For owners a lender just emailed
Business CPA Frisco AlternativeA statement only after the months agree.
A lender's email is not a close. The statement waits until the bank and the books name the same days.
See the statement.
A statement is a page someone else will rely on. That is why it waits. If the months are open, the page would be a typed wish. We close the months, then we prepare the statement from those months. The drawers in the picture are where a finished month waits. Nothing else belongs on the statement until the bank and the books name the same days.
The work is one set of books the bank can support, and a statement that comes after the close. The books are the record. The statement is the page we type after that record is finished, and both live in the same file.
The close is a list of ordinary fixes. Money still traveling is labeled as in transit. Cash moved between two accounts you own is pulled back out of sales and out of costs. A card payment is matched to its own charge rather than to one lump sum. Tax collected sits in a payable until it is remitted. A provider payday report is posted on the pay date it belongs to. Owner draws stay in their own account. When that list agrees, the statement can be typed.
A lender sometimes sets a date that is sooner than the close. We will tell you the truth about the gap. A partial package that says which months are closed and which are open is more useful than a complete-looking package that is not. We do not dress an open month as a finished one because a deadline got loud.
We can hand a lender the statement that follows a close. We cannot hand that lender an assurance letter, so audit, review, and compilation stay off this page's offer. If the lender used one of those words, read the request again and tell us the word they used. We will not answer an assurance request with a statement and hope the wording was casual.
You can keep a monthly rhythm after the first statement. Last month's books finished before this month gets loud. The next statement is then a short job, not another archaeology project. The last closed month should be the same month on the books and on the statement. A lender should be able to point at one month and find it in both places. That rhythm is the point of the close, and the statement is only the page that proves the rhythm happened.
If the books and a download disagree.
The download from the bank wins until someone explains the difference. A cleared check the books never had is a fact. A deposit in the books that the bank does not show is a question, not income.
We write the difference down. We do not bury it inside a plug number so the statement ties on the surface.
One set of books, then the page someone else reads.
The books are the record we close. The statement is a page prepared after that record agrees with the bank. Keeping a second set of numbers for a lender is how the two stories diverge and the conversation gets worse.
A month that is open stays described as open. We can still show the months that are closed, in order, with the open one named at the end. That package is honest. A package that fills the open month with a plug so the pages look consecutive is the one we will not type.
After the first honest statement, the next one should be shorter. Last month closed before this month gets loud. The lender's next email then meets a file that already knows its last closed month. That is the rhythm the close is for. The statement is only the proof that the rhythm happened.
If what arrived is a request for an audit, a review, or a compilation, stop and read the word again. Those signatures are another practice. Bring us the word they used and we will tell you on the first call, before any page is typed.
What to read next.
Say what the lender asked for.
Quote the word they used if you have it. Statement, or something stronger, changes the answer.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.