Stop 7 of 8 · Later
Tax time
Vendor list to 1099 candidates, the CPA package assembled from a checklist, and a state question researched with the page it came from.
The two weeks Farid used to lose
January and February are when eight clients turn into eight packages: vendor totals, 1099 candidates, fixed asset additions, loan balances, the owner's questions, and whatever the CPA asks for in an email at the end of it. It is assembly work, done under time pressure, on books that were closed months ago.
None of it needs judgment until the very end. All of it needs someone to go and look, and looking across a year of eight clients is what eats the weekend.
1099 candidates, not 1099 decisions
A bank export knows what was paid and to whom. It does not know whether the vendor is a corporation, whether the payment was for services or goods, or whether it went by card and is therefore reported by someone else. Claude produces the shortlist and the totals. Farid checks each one against the W-9 file, and the filing decision sits with him and the client's CPA.
Here is CL-06's full vendor payment list for last year and the W-9 folder contents as a list of names. Flag every vendor paid 600 dollars or more in total during the year. For each one give me: vendor name, total paid, number of payments, first and last payment date, whether a matching W-9 name appears in the folder list, and how the payments were made if the description shows it. Mark card payments separately. This is a candidate list I will confirm, not a filing decision, so do not tell me who must be issued a form. [upload the vendor payment list and the W-9 folder list]
From the candidates with no matching W-9, draft one short email per vendor asking for a completed W-9, with the total paid last year and a January deadline. Same wording each time, name and amount swapped. Save them as drafts, do not send.
The CPA package
Farid keeps one checklist and lets Claude run it against the client folder.
| Section | What the check asks |
|---|---|
| Statements | Closed P&L and balance sheet for all twelve months |
| Support | Bank and card reconciliations, payout summaries, loan statements |
| Open items | Uncategorised rows, unexplained differences, the owner's unanswered questions |
Go through CL-06's folder for last year against my CPA package checklist. Tell me what is present, what is missing and what is present but does not cover the whole year. Then write two lists: files I still need to export, and questions only the owner can answer, each with the month and amount it relates to.
One state question, with the page
Research the current sales tax registration requirements for remote sellers in Colorado for a Shopify store shipping from out of state. Cite the Colorado Department of Revenue page for every claim and give me the URL and the date the page was last updated. Tell me what the page does not say. Do not tell me whether my client should register.