Oy. Five more days of tax season then I can sleep.
I know I say this every year, but tax season has been exceptionally bad this go-round. The real crunch doesn’t usually begin until February, after businesses finish scrambling to meet the IRS-imposed January 31st deadline for W-2’s and 1099’s, but I put in a ton of overtime in January in the hopes it would alleviate the craziness later on in the season.
It didn’t work. Apparently paperwork magically expands to fill in any gaps. Like a fungus. And bunnies. And belligerent internet trolls.
So I’ve only had an average of one day off a month since January 2nd and those don’t count because they were my Fresno days where I drive down to have a mani/pedi and go out for lunch with my sister.
They don’t count because “a day off” means “I can sleep as late as I want and stay in my pajamas all day if I so choose” in my vocabulary so, though those days were lovely and I came away with pretty pretty feet and a full belly, they still don’t count.
(That was the martyr-like self-pitying part of this post. Thanks for listening.)
The problem lay in two brand new clients with a lot of accounting time - as opposed to tax prep time - to put in. They both came in wanting us to take over for the current tax year, which is unusual. Clients usually finish out the year with their old CPA so they have a nice clean cutoff with an accountant who is already familiar with the current year’s transactions.
One I knew about going into tax season so was able to set up in January, but still ended up spending a lot of time on sorting out several complicated transactions.
The other one came out of left field but, hey!, no problem. They have a fiscal year end so their tax return isn’t due for another few months after the March 15th calendar year-end taxpayer deadline so I don’t have to even START on them until after April 15th.
But then they needed their monthly financial statements caught up where the prior accountant left off mid-year.
And their accounting system could only have two months open so I had to get them their adjustments RIGHT NOW or they wouldn’t be able to book them to the proper tax year.
And the prior accountant had not given them adjustments for the prior tax year much less what he had done so far this tax year.
OH MY GOD.
Luckily, the internal bookkeepers for both of these clients are funny, smart, cooperative, easy-going women, hence a joy to work with. Had they been cranky, passive-aggressive, morons who ask you how to do something then question why (and not in an “I want to learn” kind of why but more like a “You’re an idiot. Why do I have to do it this way?” fashion), we’d all be dead now.
But that’s all done and I only have three quarters of a shelf of returns to do by Thursday so – whew! – it’s almost over.
SWEET JESUS, is it 10:00 already this Sunday morning? Best get to the office.
