Your CPA (Certified Public Accountant) finds what your bookkeeper missed. If your books aren't current and reconciled monthly, the problems don't stay small — they compound for twelve months, and then you're paying your CPA's hourly rate to untangle a year's worth of them all at once, right before your return is due.
Monthly vs. Year-End
A miscoded transaction caught in the month it happened is a two-minute fix. The same miscoded transaction, found eleven months later during tax prep, means your CPA has to trace it back through every report it touched — the P&L, the balance sheet, possibly a prior job cost report — and fix all of them. That's not a two-minute fix anymore, and it's billed at CPA rates instead of bookkeeper rates.
What "Current" Actually Means
- Bank and credit card accounts reconciled every month, not "caught up" in batches.
- Job costs posted as they're incurred, coded to the right job and the right category.
- Your WIP (Work in Progress) schedule updated monthly, not reconstructed once a year.
Illustrative example
Not a real client — shown to demonstrate the math
A contractor whose books are reconciled monthly typically hands their CPA a clean trial balance and a short list of questions. A contractor whose books are twelve months behind often hands their CPA a shoebox problem — and pays for the CPA's time to do bookkeeping cleanup at CPA billing rates before a single tax question gets answered.
What To Do About It
Close your books every month — meaning reconciled, job costs posted, WIP updated — on a fixed schedule, the same way you run payroll. Your CPA's job should be tax strategy and compliance, not bookkeeping archaeology.
A CPA who keeps finding problems isn't telling you your business is a mess. They're telling you your bookkeeping isn't keeping pace with your business — and that's a fixable, month-by-month problem, not a year-end scramble.
Frequently Asked Questions
Isn't that what I pay my CPA for?
CPAs are best used for tax strategy, compliance, and planning — not for reconstructing a year of bookkeeping. That work costs more done at CPA rates and delays your return.
How often should my books actually close?
Monthly — reconciled bank accounts, job costs posted, and your WIP schedule updated on a fixed monthly cadence.
What's the risk of staying a year behind?
Errors compound instead of getting caught early, and the eventual cleanup is more expensive and more stressful than staying current would have been.