The rows inside a first month

Week one is reading

The first job is finding out what is actually there. Access to the file, the bank, the payroll and last year's return, then a read of all four against each other.

Anybody making entries in week one is guessing, and those entries usually have to come back out again later.

Week two is the honest list

By now the defects have names. Which accounts will not tie, which months were closed on paper only, what the return says that the file does not, and which of those matter enough to fix before the next close.

This is the week where a good firm tells you something you did not want to hear. If week two is all reassurance, week five will not be.

Week three is the first close

The current month gets closed properly, in the new shape, so there is a worked example to compare everything else against.

It is deliberately the current month and not the oldest one. You want something that works before anybody starts going backwards through the history.

Week four is the read and the plan

You sit down with the month and somebody walks you through it. Then the catch up work and anything structural gets a sequence and a price, so what you agree to is specific.

At the end you should be holding a closed month, a defect list with owners against each line, and a plan you could hand to somebody else.

What you would actually get

Exactly those four things on that timetable, with anything that will take longer named as such at the beginning.

The rows above show the shape. Your own balances never appear on this site.

What a logo cannot sign

Comparing firms is ordinary, and nothing on this site implies a CPA credential. A firm that holds one remains the right call for an audit, a review, a compilation or an assurance opinion, and this desk holds none. That limit belongs in month one, not after a proposal has already been written. The complete wording sits on the disclosures page.

Source. Texas Occupations Code, section 901.451, section 901.453 and section 901.456. Read at statutes.capitol.texas.gov on 29 September 2026.

Why the order runs the way it does

Breadth is the reason week one reads the return alongside the file, because the desk doing the close is the desk that will prepare the return and it needs both in view.

Height is the October row again, which is what the plan in week four is quietly building toward the whole time.

What people say at the end of a first month

I signed up expecting onboarding. What I actually wanted was a month I could read and a list I could act on.