Corporation S CorpThe file moved and the status rode along
When a file changes hands, the nickname often arrives without the acceptance that justified it.
Start with the move
What usually arrives in the box
A new engagement often starts with a software backup, a stack of returns, and a login. The backup carries the tax label the last system stored. The returns show what was filed. The certificate and the acceptance may still be in a closet at the owner's house, or in the prior preparer's archive, or nowhere.
We do not rebuild the chart of accounts until we know which of those is true. Recoding a year to match a backup is how a wrong status becomes permanent. We would rather delay the first close by a week than inherit a costume.
Ask the prior preparer for the acceptance by name. Ask yourself for the certificate. If both are slow, the form on this page is the list. We can start the conversation from the gap.
Returns are clues, not crowns
A prior return that filed as S is a strong clue that someone believed the election was in place. It is not the acceptance. Amended seasons happen. Wrong seasons happen. We read the return, then we still want the paper.
A K-1 in the backup tells us the last file produced one. If the owner says the company is an S company and no K-1 exists anywhere, that absence is the loudest page in the box. We treat it as a status question.
Picture a clinic file that arrives from another city with three years of S returns and no acceptance in the PDF binder. The certificate is an LLC from 2019. We hold the recoding until the acceptance is found or the owner tells us it cannot be found. The next return follows what we can prove. The clinic is a shape for a file that changed hands. It is not a client, and the dollars stay off the page.
Payroll logins travel too
The payroll provider's account often moves with the file, and the tax settings inside it may say S because the backup said S. We do not change payday in the first week. We also do not add a new wage plan on top of a rumor. Setup changes wait for the paper. The provider keeps paying people under the settings you already approved until we agree a change in writing.
We do not become the provider. Setup help is a conversation about status, wage categories, and what the books should mirror. The calculation, the payroll returns, and the payment of people stay on the provider.
If the move includes a messy payroll reconciliation, that mess is part of getting the months current. It is not a reason to skip the status question. Both can be true. The months are behind, and the status is unproven.
How the first month goes
Week one is documents and a list of open months. Week two is the oldest open month, if the papers support a status we can code. If the papers do not, week two is still the document chase, and the books stay in a holding pattern we can explain.
We write down what we believe and what we are missing. That note should survive a lender reading it on an ordinary Tuesday. If it would make you wince, we coded too early.
Internal pages that help from here are the company blanks, the papers that count, and the books after the status. The move is only the hallway between them.
The moment in front of you
A file that changes preparers should arrive with the acceptance in the box, the way a traveler keeps the ticket and not only the name of the trip. We ask for the paper before we rebuild a single equity account. The nickname can ride along. It does not get to drive.