Certified Public Accountant Dallas AlternativeThe monthly close

A month we will call finished

We call a month finished when the cash in the bank and the cash in the books are the same number. Card balances and loan balances sit in that same pass. Every deposit has a category you would still recognize next spring.

We do not rebuild that month later from a pile of questions. We close it while the week is still easy to remember. Then we leave the categories alone so one year can sit beside the next without a translator.

If something does not match, we say so in that month. A quiet mismatch is cheaper than a loud one in March. The item left open should be one you can point to, with a reason that still makes sense.

Payday inside that same month

Wages, withholdings, and owner draws belong in the month they happened. We set that up on the payroll service you already run, and you keep the approval of each run. We are not taking payday out of your hands.

A raise, a new hire, or a draw that changed with the season gets named then. Waiting until the return means the memory has thinned and the books have a hole. The hole is what makes the later statements hard to trust.

Write down the name of the service if you know it. Leave the password off the note. The first conversation only needs to know that payday already has a home.

Showrooms where warehouses were

When you walk the Design District and those old warehouses are showrooms now, we enjoy the rooms the way you do, and we wonder what the books would carry the building at after the conversion.

A room can look finished to a visitor and still be unfinished in the books. Improvements, a new use, a life that is running out. We ask that question the same week we enjoy the room. The wink is the work.

Your own space may never have been a warehouse. The habit is the same. When something changes use, we want the month of the change to say so, in ordinary words, before anyone calls the year tidy.

Dates the Comptroller actually prints

The franchise report is due 15 May, or 30 days after notice, whichever is later. For report years 2026 and 2027 the Comptroller franchise page prints a no-tax-due threshold of 2,650,000 dollars, retail and wholesale at 0.375 percent, and other business at 0.75 percent. We keep 15 May beside the monthly close, so that report is a form attached to a finished month rather than a surprise after the books have gone quiet.

Under the threshold the report is still owed. A business that owes nothing can still fall out of good standing if the report never goes in. We keep that date beside the monthly close so May is a closed month with a form attached, not a scramble.

Dallas ISD reached 82.99 percent of the city's 2020 census blocks. The 2025 workbook prints a total rate of 0.993835 per 100 dollars of taxable value for that district, with 0.7518 for maintenance and operations and 0.242035 for interest and sinking. Census-block coverage is not a share of the land, and one address still has to be looked up on its own.

Sales tax and the 1099s ride with those same months. We name the date in the note if one of them is the worry. A calendar we share with you is calmer than an envelope that arrives late.

Reports from a month already closed

A statement is only as calm as the month under it. We pull financial statements and the plain reports you actually read from months that already match. We do not dress up an open month and hope you will not notice.

Reconciliations are the unglamorous middle of that work. They are how we know the cash number is a real number. Once they are done, the report can be short. Short is a gift when the month was honest.

If you want a report for a lender or a partner, tell us who will read it. We will say what the pages can promise. A management report is a reading of the months. It is not an opinion signed for a stranger.

Before we name a fee

Name the last month the bank and the books still agreed, whether payday is running, and whether the return is in the same conversation. We can see the size of the catch-up from that. We cannot see it from a website, so we do not invent a price on a page.

If the open months run longer than the note said, we say so before the extra work starts. You can stop before you sign anything. Until a writing names the months and the fee, that opening conversation has hired nobody.

The pages further on cover the return, the ordinary books, and the questions people ask before they call. The return waits on these months. The books and payroll are the work inside them.