ok.. still grappling with the home sale one that hurt my 20 - 30 minute time goal but this S corp client came in.. they use a certain desktop accounting software, un-named at this point.. asked to see the balance sheet and income statement (P & L ) .. i already was leery on what she would show me.. sure enough.. The Balance sheet showed negative $ 450,000 in total assets.. negative assets!  Then I was curious at the income statement.. she gave me her 1099-K showing sales of $ 750,000 and the P & L showed sales of about $ 500,000... this was one of the worse internal set of financials i ever saw. 

I can't use these financial statements and I am not going to try and use her database and fix it.. I asked her if she could just go back and get me the 12 months bank statements (after she "codes" them.. short abbreviation next to each bank debit, such as R & M, INS, L & A, P/ROLL, RENT, ADV, etc and I can create my own general ledger and financial statements.. she was all for that and I told her i can take this totally off of her hands going forward.. so turned a big mess into a monthly accounting client.