Tax Advisor Onboarding: Documents for a Useful Planning Review
Start with prior returns, current financial statements, an entity chart, payroll information, and a list of decisions and deadlines. The advisor should tailor the remaining request to your facts. Use the firm’s secure intake process for sensitive records.
The buying decision
Start with prior returns, current financial statements, an entity chart, payroll information, and a list of decisions and deadlines. The advisor should tailor the remaining request to your facts. Use the firm’s secure intake process for sensitive records.
Business and household records
Provide complete returns with schedules, year-to-date profit and loss and balance sheet reports, ownership records, payroll reports, and estimated payment history. Identify loans, distributions, related-party transactions, and income that does not appear in the operating business accounts. Explain whether the books are reconciled.
Property and investment records
For property work, gather closing statements, improvement invoices, depreciation schedules, financing records, ownership details, and dates of use. For investments, identify relevant statements, K-1s, and pending transactions. Ask the advisor which records are necessary before uploading an entire archive.
Write the decision brief
State what you are deciding, when the decision must be made, and which professionals are already involved. A planned acquisition next month needs a different review calendar from a general year-end planning discussion. Identify constraints, available cash, and implementation capacity.
Handle missing information honestly
Label estimates and missing records. Ask which conclusions depend on information still outstanding. The IRS explains that records support financial reporting, basis, and items reported on returns. A planning process should improve that evidence rather than substitute a confident projection for missing documentation.
Apply this to your AE proposal
Ask AE to identify the entities, years, deliverables, implementation support, and filing work in your proposed engagement. Review current published fees and confirm exclusions in the agreement. General website content does not establish that a strategy applies to your circumstances.
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Recordkeeping resource
Talk Through Your Situation
Every situation turns on its own facts. Schedule a discovery call and we will walk through what applies to you, what it is worth, and what it would take to put it in place.