Bookkeeping Cleanup Help a filed year changes the order
The return is in a drawer, and the software still lets you type inside the year it covered. The return that already went in decides where the cleanup is allowed to begin.
Do not repair a filed year by editing it
The order changes because the filed year is no longer a workspace.
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A common plan is to clean the old year until it matches the return, then step forward. That plan sounds tidy and it is backwards. Matching the file to a return by rewriting entries teaches the software a story the return did not actually use. The useful act is a list of sources, written once, kept with the return.
After that list, the next action is the first month the return did not cover. If the return was on a cash basis and the file is full of unpaid bills, we do not pretend the bills were the method. We name the method the return used and we keep the open year consistent with it unless you and the preparer choose a change on purpose.
A change of method is a decision, not a side effect of cleanup
Cleanup should not silently switch how the year is counted.
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Cash and accrual answer different questions. A cleanup that starts recording every unpaid bill, because the software screen invites it, has changed the method without a meeting. We stop at that door. If the open year should stay on the same method as the filed year, the entries follow that method. If a lender wants accrual statements, that want is written down before the entries change.
Inventory is the same door. A count that never existed cannot be invented at cleanup time to make a margin look normal. Zero inventory and a real count are both allowed. A made-up count is not.
If this is the month you are in
Say whether the last return was filed, and whether you want the open year kept on the same method.
Tell us which month is open
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.