Post tax season

[Jim-from-Ohio]

Anyone still going fairly strong?  I still have a lot of extensions to work through as well as my business accounts to take care of.  Post tax season I schedule from about 8 am to about 2 pm unlike in tax season where I start at 5:45 am and go late into the evening. 

Client coming in here in a few minutes or so but not really looking too forward to this one..  Normally when I do an 1120-S, an 1120, or a 1065 I am running the general ledger throughout the year, doing one month at at time as the year progresses, keeping a clean Balance Sheet and a clean Income statement.  So when January rolls around all I have to do is run December books and I can then knock out the 1120/S/1065 in about 20 minutes since I have perfect financial statements. 

Well, this client coming in at 9:45 uses QBO.  He runs his daily activity himself and he tells me the books are clean.  Why am I skeptical?  Well, I have seen so many self prepared Balance Sheets with accounting blunders including having a negative balance in checking, accumulated depreciation which is more than the corresponding fixed asset, zero wages paid on an S corp, and the list can be endless.  So a 20 minute 1120S, which is my goal may very likely turn into a multi-hour clean up of the books.  If this turns into that I am not going to be happy, even though I will be charging for it; just not the type of work I like to do at this stage in my career.  

[George4Tacks]

You know you are truly successful in this profession when you feel comfortable firing a client if they don't change their ways. In this case they should be required to see you at least quarterly to "get a lesson in what to look for to get clean books". That would be a fee meeting. Good for them. Good for you.  Otherwise TTFN( TaTaForNow)

[Jim-from-Ohio]

we'll see. .maybe the books are clean. ha

[PATAX]

The work never ends. That corporate return will probably take you a few hours, at least, to complete. Take your time to double check and make sure return is done correctly the first time.

[IRonMaN]

I haven't done any work since April 16th.  I've just been spending all of my time browsing the Temu website shopping for vests and pirate hats.

[Jim-from-Ohio]

Ha!. I not only buy from Temu I bought the stock, PDD

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pdd-holdings-inc-pdd-surges-165600811.html

[IRonMaN]

Hopefully BF Borgers doesn't do that audit 😅

[Jim-from-Ohio]

@PATAX OK.. 11:18 a.m. update.. done!  QBO was messy but we cleaned it up.. total time spent, including QBO cleanup 1.5 hours.. most of that was the QBO part, ha!  client happy.. so i am happy.. just have to decide how much to charge.. I am not charging for the 1.5 hours, I am charging for years of training and education. 

Like Henry Ford was told when he got a bill to fix his down assembly line $ 1,000 that took ten minutes.  Mr. Ford pushed back, telling the tech, $ 1,000 for ten minutes time?  Tech said, Ok.. and wrote him a new bill, Amount for the ten minutes $ 10, amount to know how to spend that ten minutes, $ 990. 

Story has evolved over the years but that is the general idea of what took place. 

[IRonMaN]

"QBO was messy but we cleaned it up.. total time spent, including QBO cleanup 1.5 hours."

Unfortunately, if it only took that long, you really don't know what messy is😰

[BobKamman]

Not only is it Star Wars Day (May the 4th be with you) but it's a Saturday and Cinco de Mayo Eve.  Why would anyone be going to work on a fine spring day like this?

Here is the most reliable version of the Henry Ford story, for those who want to compare themselves to the genius Charles Steinmetz:

Ford, whose electrical engineers couldn’t solve some problems they were having with a gigantic generator, called Steinmetz in to the plant [River Rouge in Dearborn, Michigan]. Upon arriving, Steinmetz rejected all assistance and asked only for a notebook, pencil and cot. According to Scott, Steinmetz listened to the generator and scribbled computations on the notepad for two straight days and nights. On the second night, he asked for a ladder, climbed up the generator and made a chalk mark on its side. Then he told Ford’s skeptical engineers to remove a plate at the mark and replace sixteen windings from the field coil. They did, and the generator performed to perfection.

Henry Ford was thrilled until he got an invoice from General Electric in the amount of $10,000. Ford acknowledged Steinmetz’s success but balked at the figure. He asked for an itemized bill.

Steinmetz, Scott wrote, responded personally to Ford’s request with the following:

Making chalk mark on generator $1.

Knowing where to make mark $9,999.

Ford paid the bill.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/charles-proteus-steinmetz-the-wizard-of-schenectady-51912022/ 

[MariaCrowley]

Agree 100%! I'm a veteran Big 8, with a lot tax seasons behind me. I joined a small CPA firm this tax season to keep up with the tax laws and the only stipulation I had before joining was to have clean workpapers for the entities. I wouldn't mind cleaning up the books for a new client if they were on board with paying to get them on track with a willingness to keep them clean. I'm thinking about buying/starting my own tax practice. It's great to hear what everyone is going through! thx for sharing.