Bookkeeping QuickBooks Cleanup Help Name the report you can see
The title bar already has the words. We start there, with you still logged in, and we do not open a second project beside the one on the screen.
The name is the whole start
A file can hold dozens of reports. Only one of them is in front of you. That one has a title, a date range, and a basis, cash or accrual, usually printed in small type under the title. Reading those three things aloud is the start of the work. Guessing which report someone meant is how two people talk past each other for 30 minutes.
We will ask you to say it in ordinary words. Profit and loss, March. Balance sheet, end of March. Reconciliation for the checking account. Open invoices. Uncleared checks. If the title is a custom name the prior bookkeeper invented, say that name too. Custom names are allowed. Mystery names are not.
What we refuse to open first
We do not begin by asking for a folder of exports. A folder feels thorough and it hides the screen you were actually looking at. The screen is the clue. If the profit and loss is what worried you, we look at the profit and loss. If the bank screen is what worried you, we look at that. The other reports stay closed until this one has been named and read.
We also do not begin with a checklist long enough to be a project of its own. A checklist can come after the report has a name. Before that, a checklist is a way to avoid the screen. The practice keeps the books, sets payroll up with the provider you already run, and prepares the return once a month matches. None of that starts until the report on the screen has been said out loud.
What you can do while we look
Stay logged in. Scroll when we ask. Do not change a category while we are still reading the title. A change made in the first five minutes is the change we then have to undo, because it was made before anyone knew which month was open.
If the report is ugly, that is useful. An ugly report has a reason. A total that jumped, a negative inventory, a payroll liability that has been growing since spring. Say which number bothered you. We would rather start from your irritation than from a polite summary that sands the number down.
Name the report.
Type the title you see. Leave every password out of the box.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.