcile against.
- Accountant-level access to QuickBooks Online, and access to the payroll system if you run payroll.
- A list of every account and card the business uses, including the personal one that gets used occasionally. Especially that one, because it is where the unexplained transactions live.
That is day one. Everything else we ask for in batches as we work through the file, with context attached so you know what each question is for. We do not send a 40-item document request and wait.
Why I don’t know is a fine answer
Owners apologise for not remembering what a 400 dollar charge from 14 months ago was. There is nothing to apologise for. You were running a business, not maintaining an audit trail, and remembering that transaction was never your job.
Most unknowns we resolve from the bank record itself, because the vendor name, the amount and the timing usually tell the story. Where a transaction genuinely cannot be resolved, we apply a documented treatment and write down the reasoning, so your accountant inherits a decision rather than a question mark. The number of transactions where your memory is the only possible source is far smaller than it feels, and we will tell you which ones those are instead of asking you to account for everything.
What we do not need
Every receipt. Receipts matter for a small number of large or unusual items and matter much less for the routine ones the bank record already evidences. We will tell you which is which. Nobody needs you to spend a weekend sorting paper that will not change a single entry.
You guide the business from the front. We carry the part that was never yours to carry, and the handover is lighter than you think. If you want to see what the first 90 days of that looks like before committing to anything, the Trail Map is the place to start.
