The year looks stronger than you expected, and you are afraid the last figure will take it back. Estimates and the last open choices are what move the number for the year, a closed month does not move it, and Steven Palmieri, a Tax CFO and the Entrepreneur's CFO, builds that number from the books with us.
The number people mean is usually the year to date profit, the tax that profit points at, or the last estimate still unpaid. All three depend on months that have actually closed. An open month is a blank, not a zero and not a wish.
We build that number from the books. If a category is wrong, the number is wrong in the same direction. Fixing the category is the work. Decorating the total is not.
Pay you take from now to December changes it. A real expense you were going to incur changes it on the date it happens. An estimate you still owe can be adjusted when the closed months support a new figure. We write the reason next to the change.
No dollar of tax savings is printed here, because these months have not been read. Your file is not settled here. Anyone who promises a dollar result before reading the months is selling a mood.
Every Texan knows June through November is the storm window a roofer or a shop along the bayous keeps on the calendar. October sits inside that window, and the number for the year can still move. A storm plan and a tax plan are different lists. We keep them from being mashed into one sentence.
If you want the number we would stand behind, send the last closed month and say what is still loose.
We will not print a tax due on this page, and we will not print a refund. Those figures need the closed months and the forms for that year. A round number offered before that reading is a guess, and we do not want your plans built on it.
If two totals are in the file, we show both and say which one the return will use. A profit number and a cash number are not the same sentence. Mixing them is how an owner thinks the year was fine and then meets a bill the cash already spent.
Ask for the bridge between those two totals if they confuse you. We will point at draws, at unpaid bills, and at tax deposits that left the bank and never touched profit. That bridge is the part owners usually needed and did not have a name for. Once you can see it, the number for the year stops being a surprise and starts being a set of months you already lived.
Tell us the last month that is closed and the year you mean.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.