Guides
The month-end close, day by day
The fixed order we work in, what gets evidenced at each step, and why the fifth business day is achievable without overtime.
Bookkeeper, fractional accountant or CPA
Three different jobs that get treated as one. What each is actually for, what each costs, and the order most companies should buy them in.
What you should get every month
The standard reporting package, piece by piece, and the difference between statements you can file and statements you can decide from.
Economic nexus and state thresholds
What creates a filing obligation in a state you have never visited, how to check any state yourself, and what to do once you are already late.
Running sales tax once you have nexus
Rate determination by jurisdiction, exemption certificate collection and verification, and a filing calendar that does not slip.
The payroll tax filings that are easy to miss
941, 940, 944, W-2 and 1099-NEC - what each covers, when it is due, and the deposit mistakes that trigger penalties.
A question these do not answer
Send it. If the answer is short you get it by email, and if it is not we will say what a proper look would take.
Most closes that run late are not short on effort. They are short on order - the same tasks happen every month, in a different sequence, so the same surprises show up on day nine instead of day two.
Fix the order once, attach evidence as each step happens, and the fifth business day stops being a stretch goal.
Bank feeds reconciled daily, not monthly
A month of unmatched transactions on day one is a different job than a clean feed with three items to check.
A chart of accounts that does not move
Recoding last month’s entries to match this month’s structure is time the checklist never accounts for.
One calendar, one owner per task
Not a shared sense of who does what. A named owner and a due date, for every line.
The same order every month. Each day has an owner, a checklist and something attached at the end of it — so day five is a review, not a scramble.
Lock the prior period, clear the feeds
Prior month locked so nothing posts into it by accident. Bank, credit card and payment-processor feeds matched to zero unreconciled items.
Accruals, prepaids, fixed assets
Revenue and expenses matched to the period they belong to. Depreciation and amortization schedules rolled forward and posted.
Intercompany and allocations
Balances between entities eliminated and tied out. Shared costs - rent, payroll, software - allocated on the agreed basis, not last month’s guess.
Review and variance
Statements drafted and reviewed line by line against budget and prior month. Anything that moved more than the agreed threshold gets a written reason before it goes out.
Sign-off and package out
Checklist signed off against the evidence attached at each step. Reporting package sent, with commentary, not just numbers.
What gets attached at each step
A checklist that says “done” is not the same as one that shows why. Every step above leaves something behind that survives an audit, a new hire, or someone being on holiday.
Bookkeeper
Enters and categorizes transactions, matches receipts, runs payroll and AP week to week. The engine room. Not who should be telling you what the numbers mean.
Hire first, alwaysFractional accountant or controller
Owns the close, reconciliations and schedules, reviews the bookkeeper’s work, and turns the ledger into statements you can make decisions from. This is Osnova’s seat.
Add once monthly numbers matterCPA
Files tax returns, issues audited or reviewed financial statements, and signs opinions a bank or investor requires. Works from the clean books the other two produced.
Bring in for filings and attestationGet the bookkeeping current
If the books are months behind, everything above this is guesswork. A clean-up comes before a controller or a CPA can do useful work on top of it.
Add a fractional accountant when the numbers drive decisions
Once a lender, a board or a hiring decision depends on the monthly numbers being right and explained, that is the seat to fill.
Bring in a CPA for what requires a license
Tax returns, audited or reviewed financial statements, and attest opinions. Cleaner books mean less of the CPA’s time is billed to fixing the ledger first.
Not sure which seat you need?
Tell us what is not working and we will say plainly which of the three would fix it - even if it is not us.
A profit-and-loss statement tells you what happened. It does not tell you why, or what to do next. If commentary is missing, you are paying for bookkeeping and calling it reporting.
Could you explain last month to your board from this alone?
If the answer is no without a call to whoever prepared it, the package is missing the piece that matters most.
P&L and balance sheet, GAAP-basis
Accrual-basis, reviewed line by line, not exported straight from the ledger.
Cash flow statement
Because profitable months can still run out of cash, and this is the piece that shows why.
Budget versus actual
Every line against plan, with the variance flagged before you have to go looking for it.
A short KPI page
Gross margin, cash runway, days sales outstanding - the handful of numbers specific to your business, tracked monthly.
Written commentary
What moved, why, and what it means for the next quarter - in plain language, not a footnote.
A fixed delivery date
The same business day every month, so planning around it is possible instead of hopeful.
See what your current package is missing
Send us a recent month’s reporting and we will say plainly which of these six it has, and what it does not.
Once you have nexus, the state rate is the least of it. County, city and special-district rates stack on top, change without much notice, and depend on the ship-to address, not where you are.
The real exposure is not a miscalculated total. It is not having a rate source that stays current, or a place to prove why a sale was exempt.
A rate source you do not maintain by hand
Thousands of local jurisdictions change rates through the year. A table someone updates quarterly is already behind.
A home for exemption certificates
Every resale, wholesale or nonprofit sale needs a certificate on file before the sale, not after a notice arrives.
A filing calendar per state
The state assigns the cadence - monthly, quarterly or annual - and it changes as your volume in that state changes.
Rate determination
State, county, city and special-district rates combined by ship-to address. Digital goods and services are taxed differently by state, sometimes by county.
Gets it wrong silentlyExemption certificates
Resale, wholesale and nonprofit exemptions each need their own certificate, valid for that state, on file before the invoice goes out.
The most common audit findingFiling and remittance
Return due dates rarely line up across states, and most still expect a zero return in a month with no taxable sales.
Miss one and it compoundsCollect before the first exempt sale
A verbal “we’re exempt” is not a certificate. Get it signed before the invoice goes out, not after a notice arrives.
Check it is valid for that state and that reason
A resale certificate from one state does not cover a sale shipped into another. Match the certificate type to the state and the exemption claimed.
Tie it to the customer record with a renewal date
Many states expire certificates after a set number of years. An expired certificate on file counts as no certificate at all.
Re-verify a sample before an audit asks you to
Pull ten certificates at random once a year and check they are complete. It is cheaper than finding the gaps during a state audit.
Send a recent return and a handful of certificates and we will say plainly what is missing.
Payroll tax compliance is mostly a scheduling problem. Deposits are due before the return that reports them, and the deposit schedule itself can change mid-year as payroll grows.
Most penalties come from a missed deposit or a schedule set once at hiring and never rechecked - not from getting the math wrong.
EIN and state accounts open
Filing without a state withholding or unemployment account number gets the return rejected, not just delayed.
A deposit schedule set correctly
Monthly or semiweekly, based on a lookback period the IRS sets - not a guess made in year one.
A W-9 or W-4 on file for everyone paid
Chasing this in January means the 1099 or W-2 goes out late.
Federal and state, deposits and returns. Due dates shift for weekends and holidays; the calendar we keep already accounts for that.
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Send your current deposit schedule and last quarter’s 941, and we will say plainly what is at risk.
Four mandates, four numbers. Details of the engagements stay confidential; the arithmetic does not.
Close cycle cut by more than half
We rebuilt the close checklist so accruals and intercompany entries stopped living in one person’s memory. Close went from eleven business days to five, and it has stayed there.
A rolling forecast they now run themselves
A ten-week cash forecast delivered every week for more than six months without a gap. Then we trained their own staff on it until they could produce it without us.
Tax charged that was never owed
Distribution clientReading the contract behind a recurring vendor invoice showed sales tax being applied to a line that was exempt under its terms. Just under $40,000 came back.
Bank reconciliation rebuilt
A new matching process took 30% off reconciliation time and 60% off the discrepancies that used to be chased by hand. Hours back every week, for the same fee.
References are available on request. Existing mandates are covered by confidentiality, so we do not publish contacts.
Cost of goods, inventory and work-in-progress schedules, and multi-plant consolidation.
Daily sales reconciliation, sales tax across states, and margin reporting by location.
Deferred revenue and ASC 606 schedules, contractor payroll, and investor reporting.
If none of these is quite you, the call is still short. We will say plainly whether we are the right seat to fill.
Founders and CEOs
You raised, you hired, and now the books need to survive a diligence request. We build a ledger that answers questions instead of raising them, and we tell you what the numbers actually say.
Controllers who need overflow
Close is fine until someone leaves, an audit lands, or a new entity appears. We take the reconciliations, schedules and filings off your desk without a four-week onboarding first.
CPA firms outsourcing back office
White-label close and reconciliation work for firms whose tax season leaves no room for monthly clients. Your engagement letter, your review, our workpapers.
Whoever inherited the finances
Office managers and ops leads doing accounting by accident. Nobody blames you for the state of it. We clean it up, then teach you the parts worth keeping in-house.
Less typing, faster close, better reports
Volume work runs through automation tuned to your own history: first-pass coding, matching thousands of card lines, duplicate and anomaly flags, contract terms pulled into a revenue schedule. That is where the hours come back - the typing goes, the judgement stays.
What it buys you is reporting time. The same package is built every month from the same schedules, so the numbers arrive early enough to act on. If a tool cannot explain an entry, the entry does not post.
Every line, matched
Bank, card and ledger tied out before the close starts.
Thirteen weeks ahead
A forecast built from the same schedules as the close, not a separate guess.
One package, every month
Statements, variance notes and the charts, by the fifth business day.
Onboarding runs alongside your current close, so nothing stops while we take the ledger over.
Diligence and access
We read the ledger before proposing anything: trial balance, open items, filings, payroll and tax registrations. You get a written list of what is wrong and what it costs to fix.
Clean-up and first close
Reconciliations caught up, clearing accounts emptied, schedules rebuilt, filings brought current. The first close runs on the new checklist with you watching.
Monthly cadence
Close by the fifth business day, filings on calendar, and a reporting package with a written variance note. Month to month, cancel any time, no exit fee.
Behind on the books? Say how far.
Two years of unreconciled bank accounts, a payroll return nobody filed, revenue recognised whenever cash landed. We have started from worse. The clean-up is scoped as a fixed project, quoted after we look, and it ends with a trial balance you can stand behind.
Send the month that keeps going wrong
Tell us the entities, the states and what slipped last close. We reply within one business day, and the first call is thirty minutes with the person who would do the work.
Thank you, it is with us
We read every enquiry ourselves and reply within one business day. If it is urgent, email info@osnovamgmt.com and say so in the subject line.
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Three ways to work together. One senior rate behind all of them, and no exit fee in either direction.
Fractional accounting manager
A monthly retainer covering the close, reconciliations, compliance calendar and reporting package, with a fixed number of senior days each month. Month to month after the first ninety days.
Best for: no finance hire yetFixed-fee project
A clean-up, a nexus study, a revenue-recognition policy, an audit preparation, a system migration. Scoped after we look at the ledger, quoted in writing, invoiced on milestones.
Best for: one problem, defined endHourly overflow
Senior hands for a stretch: a departure, an audit, a busy quarter, a system cutover. Logged by task so you can see exactly what the hours bought.
Best for: a team already in placeNot sure which of these you need?
Most engagements start with a clean-up. Send read-only access and we will come back with a written list of what is wrong, in what order to fix it, and what each piece costs.
Business days after month end. Nothing moves unless we tell you first.
Cut-off and feeds
Bank, card and commerce feeds pulled and locked. AI runs the first pass on coding and flags anything out of pattern. Payroll and AP cut-off confirmed with you.
Reconciliations
Bank, credit card, merchant and loan accounts reconciled. AR and AP subledgers agreed to the general ledger. Exceptions listed with an owner against each one.
Entries and schedules
Accruals, prepaids, depreciation, payroll and deferred revenue posted from schedules rather than memory. Intercompany eliminated. Revenue recognised against the written policy.
Review
Balance-sheet review account by account, margin and expense analytics against prior months and budget, and a second look at anything AI touched. Questions come to you before the pack does.
Package delivered
Statements, variance commentary, cash forecast and the open-items list in your inbox. A thirty-minute call in the same week if you want one.
The same package every month, so month five is comparable to month one. Extra schedules get added when your business needs them, never removed quietly.
Since the Wayfair decision in 2018, states may require a business to collect and remit sales tax based on its sales into that state alone - no office, no staff, no warehouse required. Many states set the bar around one hundred thousand dollars of in-state sales in the current or prior year, and some add or substitute a transaction count.
The thresholds, the measurement period and what counts toward them differ by state and get amended regularly. That is why we verify the current rule state by state before registering you anywhere - and why “we checked in 2023” is not an answer.
Where do your customers actually sit?
Ship-to and bill-to addresses by state, twenty-four months back, from the ledger and the commerce platform - not from memory.
Is what you sell taxable there?
Software, subscriptions, services, shipping and bundles are treated differently state to state. SaaS is taxable in some states and not others.
Since when?
The date you crossed the line sets the exposure. It also decides whether you register normally or go through a voluntary disclosure agreement.
We do not publish a fifty-state table here - thresholds get amended often enough that a table like that goes stale and becomes a liability. These thirteen show how much the rule varies. Below them: how to check any state yourself.
| State | Sales threshold | Transaction count | Measurement period |
|---|---|---|---|
| {{ st.name }} | {{ st.threshold }} | {{ st.count }} | {{ st.period }} |
Illustrative, current as of our last review - not a substitute for checking the state before you rely on it. Every state amends these on its own schedule.
Search “[state] economic nexus” or “[state] remote seller”
Go straight to the state department of revenue’s own page, not a summary site. Most publish a plain remote-seller FAQ.
Read the threshold and the measurement period together
A dollar figure alone is not the rule. Check whether it is current-year or trailing-twelve-month sales, and whether a transaction count applies as well or instead.
Check what counts toward it
Gross sales versus taxable sales, and whether marketplace sales a platform already collects on are excluded, changes the number that actually matters.
Note the effective date, then move on
If you are close to a line, write down what you found and the date you checked it. Rules move; a dated note is what lets us tell you later whether anything changed.
Sales volume alone
Crossing a state’s revenue or transaction threshold, even with no presence there at all.
One remote employee
A single hire in a new state can create sales-tax nexus, payroll registration and income-tax filing duties at once.
Inventory in a warehouse
Stock sitting in a third-party fulfilment centre is physical presence, whether or not you chose the location.
Marketplace and direct mixed
The marketplace may collect on its own sales while your direct channel still counts toward the threshold. Both need reporting.
Travel, trade shows, installs
Sales visits, on-site implementation and event booths can be enough on their own in several states.
Affiliates and referrals
Paying in-state affiliates or resellers for referred revenue creates nexus in states with click-through rules.
Nexus study
Sales by state and month against the current rule in each state, plus a taxability view of what you sell. Output is a table: where you are registered, where you should be, and from when.
Quantify the exposure
Uncollected tax, interest and penalty estimated by state so the decision is financial rather than anxious. Materiality decides the order of work.
Register or disclose
Straight registration where you are current, voluntary disclosure where you are not. VDAs commonly limit the look-back period and abate penalties - the terms are state-specific and we confirm them before filing.
Configure collection
Tax engine and commerce platform set to the right rates and product codes, exemption and resale certificates collected and stored, marketplace sales excluded correctly.
File, remit, reconcile
Returns filed on the calendar, liability accounts reconciled to what was actually remitted every month, notices answered within days.
The same map, different agencies
A remote hire triggers more than sales tax. We handle withholding and unemployment registration in the new state, reciprocity between the employee’s home and work states, local taxes where they exist, and the federal returns that follow: 941 quarterly, 940 annually, W-2 and 1099 at year end.
One-to-one coaching
For a bookkeeper or junior controller moving up. Weekly or fortnightly sessions on their real work: what to reconcile first, what an accrual is protecting, how to review instead of re-perform.
Team workshop
Half a day with everyone who touches the ledger, including the people who approve rather than post. Ends with agreed rules on coding, documentation and who signs what.
Close-checklist build
We build your close checklist with you, in your system: tasks, owners, days, evidence. You leave with a process that survives someone being on holiday.
Systems and AI training
Getting real work out of the software you already pay for, and using AI on the ledger without letting it decide anything. Recorded, so new hires get the same training.
Reconciliation technique
What a reconciliation proves, what a matched feed does not, and how to document either in a way an auditor accepts.
Accrual thinking
Cut-off, accruals, prepaids and deferrals - why cash timing is not the same as performance, and where that bites.
Revenue policy in practice
Reading a contract for performance obligations and applying the same policy to the awkward deal as to the easy one.
Tax awareness, not tax advice
Recognising the moment a new state, a new hire or a new product creates a filing duty - and who to call.
Review versus prepare
How to review someone else’s work quickly: what to test, what to sample, what to accept, what to send back.
Working with AI safely
Where AI earns its place in the ledger, how to spot a confidently wrong answer, and which decisions stay human.
Coaching often costs less than the clean-up it prevents
Most teams need a few habits corrected, not a new hire. Tell us what went wrong last quarter and we will say whether training fixes it or whether the work should sit with us for a while first.
Osnova does financial accounting and accounting-manager work for companies that are past bookkeeping and not yet ready for a full finance department. The work is the unglamorous middle: close, reconciliations, payroll and sales-tax compliance, revenue recognition, reporting and the analysis that follows.
Clients have included beverage manufacturing and distribution, automotive dealerships and van conversion, commercial real estate, outsourced technical staffing, energy management and e-commerce. Different ledgers, same problems: the close slips, nobody owns the reconciliations, and the reporting is late enough to be history rather than information.
We are not a CPA firm. We do not audit and we do not prepare income-tax returns. That is deliberate: the practice is built around financial accounting, automation and reporting - not audit. We make the books good enough that the people who do audit and tax have nothing to complain about.
How the work is staffed
The same standard, whoever is on your accountContinuity by design
Your account has a named lead and a written file behind them. Holidays, illness or growth do not change the checklist, the dates or the package.
Numbers before narrative
Every figure ties to a schedule and every schedule ties to the ledger. If we cannot show where it came from, we do not report it.
Say the unflattering thing
Bad news arrives early and in writing. We will also tell you when a piece of work is not worth paying for.
No lock-in
Month to month after ninety days, with a documented handover pack on the way out. We have never charged an exit fee.
A thirty-minute call
You describe the month as it currently runs and what keeps going wrong. We ask about entities, states, systems and who does what today.
A look at the ledger
Read-only access for a few days. You get a written summary of what we found - yours to keep whether or not we work together.
A scope and a price
One page: what we take on, what stays with you, when it starts, what it costs, and how either side ends it.
Thank you, it is with us
We read every enquiry ourselves and reply within one business day. If it is urgent, email info@osnovamgmt.com and say so in the subject line.
Thirty minutes on Teams, weekdays. Pick a slot and there is nothing to write.
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