What Your Accountant Actually Needs From You at Tax Time

TL;DR: Your CPA needs reconciled accounts through year end, three reports, meaning the profit and loss, the balance sheet, and the general ledger, the year-end statements that back them up, a clear record of owner money in and out, a list of big purchases, and an honest list of open questions. Ask for their specific list, because it varies. Prosper prepares a CPA packet with the transactions, decisions, evidence, and open questions together. TidyMonth delivers a year-end package built the same way, with a bookkeeper having reviewed each month's close.

Your CPA emailed. They'd like your records for the year. What exactly do they want?

In Intuit's 2026 survey of 1,305 US business owners, 77% reported tax anxiety. The same survey found 80% also felt confident preparing their business for tax season. Both can be true at once. Most of the anxiety isn't about the taxes. It's about not knowing whether what you're about to send is what they need.

Here's what a CPA working with a small service business typically asks for, why each item matters, and how to put it together. Your CPA's own list comes first. This is the common shape of it.

First, ask your CPA for their list

Every firm has a checklist, and it changes with your entity type, whether you have payroll, whether you own equipment, and what happened this year. A single-member LLC with no employees gets a shorter list than an S corporation with three contractors and a vehicle.

Ask for it in writing. Then use the rest of this article to understand what's behind each line so you can deliver it well instead of just delivering it.

What a CPA needs from a small service business

1. Reconciled accounts through December 31. Every checking, savings, credit card, and payment processor account matched to its statement balance on the last day of the year. This is the foundation. If an account isn't reconciled, the CPA can't trust the balance, and everything built on that balance is uncertain. If you're behind, start with How to Catch Up on Bookkeeping When You're Months Behind.

2. The profit and loss for the year. Revenue, expenses by category, and the result. Before you send it, check that revenue roughly matches what customers actually deposited, and that no category is wildly out of line. If the numbers don't make sense to you, they won't make sense to your CPA either. See Your Accounts Reconcile. Your Profit and Loss Still Looks Wrong.

3. The balance sheet as of December 31. What the business owns, what it owes, and the owner's equity. Cash balances here should equal the reconciled statement balances. Loan balances should match the lender's year-end statement.

4. The general ledger. The complete list of every transaction for the year and which account it landed in. This is how your CPA traces any number on the reports back to the transactions behind it. Most software exports it in a few clicks.

5. Year-end statements. The December statement for every bank and card account, and the year-end summary from any payment processor. The CPA uses these to confirm the reconciliations are real.

6. Owner money in and out. Every owner contribution and every owner's draw for the year, separated from revenue and expenses. If personal and business spending got mixed, sort it before the handoff. See Business Purchase, Personal Card. How draws and contributions are treated is your CPA's call, and they can only make it if the amounts are visible.

7. Big purchases. Anything substantial you bought: computers, equipment, furniture, a vehicle. Date, amount, what it is, and the receipt. Your CPA decides whether each one is an expense this year or an asset expensed over time. Your job is to make sure none of them are buried in "office supplies."

8. Loan and financing statements. Year-end statements for any business loan, line of credit, or financed equipment. The CPA needs the split between principal and interest, and the lender's statement is the source.

9. Payroll and contractor records, if you have them. Year-end payroll reports from your payroll provider, and a list of contractors you paid with their totals, so the CPA can check what filings are needed. If you don't have payroll or contractors, say so.

10. Last year's return. If this CPA didn't prepare it, they need it to carry forward balances and check consistency.

11. Receipts and support for the things that will get questions. Not every receipt. The ones for large purchases, client gifts, travel, meals, and anything that could be mistaken for personal. Keep them attached to the transactions rather than in a separate folder if your software allows it.

12. An honest list of open questions. The transactions you couldn't categorize, the deposit you couldn't identify, the purchase you're not sure about. Date, amount, merchant, what you know. This list is the most valuable thing on this page. A CPA can resolve ten honest unknowns in a short call. Unwinding thirty confident guesses takes a lot longer and costs more.

How to assemble it in any bookkeeping software

Step 1: Finish the year. Every month through December categorized and reconciled. If any month is unfinished, finish it before running reports.

Step 2: Run the six classification checks. Revenue against deposits, the uncategorized bucket, transfers on the profit and loss, owner money in expenses, big purchases, and inconsistent vendor categories. The reports are only worth sending once they make sense.

Step 3: Export the three reports and the ledger. Profit and loss for the year, balance sheet at December 31, general ledger for the year. PDF or spreadsheet, whichever your CPA prefers.

Step 4: Gather the statements. December bank and card statements, processor year-end summaries, loan statements, payroll year-end reports.

Step 5: Write the owner money summary and the big purchase list. Two short tables. Contributions and draws by date and amount. Purchases over whatever threshold your CPA gives you, with receipts.

Step 6: Write the open questions list. Everything you couldn't resolve, in one place, with what you know about each.

Step 7: Send it as one package. One folder or one email with everything in it, organized by the list above. Not fourteen emails over three weeks.

How this works in Prosper

Prosper is the platform TidyMonth uses for the monthly work, and you can use it yourself with your CPA.

Most of the assembly work above exists because the evidence is scattered. The receipt is in your email, the reason for a category is in your memory, the open questions are in a note somewhere. Assembling the package means gathering all of it.

In Prosper, the package is the byproduct of the work. Each transaction that needed a decision carries its receipt, your answer, and any question you couldn't resolve. Owner's draws and contributions are labeled as they happen. Big purchases are visible because they were decisions, not lines in a feed.

When you're ready, Prosper prepares the CPA packet: the transactions, the decisions you made, the evidence attached to them, your notes, and the open questions, in one place your accountant can review. Your CPA sees the context that would otherwise arrive as fourteen emails.

Prosper doesn't prepare the return, and it doesn't make the tax calls. It's the platform for organizing the transactions, decisions, and the handoff. Your CPA reviews the accounting and tax treatment.

If you'd rather hand it off: TidyMonth by Prosper

If you'd rather the books were already done when your CPA asks, TidyMonth by Prosper handles the monthly bookkeeping all year so that year end is a handoff, not a project.

Start with a free Books Check. No card, and nothing in your accounts is changed while we look. The results show which months are reconciled, what needs catch-up before year end, and what couldn't be verified from the records available.

If your business fits, monthly bookkeeping is $199 per month, with catch-up scoped and priced before checkout. Each month TidyMonth handles the agreed work in Prosper and a bookkeeper reviews the close. At year end, your CPA gets a package with the profit and loss, balance sheet, trial balance, general ledger, reconciliation summaries, the log of decisions you made, the supporting documents, and the open questions, instead of a shoebox.

If the first close isn't worth it, your first $199 is refunded in full. Cancel in one click. Export your books any time.

What your CPA still decides

This checklist gets the records complete, reconciled, and organized. It doesn't decide what's an expense and what's an asset, how owner money is treated, what filings your contractors require, or anything about the return itself. Those are your CPA's calls, and the point of a good handoff is to give them everything they need to make those calls without chasing you for it. Prosper and TidyMonth prepare the package. Your accountant prepares the return.