Free tool · Read in your browser · Nothing stored
Decode your accountant’s records request
Eleven lines of accounting shorthand arrive in January and sit there for a week, usually because two or three of them mean nothing to you. Paste the email and get the same list in plain words, with one line on why each record is asked for.
Rather hand the gathering off?
Most of this list comes out of books that are actually closed. Tell us where things stand and a person replies within one business day with the one thing we need to look, and a fixed price in writing before anything is charged.
Tell us about your booksNo card · No bank login · Catch-up quoted in writing · $199/month after
Prefer to talk it through? Call (267) 209-8318.
Why they ask for so much
Almost every item on a records request exists to answer one question: does the number on this line match something outside the books. A statement proves the bank agrees. A 1099 proves the income the IRS already knows about is in there. A loan schedule proves the part of the payment that was interest is separated from the part that paid down a balance. Without those, the accountant is signing their name to figures nobody checked.
The list is long because it is being asked once, at the end, for a whole year. When the books are closed month by month, most of it is already sitting there reconciled, and what is left is the handful of things only you can produce: the mileage log, which draws were draws, the payroll filings.
TidyMonth is a bookkeeping service. We do not file your taxes or give tax advice, and nothing on this page is tax advice. What a record is used for is a bookkeeping question; what you may claim is a question for your accountant.
Common questions
Is anything I paste sent anywhere?
No. The matching runs in your browser, in the page you are already looking at. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is written to storage, and no analytics event carries any part of what you typed. You can turn off your connection after the page loads and the tool still works.
How does it decide what your accountant asked for?
It looks for literal phrases, the way a search box does. There is no model involved and nothing is guessed, which is why each item shows the words in your email that matched it. A request written in unusual wording will come back short rather than come back wrong.
Is this tax advice?
No. Every line here describes what a record is and what it does for the books. What is deductible, how something is treated on a return, and what to claim are all questions for your accountant, and TidyMonth does not answer them.
What if they asked for something that is not on the list?
Send it, and ask them what it is for. The list covers what most accountants ask for at year end; it is not a complete set, and an accountant who wants something unusual usually has a specific reason.
More free tools: how far behind are your books? shows which published catch-up band applies to you. See all of them on the tools page.